Wednesday, June 8, 2011

American Letterpress: Hatch Show Print in Nashville

Hatch Show Print is one of the oldest working letterpress printing shops in the country. We had the opportunity to visit while we were in Nashville and boy, was it a treat!
They have been printing on the same old archive machines since 1879 and their work is amazing! You can get a letterpress save the date, baby announcement, or a Bruce Springsteen poster! I'd say they have a pretty diverse clientele!
Hatch Show hand inks and presses each poster. They honor the heritage of their old archive by using it! (I feel like I could learn a lot from them, since I'm the girl who has been married for 7 years and still hasn't used her china!) Their motto is "preservation through production," meaning that rather than putting the old wooden and lead type in a glass case and stare at them in a museum they keep the dust off by putting them to use doing what they were made to do!
We had a total blast looking through the posters that were in the shop... everywhere!
Want to see a short clip of what they do? I'd definately recommend a visit if you're in the area, even if you've never done letterpress it's still worth a stroll to see beautiful artwork like this:
Last two images from Theresa Williams Design, all other images are my own.

2 comments:

Deborah.J said...

Cool! The "preservation through production" concept is inspiring... coming from someone who has been married nearly a dozen years and has pulled out Grandma's china maybe twice. :)

Sarah said...

Yeah, convicting! :)