2024 25th annual Portland Old Time Music Gathering Graphics

The 25th annual Portland Old Time Music Gathering is here. It has been 25 years, folks. It's amazing that what started as a small, scrappy, DIY grass-roots volunteer-run mini-festival, has grown to become a much bigger scrappy, DIY grass-roots volunteer-run-festival. I say this with all the love of course. There's a lot of heart and a lot of community around this event.

Stumptown Printers handled the graphic work during the early days of the gathering. Since this current year marks a big anniversary for POTMG, Bubbaville Board President Kate Sheie asked me to do the graphics again. It was a fun project to revisit. I thought that we should list as many musicians, bands, volunteers, sponsors, venues as possible that have helped to build this Portland Old Time Music community over the years. We managed to compile 781 names. (The small type that makes up the "flame" shapes is the list of names) 781 names! That's amazing. I know we've missed names, so big apologies if you or your band name is not on the list. We didn't establish a consistent way to archive year to year info, but after this exercise, we're a little closer to having a complete archive within the Bubbaville collection of info.

Graphic notes:

Print Method: Offset litho in 2 spot colors (Warm Red and K)

Finish Size: 14" x 20"

Paper: Royal Sundance 80# Felt Text Warm White

Source types are arranged from a combination of Repo Proofs from cast Linotype typography and decorative border (cast on Pioneer Press Model 31 Linotype Machine at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry) and Linotype digital type (6pt Excelsior and some Franklin Gothic). I made a rule for myself in creating the fiddle graphic - all the figures are proportionally true to their original form in relationship to surrounding figures - meaning I did not scale the individual figures. This includes the wave border matrix slide rule that forms the fiddle strings. I did increase the scale of the overall fiddle once it was complete and digitized. The repo proof components were all digitized and combined with the digital type faces. Film was generated from the digital file, metal litho plates were made and then printed offset on a M.A.N. Roland 200 by Richard Gwinner.

There will be a limited number of these posters for sale at the Gathering. Proceeds go to Bubbaville to be used for continued community music programming. So pick one up while you're at the Gathering!

Raymond Carver Writing Festival Posters

No-Nonsense heavy-ink printing for the Raymond Carver Writing Festival. This poster incorporates some fresh type that happens to be some of the first type cast at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry's new location in Clatskanie.

A worker at a bookshop where one of these prints was posted commented that it looked like an old poster promoting a boxing match. Yes! I like it. Somehow this seems fitting for Carver's work.

The C.C. Stern Type Foundry is a co-sponsor of the Raymond Carver Writing Festival. Some of us foundry members will host “Parking Lot Poetry” in the Safeway parking lot alongside Highway 30 in Clatskanie at noon on Friday, May 19th. "Parking Lot Poetry" commemorates an impromptu poetry reading that Raymond Carver and his wife Tess Gallagher held at that same location back in 1984 during a visit back to his birthplace of Clatskanie.

The C.C. Stern Type Foundry crew will also be at the reception with a tiny press ready to help *you* print a writing festival keepsake created from type cast at the foundry. We hope to see you there.

Flat Foot in The Ashes

Flatfoot in the Ashes print and fiddle tune. This is a quick video to provide some context for those of you who have received this small-run print composed with handset metal type and Linotype ornamentation.

New 2023 C.C. Stern Type Foundry Guild Cards

Printed entirely (almost) from type and ornamentation cast on the C.C. Stern Type Foundry equipment (The "almost" refers to the two arrows. Those are likely a product of American Type Founders, and were re-discovered hiding in plain sight on a galley labelled "arrows" appropriately enough).

Have you renewed your support to the C.C. Stern Type Foundry at the Printer's Devil level or above? If yes, you'll receive your very own limited edition guild card like the one pictured above.

Completing the new guild cards made a good excuse for me to bust out that beautiful Remington portable typewriter. I love that thing. I loaned my original Remington portable to a friend... oh, lets see.... I think it was almost 30 years ago. Yup. Now I recall that it was around 1994. A good year, that 1994. I'm getting side tracked on a side track. Back to the loan of the typewriter: my friend is a film maker, and he needed a good typewriter for the sound foley for his film project at the time. I don't recall the name of the film he was working on, or if the sound of my typewriter made it to the silver screen or not. Regardless, the typewriter is in good hands, so I didn't prioritize reclaiming the little machine before I pulled up stakes and left Dayton, Ohio. I foolishly forgot about the typewriter - until I didn't - many years later. At that point I kept my eyes out for the same model. I finally tracked one down about a year ago. This one was meticulously cared for by its owner who lived in Corvallis, Oregon. It was the same model and year as the one that I longed for over the last couple decades. It was pretty magical putting those familiar keys back under my fingers. I'll be happy to let you use the typewriter, but I may be a little more careful about lending it out for too long.

Soundtrack for the moment 11-14-22

It's Monday, November 14th.

Soundtrack for the moment:

Charles Mingus Quintet - Haitian Fight Song

Defiant. Rolling. Thumping and blowing.

Mingus: "Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."

Pictured above is the "fiddleink" Linotype model 31 machine located at its former digs on North Interstate Avenue in Portland.

"Continue Us" Now available for purchase.

During a hike at Eagle Creek well over ten years ago, and well before Eagle Creek caught on fire (but that's another story), my good buddy Marko Whens and I discussed opportunities for collaborating on a print project. At that point, Marko had amassed a collection of his interactive poems, and I had just amassed another chunk of cast iron in the form of a Linotype machine. The machine needed work, and I needed work to move beyond my fledgling knowledge of Linotype machine operation. A deal was struck. After the work day was complete at Stumptown Printers, I would sift through matrices and molds, and use Marko's poems as material to test the machine and my knowledge. Slowly type was set, the machine was repaired and I gained some Linotype chops. But, job work took over and the type was stashed on galleys to gather dust for many years. In late 2018, and once we faced the reality that the increasing cost of rent for the shop was no longer tenable, I rediscovered those galleys and prioritized casting the remainder of the type before the machine would be placed in deep storage. Typecasting was complete, but the shop move took over, and once again the type sat - this time in boxes until our temporary garage shop was finished. The book was finally completed in late 2019. Marko had planned to hold an event in the Spring of 2020 to launch to book release. But, a pandemic happened. So, I'm excited to let you know, that after many years, that book release finally happened on April 2, 2022 at Passages Bookshop. The book is also now available for purchase here on this site. For more details on the book, go here.

Typetober

The machines were humming at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry today. Connie, Joe, and Rebecca were working on the comp caster and had success in casting type for our upcoming issue of The Point. Jeff and I filled a Linotype galley with decorative border rule (also for The Point) and type to be used for bookplates. It has been a gorgeous day out here in the Pacific Northwest, made better with the gathering of the type casting crew and happy machines.

Linotype wave rule 6pt 134B Fiddleink print 007

Mixing verticals and horizontals. Wave border 6pt 134B cast with 8pt mold. 9 pieces trimmed to 6 picas makes a perfect square and creates an opportunity for some overprinting shenanigans. I was surprised at the results of the overprint - I hadn't expected the pattern to look like this, but I'm not going to argue with the magic of print and Linotype wave border rule.

Making Waves

Fresh silver. Cast from two matrix slides, wave rule 6pt 134B and regular rule 407. This casting was the result of an afternoon of making adjustments to the Linotype Model 31 at the C.C. Stern Foundry this past weekend. The machine is now in adjustment, and these beauties are ready for ink.

Linotype casting for Barbara Tetenbaum's "Old Friends in Nebraska; Mesostics on the introduction to My Antonia"

Photo from Vamp & Tramp, Booksellers

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to see Barbara Tetenbaum's completed artist book "Old Friends in Nebraska; Mesostics on the introduction to My Antonia" which included Linotype composition which I had set and cast at Stumptown Printers shortly before we moved out of the Interstate Avenue shop space. Barb and I had proofed several faces before settling on 10 point 496 Caledonia.

From the perspective of Linotype composition, the mesostic form requires an unconventional alignment — the text is arranged so that a vertical phrase intersects lines of horizontal text. I first attempted to hand-insert thin spaces while keeping a close eye on the assembler slide em scale to achieve the alignment. It didn't work. It was labor intensive and provided less than ideal results. I settled on a more time intensive though much more reliable method, which was to employ the machine's quadder and the Hammond glider saw. Each line was cast twice with left and then right alignment, and trimmed to form the single “mesostic” aligned line. This allowed for more controlled letter spacing, in which a half point at a time could be cut with the saw.

The finished piece is beautiful and meticulously printed. I’m happy that the Linotype composition made the cut! Below are photos of the casting and proofing process.

IDK

A continuation of an exercise to explore the meaning of acronyms found in online and text communication. Jeff provided me with a list of them. This list lives on top of the Linotype keyboard. I've had to search for the meaning of some of the listed acronyms multiple times. Instead of committing their meaning to memory, I prefer to make up my own meanings, and then forget those. Anyway, this exercise also serves as the framework to take a deep dive into one single type face: 14pt Intertype Bodoni Book 961. I enjoy the constraints. One typeface, a limit of 4 hours (the normal duration of open hours at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry) and an acronym that I don't understand. "IDK" will be the 4th print in this acronym-type-specimen exercise.

Continue Us Belly Band Final

"Continue Us" Belly Band (or OBI strip) complete and in place. "Continue Us" by Marko Whens is an exercise book of poems. Edition of 72. Pages printed on newsprint. Composition Linotype.

Too Loud a Solitude

Quote from Bohumil Hrabal's book "Too Loud a Solitude" cast and printed during C.C. Stern Type Foundry open hours. Type cast on the foundry's 1948 Linotype Model 31. The colophon pictured above provides additional details. I believe that a couple of these prints are still available, ask for one the next time that you visit C.C. Stern Type Foundry.

proofing Excelsior 11 ^ 120 at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry

Recent project at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry: Run mats out of the magazine, proof and inventory, clean mats, clean magazine. This proof is of Excelsior 11 ^ 120. We’re short on the lower case “r.” There are only 2. That will be a problem. Hopefully they’re hiding out in a sorts drawer somewhere. Also, after going through about a pig’s worth of metal while casting this, the slug consistently was rough on the right side. This problem persists even after having replaced the mouthpiece and sawing out the throat. The mouthpiece heater is probably on its last legs. For now, I’ll add em spaces to avoid the edge of the slug, but will certainly have to revisit this issue in the future.  

A budding romance with Metromedium No 2., “Pressing On” film screening and an excuse to gather with Portland print pals

Metromedium No 2. (top portion of arrow)

Metromedium No 2 (14^198, 14^186) - has been on my mind. I’ve been having fun casting and printing it. It is bold yet holds a distinct grace and plays well with ink. It prints nicely. And at 14pt, it’s an smooth runner on the machine. Initially I found the appearance of the figures “5” “0” to be a little striking (see pic) - I had suspected that sorts belonging to another version of the typeface had errantly found their way into the magazine. But no, the font number was confirmed and matched. I think it’s a nice feature - the lighter stroke of these figures add a “pulse” to surrounding text which teases the eye along the page. I’m also happy that this particular font includes the “special No 1” cap W, which was not the standard cap "W" redesigned for "Metro No. 2." As I understand, the "special No 1" sorts reflect Dwiggins’ original Metro drawings. (However, a third version of the cap "W" was also offered as an option as indicated in the Linotype's "Big Red" spec book, so don't quote me on that) More info about the evolution of Metro can be found in this excellent article by Paul Shaw. Anyway, the mats are in good shape, the sidewalls are sound and I’m tickled to cast and print from them. Here’s another example of the typeface used in recent piece set in all caps.

Note 2 alternative cap "W" characters

Final Poster.

The broadside / poster pictured was printed to promote an upcoming film screening and panel discussion sponsored by the C.C. Stern Type Foundry. Foundry volunteers cast the type used on the poster, Jeff Shay cast that gorgeous cutting of Garamond (48pt, 24pt, 18pt) on his Ludlow at Buzzworm Studios (after proofing these slugs, I went down a Robert Hunter Middleton internet rabbit hole - to be explored later. Hopefully Jeff will be my guide, because it looks like I could get lost real fast. Amazing stuff there…), Rebecca Gilbert cast decorative ornaments on the monotype sorts caster at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry, and I cast the above mentioned Metromedium No 2 and smaller sizes of Garamond using the Linotype at Stumptown Printers. Rebecca then masterfully handled the press work at Stumptown Printers. The poster was a good excuse for a collaborative hot-metal project. Nice work, team!

If you’re in Portland, please come to the event. 

Pressing On: The Letterpress Film
Tuesday, September 19th
7:00pm
Clinton Street Theater
2522 SE Clinton Street
Portland, OR 97202

For Advance Tickets go to the Clinton Street Theater site

For info about the event, here's a post from the C.C. Stern Type Foundry Website

Pressing On website