Printing with a steamroller?
Have you ever tried printing with a steamroller? While it might not do much for your budgeted hourly rates, the steamroller printing process certainly draws a crowd. So it proved to be a showstopper demonstration at the 6th Annual Printing Arts Fair at the Museum of Printing (Andover, MA).
In addition to that steamroller demo, visitors browsed 24 exhibits and learned about papermaking and printing. One the event’s organizers, RIT’s Frank Romano, explains that Andover residents carved creative letters in one-foot square linoleum tiles. Emily Trespas, Fran McCormick, Joan Ellis, Sarah Bardo, Jennie Cline, Katie Graber, Joanna Ho, and Sally Abugov of Andover, among others, then inked the tiles, placed paper over them, and Dan Abugov ran a steamroller provided by J.W.Watson Jr. Paving Company of Andover over them. The result was a 9-foot by 3-foot print.
Crowds cheered as the paper was lifted from the tiles. “For more than 550 years, printing was done with raised images, ink, and pressure in printing presses,” says Romano. “Today, the letterpress craft is continued by hobbyists and artists, and the Museum of Printing is one of the last three museums that preserve this ancient art.”
