The Artist and the Press

The walls are covered in letterpress posters, photographs, well-loved quotes, and poems. Numerous old cases of weighty metal type and delicate wood type are carefully stacked under tables. Tools, paper, and ink are organized in their respective workspaces. Jojo the dog leisurely observes, and the sunlight streaming in makes the space feel joyfully industrious. Welcome to the studio of Monica Edwards Larson, owner of Sister Black Press.

For Monica, the craft of letterpress came by way of a Fine Arts degree and simple curiosity. While pursuing her degree, Monica focused on lithography, drawing, painting, and images—not words. But everything changed when she took a letterpress class in graduate school. She found the work challenging. “It was hard for me. It was precise work. Until then, I hadn’t worked with words in my work. It seemed foreign, but there was something very compelling about it.” Along the way and with more classes, her affection for the printed word grew as did her interest in the traditional approach to bookmaking, crafting it all by hand—papermaking, typesetting, printing, and binding. Through classes at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, where she now teaches, her joy in working with type deepened.

Fifteen years ago, Monica was looking for a press of her own, and a friend forwarded information about a press on auction from the convent of The Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Missouri. “It was in really good shape, was really affordable, and, um, was in Missouri,” she says with a chuckle. “So I had to figure out how to get it up here” to her studio in Minnesota. Eventually this treasured press made its way to Monica’s home studio. The press had been used by Sister Lillian Black, which became the inspiration for the name Sister Black Press.

If it were good fortune to acquire a press through the actions of a friend, then pure serendipity followed as family and friends alerted her to discoveries of various sets of type, one in particular a treasure trove of wooden letters stored in a barn.

Monica enjoys the traditional method of hand-setting type. Choosing from her collection of fonts, she picks up the sorts—the pieces of metal type—one at a time and places them on her composing stick to set a line of type. “This is a map, kind of like how you use a keyboard. I’ve memorized the case [of sorts], and so I can set type a little more quickly.” Setting the type is like “clicking on the keyboard.” She knows she’s doing it correctly by ensuring the nick, the groove in the type, is facing out and the type is going in the right direction, which is upside down and backward.

“You need to be sober to set type.”

“The beauty of hand-set type is that the limitations are really extreme. I am limited by my fonts.” While she has some ornamental fonts from the convent, her go-to fonts are utilitarian. “I look for what is going to fit within the parameters I need. I’ve found I really like these limitations, and I’ve really learned to embrace it. There is other technology available that enables me to typeset in whatever I want, then make a plate and press that. While it is quicker and limitless, I prefer the hand-set type.”

Monica stated that she loves hand-setting type “because it is a slow deliberate process. I feel that it is more in keeping with being a human in a human pace. Even though [I am] using a machine, I set the type, I crank the press, [and] I put the paper in. I kind of liken it to cooking from scratch, starting with raw materials.” Every color is printed separately—“this is not efficient,” she said drily—since the machine must be cleaned between colors. The entire process is very precise and deliberate. She feeds the paper using a foot pedal. “If I don’t put it in straight, it prints crooked.” Extras are always printed to accommodate for error. Her perspective is that the printing portion of the process can be anticlimactic. It produces the end result, but it is not the creative part.

Many of her books are made with handmade paper. Prior to binding the book by hand, she prepares the signatures, which are the folded, printed sheets of paper that make up the book. After punching holes through the cover and signatures, she sews the binding, choosing which method to use based on the number of signatures and the type of thread. She says the sewing “is celebrated,” meaning the thread is not only functional, but also an artistic feature of the book.

Determination of the number of signatures is based on the content, the number of pages, and the desired feel of the final product. “This is a question I ask my clients. What do you want it to feel like? Some clients are really intentional about it. But it costs more when it is done by hand. This can be a detriment. But you’ll feel that difference, which is why I ask.”

The bone folder that she’s “had for a while” is her favorite tool, and we laughed at her quick and sure response to that question. The pointed end of the folder is used to score thick paper, and the long side is used to press the fold.

When asked what she hopes people keep or appreciate about her work, Monica replied, “that it is tangible, that you can hold it. That you can carry it with you, put it in your pocket, in your bag, on your dashboard, or wherever. Living with it, being able to read it over and over at your own pace.”

Monica keeps “paper, scraps of paper. I can hardly get rid of them. I have a large collection of prints from other printers and artists, and I rotate them around my walls. I am a notetaker, so I have little notes and books. If I want to remember something, I write it down. I have all that from years and years. Like ephemera from my daily life.”

Monica’s letterpress arts include chapbooks, broadsides, commemorative and memorial books, and smaller-format poems and quotes. She especially likes working with poets who are seeking a special chapbook release or who have never before been published. Her quarterly poetry subscription is a wonderful gift, to yourself or to your favorite thinker.

[Photography by Moon Lake Multimedia. All rights reserved.]