KELLY PAPER OPENS NEW STORE ON MUSEUM SITE

Museum Curator Mark Barbour Recounts Major Developments at the Museum

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In the spring of 2017, Director Mark Barbour received a fortuitous phone call from an old friend. He met Josh Hellon over 20 years ago when the International Print Museum was located in Buena Park, California. We hadn’t spoken for years yet here we were having a conversation on the phone. And, being a polite museum curator, I invited Josh to drop by for a visit. Little did I know, Josh was standing outside in the Museum’s parking lot talking to me on his cell phone.

I walked outside, shook hands with Josh and asked him what brought him to our neighborhood. This is where things got interesting.

Some of you may remember what life was like for us at the Museum back in the late 1990s. Caltrans decided it needed to expand the 91 and 5 freeways and they needed the property where the Museum was located to accomplish their goals. Thus we had to vacate the premises. At the time we had no idea where were we going to relocate. This is when I met Josh.

In the late 1990s, Josh was the manager at the Kelly Paper store in Riverside, California. And, as luck would have it, we needed space to put our collection of antique printing equipment until we found a new location and Kelly Paper in Riverside had some space available.

During the next eight to nine years much of our equipment was stored at the Riverside facility. During that time Josh and I became friends. We even created a satellite museum, of sorts, at that Kelly Paper facility. Flash-forward 20-years and things had come full circle. Josh is now the Facilities Manager for Kelly Paper. This time it was Kelly Paper that was looking for a new location.

During my conversation with Josh in the parking lot of the Museum, I learned that Kelly Paper had lost its lease on their Gardena, California location. Given the proximity of the Printing Museum in Carson to their Gardena store, Josh was scouting out a location next to the Museum.

I did my best to help him with information about the building he was considering but, as I would learn two-weeks later, the location did not fit their needs. It was then that a light bulb went off in my head. Kelly Paper needed 8,000 square feet of space and we had 8,000 square feet of space in the rear building on the Museum’s property.

The problem was our 8,000 square feet of space contained our printing and teaching lab along with numerous antique printing presses and related equipment. If you’ve never seen our warehouse, imagine 2,000 square feet of printing lab and 6,000 square feet of densely packed space. There were presses and equipment on pallets stacked on racks three levels high.

Even though the building was full of equipment, I offered the location to Josh. He accepted but let me know that they had two months to get out of the Gardena location. It was then that the gravity of the situation hit me. On one hand, it would be great to have an industry partner with daily foot traffic located on our property. It would also be nice to have a regular income stream from the rent. On the other hand, what am I to do with all of that equipment, and in two months?

Adding to the situation were the school tours that I undertake every spring, three Boy Scouts Merit Badge Days, two Book Arts Patch Days, The Museum’s Independence Day Celebration, two conferences, including the national APA Wayzgoose Letterpress Conference, and prep for the Printers Fair. Thus the equipment relocation would have to take place during the busiest time of the year. During the following weeks and months, we packed presses and equipment into large 40-foot long steel shipping containers for storage. It just so happened that the Kelly Paper store in El Monte, California had enough space for 10 of the shipping containers along with 1,500 square feet of indoor warehouse space. Thus we were able to remove the equipment and Kelly Paper could move to their new location.

During this time we were able to develop an exhibit in planning for many years. In the Museum’s main building we sectioned off an area in the East gallery and turned it into a 1950’s printing shop, complete a Linotype, Heidelberg Windmill & Cylinder presses, platen presses, and neon signs from local shops. We patterned it after the old Wood & Jones Printing Company that was located on West Colorado Boulevard in Old Pasadena. Our goal was to create an experience in which a person could get the sense of walking into a working mid-century printing company.

So, from April to October of 2017, we consolidated, winnowed, stored, and sold what equipment we could, all the while hosting seven major events at the Museum. The capstone of the events was our Los Angeles Printers Fair in October with over 1,700 attendees. I must say 2017 will go down in the Museum’s history as one of the most challenging, yet satisfying years ever.

MUSEUM LAUNCHES NEW BOOK ARTS PATCH DAY FOR GIRLS

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According to the Girls Scout website, Cadette level girls are to, among other things, “Try out new experiences (and learn new skills) as she earns badges.” The Book Artist Badge is just one of many badges that the Cadette level girls can earn.

Our goal with the Book Arts Patch Day for Girls is to provide the new experiences and skills necessary for the girls to earn the badge. They also learn the art of making books from both a historical perspective and how modern artists are interpreting the book as a work of art and something very creative.

During the day’s activities, we focus on the five steps a Cadette has to explore in order to complete the projects needed to earn the badge. The five steps include:

1) Explore the art of bookbinding
2) Get familiar with the insides of a book
3) Try out book artist techniques
4) Focus on function
5) Focus on style

Within each of these steps there are three projects, of which the Cadette must complete one project for each step. Once the girls have finished their day at the Museum, they return home with the knowledge needed to complete these projects and earn their Book Arts Badge.

For example, in step two, GET FAMILIAR WITH THE INSIDES OF A BOOK, the girls need to become familiar with various parts of the book including the spine, gutter, signature, and more. And, in step four, FOCUS ON FUNCTION, they need to identify traditional bookbinding tools such as a bone folder, awl, adhesives, and others. What better way to learn these terms and identify this equipment than with a hands-on experience at the Museum. We are able to exploit the many presses and other equipment we have acquired over the years to educate the girls and open up their minds to the many and varied careers available to them in the printing and graphics industry.

The Book Arts Patch Day runs from 9 am to 3 pm, as teams of girls rotate between six stations covering every aspect of the book arts including: letterpress printing, paper making, bookbinding, and illustration design. Each participant makes their own sheets of paper, makes a variety of books using various binding methods, and screen-prints their own book covers and t-shirts, and much more. The day is filled with lots of hands-on activities and detailed presentations given by industry experts and educators.

The day is open for all girls 10 and older, whether they are a Girl Scout, American Heritage Girl, sister of a Girl Scout, a sister of a Boy Scout, mom, or just interested in a great experience. The Book Arts Patch Day for Girls is fast on its way to becoming a favorite activity destination for Girl Scouts and girls in Southern California as much as the Boy Scout Merit Badge Day.

MUSEUM ACQUIRES RARE 19th CENTURY LOS ANGELES NEWSPAPERS

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Most people associate the International Printing Museum with antique printing equipment. The truth is, the Museum also has an extensive collection of antique books and ephemeral. And, during the recent California International Antiquarian Book Fair in Pasadena, California, we were able to add a few gems to our collection.

The Book Fair is recognized as one of the world’s pre-eminent exhibitions of antiquarian books. The bi-annual fair gives visitors the opportunity to see, learn about and purchase the fi nest in rare books, manuscripts, autographs, graphics, photographs and more. We are invited by the Book Fair to bring our portable colonial press and demonstrate printing for the guests.

While perusing the many offerings at the fair, Mark Barbour, the Museum’s curator, came across issues of the Evening Express and The Visitors Guide to Los Angeles and Vicinity. The Evening Express newspaper predates The Los Angeles Times by ten years. The Evening Express began publishing in 1871 and The L.A. Times started in 1881.

A trip through the online version of the Library of Congress reveals that William Randolph Hearst, who built the nation’s largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications, acquired the Evening Express in 1931. He merged the newspaper with another he owned, the Los Angeles Herald, and created the Los Angeles Herald-Express. In 1962, another merger, this time with the Los Angeles Examiner, leads to its final incarnation, one that many of our readers will recognize, the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner.

While looking through the four-page newspaper, Mark was drawn to the many notices and ads. One notice that he found particularly amusing came from the printer himself. His “Special Notice” reads, “No attention will be paid to orders for election printing or advertising at this office unless paid for in advance. There will be no deviation from this rule.” This has often been heard as an admonition today by printing association presidents to local printers. The truth is if the candidate fails to win, it may be very difficult to collect.

The Telegraph Stage ad promotes a trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco, Sacramento, and Stockton in just 48 hours. The ad’s engraving of six horses pulling the stagecoach is really wonderful.

There are also a number of interesting ads from The Visitors Guide to Los Angeles and Vicinity. There’s one in particular that I like. It’s for “McBride the Printer of To-day.” It seems McBride was a rather successful printer. A little research shows that McBride Printing had been a member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce since 1892. In 1929, McBride Printing was the first to published Pioneer Notes from the Diaries of Judge Benjamin Hayes, 1849-1875, by Marjorie Wolcott. This book is often referenced in contemporary books about early life in California. The book continues to be published today.

It seems that before Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm there was the South Pasadena Ostrich Farm. Their advertisement in The Visitors Guide encourages readers “Before buying see our immense stock of feather goods at producers’ prices.” You see, ostrich feathers on ladies hats and other garments were very fashionable at the time. In addition to the feathers, visitors were able to ride on the backs of ostriches or be taken for an ostrich drawn carriage ride. The farm became so popular that the Pacific Electric Railway built a Red Car trolley stop nearby to accommodate the flood of visitors headed up the Arroyo Seco to see the birds. Ostrich Farms were quite popular in Los Angeles around the turn of the last century. In fact, some historians feel that this may have been the impetus behind the creation of Griffith Park.

We did more than add to our printing collection at the Book Fair. Thanks to the help of our dedicated volunteers, visitors to the three-day event were able to print their own keepsake on our antique colonial style press.

This year the Book Fair had a special exhibit that celebrated the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. In keeping with that theme, we recreated the frontispiece from the first illustrated version of the book and encouraged visitors to our booth at the fair to imprint their own copy. As luck would have it, on display in a case in front of our printing press was an original copy of the book opened to the illustration. Visitors could see the original and then print their own copy on our press.

Visitors to the Printing Museum’s booth at the Book Fair were very engaging. We were able to promote the many events that we offer at the Museum including the Krazy Krafts Day. Many parents and grandparents took brochures about the event and promised to attend.

While waiting in line to pull an impression of the Frankenstein keepsake, many of the mature men and women reminisced about printing courses that used to be offered in Junior High and High School. They struck up conversations with others in line that remembered the classes. They also explained to younger visitors the fun they had.

MEET MADELINE HELLAND

New Assistant Museum Manager

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In March, just one week before we had to close due to Covid-19, we were delighted to welcome the newest member to the Printing Museum Team, Madeline Helland, our new Assistant Museum Manager.

Madeline graduated from Scripps College in 2018 with a double major in Art Conservation and Studio Art. Her thesis work heavily focused on bookbinding and the history of books. She’s especially interested in Non-Western and International Binding Styles. For her art conservation thesis she researched a pair of Hindu manuscripts in the Scripps College collection to determine a provenance based on their illustration style and binding design. A few key experiences inspired her to pursue this interest in book history professionally, including taking Kitty Maryatt’s course on book arts and letterpress, where she learned how to print and bind books by hand. The following year she completed an internship in the conservation lab at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, treating books and works on paper.

She joins us from her previous position as a Gallery Assistant at Louis Stern Fine Arts, a West Hollywood gallery that represents historic artists such as Karl Benjamin and Alfredo Ramos Martinez. She’s also had internships at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, The Pomona College Museum of Art, and the arts education group ARTstArt.

Madeline first heard about The International Printing Museum while taking a Polymer Platemaking Class at Otis College of Art and Design. She first visited The International Printing Museum for our 2019 Los Angeles Printers Fair where she fortuitously met Museum Director Mark Barbour and was immediately taken with the Museum.

In addition to helping run the day to day activities and behind the scenes work at The Printing Museum Madeline will be chiefly engaged with developing a new and expanded Book Arts Institute with a larger variety and occurrence of hands-on classes and workshops. Next time you visit the Museum be sure to meet Madeline and welcome her to The Printing Museum!

Get To Know Madeline
Hobbies: Creating Miniatures, Zinefests, Stamp Collecting
Favorite Book: “People of the Book” by Geraldine Brooks
Her Inspirations: Julie Chen of Flying Fish Press & Book Artist Karen Hanmer
Fun Fact: She used to be a College Radio DJ

The Miki Young Charitable Trust

Museum Surprised with Legacy Gift

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The Museum was informed last summer of the passing of one of our longstanding Museum friends and donors, Miki Young of Orange County. Over the years she made regular donations between $500 and $1,000. The trustees of her estate informed us that upon her passing she set up a permanent charitable trust to benefit five charities: USC School of Engineering, Cal Tech, The Red Cross, The Laguna Playhouse, and The International Printing Museum. The charities were chosen because of Miki’s love for arts education and the sciences. Her professional background was in engineering. She and her husband founded an aerospace company in Orange County, The Young Engineers, Inc., still in operation today. Miki was still going into work every day up to the age of 94!

It would be an understatement to say that Miki’s trustees were perplexed as to why The International Printing Museum, a small and obscure non-profit, was on this list. On a phone call with Mark, the trustees speculated that Miki discovered The Printing Museum when it was featured on Huell Howser’s “California Gold” TV show. Mark chuckled a bit and gave the trustees the background as to why Miki had been connected to the Museum for over 25 years. One of Miki’s close friends, Patricia Hausmann was a wood engraving artist in Pasadena. When Pat set out to buy a printing press for her engravings, she met Mark at the Printing Museum. Mark learned that Pat was the last student of the very famous Southern California wood engraving artist Paul Landacre in the early 1960’s. Landacre was a major artist in the 20th century California Fine Printing community; the 19th century Washington Press he used to print his famous engravings is part of the Museum collection.

Miki visited the Printing Museum regularly with her friend Pat, thoroughly enjoying our educational classes, tours and presentations. Miki Young made consistent annual donations to the Museum over the years, but the notification that she had remembered the Printing Museum in her estate planning came as a complete surprise. Her overwhelming generous gift through the Miki Young Charitable Trust will become over time, the largest gift to the Printing Museum. Miki stated that she really loved our educational programs and work with children, wanting to support our endeavors in perpetuity. We were set to meet with the three trustees in March for an initial site visit, but had to cancel due to the shutdown. They re-contacted us in June, realizing that due to the shutdown and loss of program revenue, The Printing Museum and The Laguna Playhouse were probably in very tight circumstances; Miki’s gift would be critical for this year. Mark was able to give the trustees a virtual tour of the Museum, bring them up to speed on Miki’s relationship with the Museum, and describe all of our educational programs and tours. He also updated them on all the work done at the Museum since March to improve the facilities, explore new ways of programming, develop online tours and educational opportunities, build our new Book Arts Institute, moving the Museum forward even in a challenging year. They were very impressed with what the Museum has accomplished over the last 30 years, and all our initiatives and work at present.

In September, the Miki Young Charitable Trust made a gift of $150,000 to help cover the Museum’s lost program revenue for 2020 due to the pandemic shutdown. With this amazing gift, what would have been one of our most difficult and financially challenging years has been turned around to being one of our better years. Miki Young demonstrated how much benefit can come through estate planning, whether it is large such as hers, or even something small like $5,000. Estate gifts are what will give permanence to the The Printing Museum and its mission. Thank you Miki for being our Angel this year!

THE 2020 VIRTUAL LOS ANGELES PRINTERS FAIR

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The Los Angeles Printers Fair had to be different this fall. We brainstormed a creative, out-of-the-box solution to make the Fair accessible during this unprecedented year. The result: The 2020 Virtual Los Angeles Printers Fair!

Lorna Turner and George bush Printing the cover for the fair show guide

In normal years, 2,000 visitors participate in demonstrations throughout the Museum and interact with vendors selling artistic prints, cards, books and printing supplies. The goal was to replicate this experience with a dedicated website, PrintersFair.com. Our videographer, Jay Haddad, worked tirelessly to record tours and demonstrations. Other friends like the Los Angeles Printmaking Society and bookbinder Stephanie Gibbs also contributed. With an online format, there was the opportunity to reach a national, even international, audience. And rather then limit the event to one weekend, we made the Virtual Printers Fair last for all of November.

An impressive 65 vendors participated, both locally and across the country. Vendors were showcased in our Vendor Marketplace with photos and videos of their practice and process, images of featured products, and links to their portfolios and e-commerce sites.

Daily Experiences included video tours of the Museum, bookbinding and paper marbling demonstrations, scans of archival material from the collections, and more. Our featured artist, Lorna Turner, designed and helped print the beautiful LA Printers Fair Show Guide and t-shirts, available in the Museum’s online store.

Printers’ Drive-in Movie Night at the Museum during the Printers Fair, featuring “Park Row”, from 1951 that is centered around 19th century printing shops.

The Printers’ Drive-in Movie Night was one of two live events. Guests were able to enjoy the evening from the comfort of their cars in the Museum parking lot. Our volunteer, Brent Boal, set up the 20’ movie screen with full theatre sound. Curator Mark Barbour showed clips on printing presses in the movies, followed by the feature Park Row, a 1951 film featuring numerous printing presses and even a supporting actor role for Ottmar Mergenthaler and his Linotype. The tag line for this blockbuster about two New York newspaper publishers was, “She had blood in her veins...He had ink in his!” The following morning we held our other live event, the Surplus Equipment Sale in the Museum’s parking lot, with presses, type, books and supplies, helping us raise $5,000.

With over 12,000 unique visitors and 33,000 page views over the course of the month, the response to the Virtual Printers Fair was overwhelmingly successful. Several vendors commented that November was their best month all year! Visitors to the Virtual Fair were enthusiastic about the experiences, the changing daily content and beautiful work of the vendors. The 2021 Printers Fair will be in-person and virtual, allowing us to continue reaching a national audience. That’s a win-win in the year of the pandemic for the Printing Museum!

THE CAST IRON STARS OF THE MUSEUM

Printing Presses in the Movies

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View from the cameraman’s monitor for a commercial shot in Museum gallery.

Our presses just can’t stay out of the limelight! 2020 has been one of our busiest years for rentals to Hollywood.

The year began with a rental to Starz’ critically-acclaimed television program American Gods, a fantasy drama adapted from Neil Gaiman’s novel of the same name. They were interested in a Gutenberg-esque press, but the challenge was that the production was way up in Ontario, Canada. Mark directed them toward our smaller, portable reproduction Gutenberg press from the Jeff Craemer Collection. Our Gutenberg made it back across the Canadian border only two days before the nationwide Covid-19 shutdown. Later that year the press made its appearance in season 3, episode 10 of the show.

The “Good Girls” counterfeiting money in Season 3.

On February 16th, those watching the Season 3 premiere of NBC’s Good Girls would have seen a multitude of set decoration and props purchased from the Museum’s surplus sale last summer. In Season 3, the show’s three protagonists, played by Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks, Parks and Recreation’s Retta, and Parenthood’s Mae Whitman, get involved in a laundering and money counterfeiting scheme, all of which required the set decorator to assemble a realistic looking printing shop, complete with a Heidelberg Windmill Press. We missed out on renting the Windmill since they simply purchased one from a local printer. But we made up for that loss by selling them a paper cutter and folder, cabinets, lots of cuts and type, tools and imposing tables. Mark’s favorite items in this sale were two boxes of old, dead ink cans and a red rag canister filled with soiled, inky rags. Only Mark can sell useless cans of dried ink and used shop rags; he knows the look set decorators are after!

Over the years, we’ve had numerous film shoots at the Printing Museum but never quite so unique as our August commercial shoot. The commercial was for an antidepressant medication that helps someone re-engage in activities such as going to museums. The main actress and her two actual kids played a family on screen; we had them printing on several presses which the kids really enjoyed. But apparently they enjoyed the experience a little too much. The director kept coming over and talking to the mother, who was naturally beaming with a smile, watching her kids enjoy their experience. She looked a little “too happy,” and they had to keep reshooting the scene; the drug works but not that well, I overheard the director tell her! The set decorator also put together a faux living room in an empty corner of the Museum for the next scene; but upon closer inspection, the director wanted it to look more homely. Thus began a mad scramble to find homey looking things at the Museum. The good Dr. Franklin came to the rescue with an assortment of candles and trinkets from his theatre set. Museum Manager Sara found a set of wine glasses, something her home certainly has, but was told that the wine glasses were not appropriate considering you weren’t supposed to drink while on this anti-depressant. Sara did however have at her desk an adorable portrait of her favorite furry docent Moxie, Trustee Doug Haines’s dog that comes regularly to the Printing Museum. Doug had put the portrait in a wooden frame he fashioned out of printer’s furniture— the perfect piece-de-resistance making the set look authentic and lived in.

Volunteer Mike Slawinski and Mark on set, fully masked, for “Queenpins”

When the filming of a scene needs to take place on a set and not at the Printing Museum, it requires lots of logistics. Mark coordinated rigging our 3-ton 1955 Heidelberg Cylinder Press out of the museum and over our new vinyl floors to a film set at the Cal Poly Pomona campus. The press and other printing equipment will be featured in an upcoming comedy film titled Queenpins; it is based on the true story of a suburban housewife who counterfeited coupons and ended up scamming millions of dollars from big food companies. The film stars Kristen Bell, also known to millions of children as Princess Anna from Frozen. Mark and Museum volunteer Mike Slawinski were on set as technical advisors showing the actors how to operate the press and paper cutter. The movie is currently still filming and should be released sometime in 2021.

And finally, Mark was contacted by a set decorator for HBO who is working on dramatic series called The Gilded Age by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellows. It is set in New York in the 1880’s. The newspaper printing scene will feature our hand-cranked Prouty “Grasshopper” Press from the Country Newspaper Exhibit in the Museum’s main gallery. In fact, they are literally renting the entire exhibit and having it transported to Tarrytown, NY, for filming in April, 2021. Of course Mark managed to also negotiate an all-expense paid trip to New York to be the technical advisor during filming.

When the Back Burner Becomes the Front Burner

An Upside to 2020 at the Museum

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In March of 2020, as the pandemic and shutdowns were taking effect, Curator Mark Barbour decided to make the best of a bad situation. “The silver lining of the shutdown,” he commented, “was an opportunity to let the back burner move to the front!” Mark immediately got to work with much-needed renovations to the Museum galleries and facility. Because our calendar is always so full with programs and activities, there is usually little time and opportunity to tackle major projects that often involve moving lots of heavy machines.

First was the building and painting of new exhibit and gallery walls in the East Gallery, giving the area a more professional and public friendly environment; it also allowed us to separate the small warehouse area from view and increase the storage capacity with new shelving up to the ceiling. The walls in the 1950’s Printing Shop were also painted and new historical printing shop signs and graphics mounted to the walls. A major project of finally installing 4,000 sf of new vinyl flooring in the East Gallery was also accomplished. This meant Mark was very busy for a couple of months, moving presses and machines to the left while floors and walls were improved on the right, then moving everything to the right, and then shifting everything back.

A major improvement, and maybe the most important, was the complete renovation of all four museum restrooms! Each restroom was outfitted with environmentally friendly toilets, new sinks and cabinets, wainscoting and lights. Plus our volunteer printers now have a restroom dedicated to staff and volunteers, including a deep sink and plenty of industrial soap for easier clean up!

Two new exhibit areas were created in the East Gallery. The first was a long-standing plan for a Lithography Exhibit: From Stone to the Digital Dot. The exhibit features our latest acquisition, an 1870’s French Stone Lithographic Press that Mark literally hauled back from Chicago the first week of March at the start of the shut down. The other long planned exhibit area is for our new Ancient World History Tour, exploring the history of books, writing and paper from caves to the Roman Empire. Mark’s vision is for an exhibit and experience much like professor Indiana Jones’s study to talk about the development of the written word, Medieval Scribes, papyrus and the invention of printing and paper in China. This new exhibit and tour, Professor Lindner’s Curiosity Cabinet, will help us reach 6th grade students studying ancient history.