Letterpress Printing on Fabric Workshop with Mitchel Ahern

Saturday, October 27th, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

This one-day workshop covers a broad range of materials and techniques for letterpress printing on fabric. Varieties and behaviors of inks will be discussed along with various impression techniques: the barren, the hammer, body-weight, roller press, sleigh press, hand press and others. Working in color and registration will also be reviewed. Students will print their own work on flour-sack dish towels (provided). Any participants who practice linoleum block cutting are urged to bring some of their designs for printing.

Instructor Mitchel Ahern has relief printed on fabric for forty years and exhibited (and performed) his print works at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Figment festivals, the Lowell Folk Festival and many area galleries and performance venues. He will bring many examples of his own letterpress on fabric work, including dishtowels, canvases, and both horizontal and vertical large-format scrolls.

The work of Cape Ann’s Folly Cove Designers will also be referenced. The Folly Cove Designers worked from 1941 to 1969 in the Folly Cove area of Massachusetts’ Cape Ann peninsula. A home industry, the group was comprised primarily of women, designing and producing fabrics for draperies, table linens, and clothing with linoleum cuts and letterpresses. Earlier this year, the Museum of Printing received an important donation from Folly Cove Designer, MaryAnn Lash. Though not yet on exhibit, workshop attendees can view examples of her work as shown in the photo.

The workshop has been filled.

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