West Meadow Press
Art In The Making
West Meadow Press is located in the heart of downtown Clifford, Ontario, a town once home to a booming milling community. Today, Clifford is much like Wesley’s prints, contemporary rural, surrounded by rolling farmland and traditions rooted in the days of the pioneers and Amish. It is here that Wesley sits by lamplight, carefully engraving images into ‘the block’. Drawing inspiration from images and memory, he slowly glides his graver through the end-grain as an image takes shape.
The print shop is home to multiple letterpresses, which Bates uses to print his wood engravings, broadsides, limited edition prints and handmade books.
A Bit of History
Wood Engraving is part of a mysterious and storied past of relief printing. It is unclear when relief printing started for creative purposes, but it is believed to have evolved from the use of stone dating back more than 2000 years ago in Asia.
Known as “in relief” or raised printing, this process was transformed, yet again by Thomas Bewick in the mid 1700s who utilized blocks of hardwood rather than metal engraving for his works. Bewick would use the hard end-grain rather than the side-grain to complete his pieces.
Modern Letterpress
Gutenberg transformed the printing of text in the 1440s with the invention of movable type, and the further invention of the Platen Press allowed for the mass production of books.
Though letterpress may conjure up images of an old journeyman printer bent over a hand operated press, today’s letterpress has a new life as an art form instead of a trade.
The modern letterpress movement is a mix of artists using the medium to capture the past but also shape the future with pieces that represent modern activism, social awareness and unique design interpretation.