Hamilton Wayzgoose

After one of the most amazing weekends, I must share some stories from the 3rd Annual Wayzgoose! From November 4, 5 & 6 the 3rd annual Wayzgoose took place at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. On my second trip to the gorgeous and friendly Two Rivers, WI I was fortunate enough to rub elbows with typography and design greats such as the legendary type designer Matthew Carter, Tracy Honn of Silver Buckle Press, calligrapher and hand letterer Paul Shaw, Jim Sherraden and Bradley Vetter of Hatch Show Prints, and many more!

One great surprise was the introduction to Judith Poirier of École de design UQAM, Montreal. Judith works with unexposed 35mm film strips and letterpress to create amazing films! Animated Letterpress was created over the last few years and has won many awards (and deserves to win many more!). Here is a short clip taken during the lecture: Animated Letterpress Clip.  While watching the video you will hear sounds that play simultaneously with the movement of type. By experimenting with printing letterpress letters and punctuation, Judith created different sounds on the video as different forms of imagery run through the projector. There seems to be a great love for lack of technology at events such as the Wayzgoose, but Judith shows an amazing amount of attention to detail in her work. Incorporating letterpress, 35mm film, digitization, the sound created naturally by these materials, and an end product that is amazing! Judith will be on my list of people to watch as she announced she is now working on another series of films.

Some of the workshops that I was lucky to attend included a calligraphy lesson with Paul Shaw, relief printing with Carl Montford, day-to-day design scenario lessons by Brad Vetter, and handmade book binding with Kevin Steele. I won’t say that one workshop was my favorite… because they all were! It was so hard to leave one workshop to attend the other, but each had their own special lesson. By the end of Saturday we were all exhausted but super excited to hear Matthew Carter and Stan Nelson speak at the dinner. Below are a few photos from the workshops, the museum, attendees, and the speakers.

For those of you that haven’t heard about the museum, here is a little background. Located 90 miles north of Milwaukee and 45 miles southeast of Green Bay, the HWT&PM’s collection is one of the premier wood type collections in the world with over 1.5 million pieces of wood type. The museum also houses a working press room where tours are held for visitors and workshops are held for the many lovers of wood type.  With the goal of preservation, studying, production and printing of wood type, the museum is not only a place to view these historical artifacts but also a place to work with them through your love for wood type. I would highly suggest stopping in Two Rivers on your next trip through Wisconsin. After all, they are the home of the first ice cream sundae!

Check out the photos below. Be sure to visit the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum online, or in person! In person is much better!

Jim Sherraden of Hatch Show Prints giving a tutorial on what to do during the workshop
With Matthew Carter and my autographed Van Lanen Latin Poster!
The book we created with Kevin Steele of Indiana University
The results from our hand drawn letter, its tracing and cutting on wood, and relief prints
Playing in the press room
Matthew sharing the original Pantograph pattern for the Van Lanen Latin ampersand!
With my favorite Moran Brother! Jim Moran-the Museum Director