Blog – Campbell Raw Press

THE PRINTER’S HANDS
for Harry Duncan

These soft bear-paw hands
are clean at their worst.
At their best, they’re black
with printer’s ink and fast
as the hands of a pianist.
You won’t see what they’ve
done till they’ve done it.
Lead is heavy, not eloquent;
it takes strength to work.
Delicate is how a printer
thinks, but a printer’s hands
are gentle of necessity,
and what happens is like sex
or art, because paper too
is delicate, takes a printer’s
inks like a woman who is lovely
takes a compliment, grace
being part of her beauty.

–John Quinn (in "A Garland for Harry Duncan")

Our new-to-us Challenge MP-15 press, in storage in my dad’s wood shop for a while.

I know this press is meant to be ours because when I went out to meet it for the first time, it had its own Charlotte-in-residence. I saw a brilliant little brown spider and egg sacs galore on her web. Hundreds of tiny spiders were crawling out in to the world in bright sunlight. It was meant to be.

Charlotte #2
This press belonged to the inimitable Kim Merker and made its way to us via Tim Fay, one of the most dedicated printers I have the pleasure of knowing, who publishes The Wapsipinicon Almanac. It’s by luck of timing that the press became ours and we certainly intend to keep it working in the tradition of its previous operator, doing the very best work we can…and lots of it.