The best writing aspires to unlock complexities of existence and leaves powerful words imprinted, as if by hot-lead type, on the province of the brain where intellect and emotion distill truths so fine they’re nearly impossible to articulate.

For connoisseurs of letterpress printing, words needn’t come from literary giants to be sublime. Wedding invitations, business cards, even coffee shop posters embody grandeur and gravitas when the inkjet ethos is jettisoned in favor of beautiful printing done on a press that might date to the nineteenth century and be operated by hand.

Big Wheel Press, Easthampton, MA

“With digital communication now being the norm, my clients are seeking out the unique tactility and elegance of letterpress printing,” says Dan Wood of DWRI Letterpress in Providence, Rhode Island, in an “our risd” post on the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) website. Wood is a RISD faculty member and an artist.

While letterpress printing may employ antique, handmade wooden type or a vintage Ludlow Typograph system that creates bars of type from hot lead, the most common method of printing involves photopolymer plates. The latter, says Wood, is a cost-effective way to transfer a digital image from a film negative into a relief printing surface for letterpress.

Custom pencils by DWRI Letterpress, Providence, RI

“It is probably one of the most significant factors in the reestablishment of letterpress printing as a viable financial medium,” he says. “In our shop, probably 90 percent of the wedding invites are polymer versus metal type, maybe three quarters of the art prints, and roughly fifty-fifty on the business cards, posters, etc.”

Letterpress is the epitome of luxury print, and some of its finest practitioners have thriving print shops in New England, creating everything from greeting cards and fine-art prints to innovative literary magazines and product lines that extend to mugs, T-shirts, and even jewelry constructed from recycled letterpress type bound for the scrap heap.

Big Wheel Press

“The thing about letterpress is it was pushed out of the Main Street printing world a long time ago. It was left in back rooms for artists like us to rediscover and use to create a new chapter/life for the process,” says Bill Muller, who in 2006 founded Big Wheel Press, located in a sprawling former mill in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

Bill Muller, Big Wheel Press

“It satisfies the need in people to feel the words they said and read,” he continues. “You write a poem, cast it in hot lead, print it on a handmade paper and bind it into a book yourself. Then it is truly a labor of love and life.” Muller was indoctrinated into printing as a boy when his father gave him The Ideal Toy Company’s home printing press as a Christmas gift in 1964.

“The other kids on the block got the Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots. I got the printing press,” he says.

Big Wheel has 15 presses, including a hand-operated Golding Pearl #14 with a large cast-iron flywheel and a tabletop Sigwalt Ideal Model #4, which Muller calls “the inkjet printer of the 1880s.” With newer technology, he can produce hot foil stamping and even add glitter.

Big Wheel Letterpress

Muller, who also owns Guild Art Supply in Northampton, caught the letterpress bug for good while visiting artist and friend Ali Osborn and watching “as one print was inked, aligned, spoon-rubbed and set out in a line to dry.”

Big Wheel is one of the few letterpresses in the world set up to cast in Hebrew and Yiddish, says Muller, who prints a line of Jewish-themed greeting cards and shows off a Jewish marriage contract, declaring it “the first hot lead Ketubah done in 50 years.”

Big Wheel is also the last studio casting in Arabic on a hot lead linecaster, Muller says.

Muller does a thriving business with broadsides that marry iconic images with messages—like one with a giant silver screw about to drill down into the word cancer.

DWRI Letterpress

“The excitement and the goal is, ‘How do you use these machines with writers and artists in innovative ways?’” Wood says of the equipment arrayed within DWRI Letterpress. That equipment ranges from hand-operated presses to a die-cutting machine to equipment that makes photopolymer plates.

Dan Wood, Founder of DWRI Letterpress

With RISD graduates Lois Harada and Hope Anderson as part of the team, Wood prints tactile, elegant invitations, business cards, CD covers, and more—such as posters for Brooklyn, New York coffee haven Café Grumpy. But creativity is the key for Wood, who established Garbaszawa Press in 1994 and subsequently DWRI around 2003.

“Dan is always trying to push the business forward,” says Harada, who recently designed and produced a “Beach, Please!!” letterpress print that embellishes a map of Rhode Island with the names of the state’s beaches. The titles are done in navy ink holographic foil.

“We do a lot of work with artists and writers,” says Wood, whose own artwork is included in the print collections of the New York Public Library and the RISD Museum of Art.

DWRI Letterpress

Two compelling prints by Wood hang on the walls at DWRI. One depicts a giant Zithromax tablet made by Pfizer that has a pop-art quality and a satirical subtext. The other recasts New York Times coverage of George W. Bush leaving Washington, D.C., in a helicopter after Barack Obama was sworn into office. Wood altered the original photograph, which centers on the chopper lifting above the Capitol. His inspiration came from the feeling that Bush’s departure looked eerily like the famous Vietnam War image of a helicopter lifting off from the roof of an apartment building in 1975 as U.S. personnel were evacuated before the Fall of Saigon.

More recently, Wood has been working on three versions of his “YOU ARE NOT A SCHMUCK” prints. The largest, at 18 x 24, is printed on reflective metallic paper, “so the words speak to you as you look at your own reflection,” Wood says. He plans to exhibit a full edition of the prints at the Columbus Theatre Gallery in Providence in the late spring.

Hartford Prints!

The DNA of this venture, launched by three sisters, is summed up in a Facebook post: “Hartford Prints! was founded in 2012 in the spirit of the Millennial lifestyle. An urban goods retail brand, Hartford Prints! makes letterpress stationery, urban streetwear, and local love.”

Addy Gale of Hartford Prints!

Rory Gale, Callie Gale Heilmann and Addy Gale use stationery, invitations, and fanciful greeting cards—printed on a Vandercook 4T press from the 1960s—as a foundation for creating a lifestyle brand whose heart is a gleaming retail store in downtown Hartford.

Aided by an iConnect grant from the City of Hartford, the sisters launched the store in 2013 and segued into a line of screen-printed clothing and accessories featuring Connecticut themes, such as a graphic image of the Hartford skyline. There’s even a suite of T-shirts for toddlers and onesies for babies.

Rory Gale, who has a background in graphic design, says the apparel is popular in part “because it tells a story the people wearing it want to tell you.” The initial declaration in that narrative of pride, first on a greeting card and later on T-shirts, was “Small State, Big Heart.”

Hartford Prints!

“Everything took off from that slogan,” Gale says while giving a tour of the shop and discussing the evolution of Hartford Prints! Built into its coding is “the idea that a company can both make and do good things,” she adds. As an example of the latter, Hartford Prints! teamed up with seven other homegrown ventures for Small Business Saturday this past holiday season, and it runs Pints + Prints, an introduction to letterpress accompanied by local craft beer.

The sisters launched a “Small State, Big Heart” video commercial last year and have further plans for the future, including merging their studio and storefront in Hartford, and opening a second retail shop in New Haven or Bridgeport.

Headcase Press

At Headcase Press in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Nicole Monforti doesn’t just create attractive custom stationery, business cards, invitations, and greeting cards. She also uses cast-off type to make a line of jewelry that includes rings, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, cufflinks, tie bars, key chains, and even belt buckles.

Nicole Monforti, Headcase Press

“The jewelry was created out of an interest in preserving material that would otherwise have been destroyed,” says Monforti, who opened her print shop a few years after catching letterpress fever in a class she took at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts.

“The type that I use for the jewelry is type that’s unable to be used for printing anymore, because it’s not a full font, or [is among] random pieces that never made their way back to their drawers, etc. In the past, it was melted and recast into new type, but with the advent of polymer-plate printing there aren’t too many shops that melt and recast type.”

Jewelry by Headcase Press

The most prominent product of Headcase Press at the moment is Monforti’s Tarot of Curiosities, a 78-card Tarot deck that was 10 years in the making and released this past October. She describes the project as a “deck of the major and minor arcana reimagined in cut paper and photographic collage.” The cards come with a small booklet that analyzes each card.

Monforti prints on three presses: a Heidelberg Windmill (1948), a Kelsey (1953), and a New Style Chandler & Price (1916). While Headcase Press isn’t in a location that lends itself to visitors—Monforti does most of her sales online—she loves the atmosphere of the former whaling capital of the world.

“New Bedford is a great place for artists,” she says. “The rents are low, and the concentration of artists is high. There’s an amazing creative community there that is supportive.”

This article originally appeared in our Feb/March 2016 Print issue.

Top photo Nicole Monforti from Headcase Press in New Bedford, MA | All other photos by Natasha Moustache

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Hanlon Longboards – Brentwood, New Hampshire
Surfboad maker Dan Hanlon says, “I make custom longboards that are more durable, easy to ride, and stylish than Asian popouts that sell for hundreds more in your local surf shop.” He specializes in 9- to 10-foot boards modeled after the heavier longboards that used to be made in California and Hawaii in the 1960s. Hanlon Longboards also have “some modern features that work well on New England breaks.” Average price: $850.

Straws Noserider board by Hanlon

Grain Surfboards – York, Maine
“What started as a desire to build and ride our own boards turned into a bigger idea: classic surfboards that were completely new to an entire generation of surfers, an environmentally conscious generation with an appreciation for sustainability,” say Grain Surfboards co-owners Mike LaVecchia and Brad Anderson. Their surfboards are hand-built using boat construction techniques and local wood. Prices start at $1,000, and there are make-your-own kits and workshops, too.

Waka board by Nick Lavecchia

PowderJet Snowboards – Rupert, Vermont
The most-recognized brand of snowboard, Burton, is headquartered in Vermont, but the Green Mountain State boasts smaller producers as well. One of the latter is Jesse Loomis, who makes only about 150 boards a year. “I build PowderJets in the cleanest way I can,” he says, referring to his commitment to environmentally friendly, local materials and methods. He builds his snowboards from U.S.-grown maple and poplar. Average price range $550-$750.

Board by Jesse Loomis

Powe. Snowboards – Burlington, Vermont**
Co-owners Adam and Eric Vindigni use environmentally conscious, American-made materials such as bamboo, poplar, and hemp (for the outer layer on which graphics are printed). “Designed to be suitable [for] backcountry and all mountain disciplines, our snowboards are lightweight, flexible, durable, and made right here in Vermont,” they declare. They also work with their community to reduce the amount of trash on ski-resort mountains. Price range $275-$399.

Custom design by Powe. Snowboards

SHOREBOARDZ – Trumbull, Connecticut
Michael Shore, a longtime skateboarder and surfer, developed a line of skateboards to simulate surfing. He also created SHOREBOARDZ to “provide safer, more stable boards for those who had long since given up skating” for fear of injury, he says. There’s even an extra-long skateboard for stand-up paddle board training. Shore is a one-man show who runs his business out of his garage. Prices start at $150.

Custom skateboard by SHOREBOARDZ

Tidal Roots Stand Up Paddleboards – Eliot, Maine
Kent Scovill and Kyle Schaefer were searching “for a better way to chase striped bass on the mud flats of coastal Maine” when they traded their kayaks for stand-up paddleboards. Then, “driven by the desire to build a different board, one with a unique personality and constructed from materials found in [our] backyard of coastal Maine, [we] founded Tidal Roots.” Average price range of in-stock boards $2250-2750. Home-build kits also available.

Paddleboard by Tidalroots

This article originally appeared in our February/March 2016 Print issue.

**Powe. Snowboards no longer makes their boards in the U.S.

Top photo PowderJet Snowboard by Jesse Loomis | All photos courtesy the board-makers

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One, while pulling your mug out of the cupboard, drop the mug directly on the hourglass-shaped coffee maker. Two, when swishing water inside the Chemex to rinse it out, smash “one of the best-designed products of modern times” (according to the Illinois Institute of Technology) against the faucet. Three, slide the empty thermal shock-resistant glass vessel across the counter and bang it into a heavier object not usually on the counter. I’m incredibly careful when I make coffee now.

Sure, Chemex coffeemakers are breakable, but so are our mobile phones. I grew up in a Chemex household in eastern Massachusetts. At one point, my dad carved a new wooden collar for our coffeemaker, because the original caught on fire from being on the burner one too many times. It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood—and probably on my second or third Chemex—that I learned my favorite coffeemaker comes from my home state.

The family-owned Chemex Corporation is located in Chicopee, Massachusetts, having moved an hour east from its longtime home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 2014. The move to Chicopee “was out of necessity because of the surge of requests from specialty coffee roasters, and we were bursting at the seams,” says Eliza Grassy, Chemex’s vice president. Soon, the company will add a second production shift. Chemex was initially started in the early 1940s by the German inventor and bon vivant Peter J. Schlumbohm and went through a few owners until the Grassy family purchased it in 1980.

Patent image courtesy of Chemex Corp.

The coffeemaker has featured the same hourglass design since its invention, although it now comes in a lot more sizes. It is efficient and handsome with both its original bentwood collar or equipped with a glass handle. The rawhide cording that holds the two parts of the collar together is supplied by Rawlings (of baseball glove fame) and is knotted through a wooden bead. If there is any sort of secret to the Chemex’s success at making a stellar cup of coffee, it would have to be the heavy-duty, specialty-fiber filters that keep oils and sediment out while providing a long full steep through the hourglass. The basic procedure for making great coffee with this vessel is to boil water, add coffee into the cone-shaped paper filter, pour the water in, and then wait for it to percolate through. It could not be simpler.

When Schlumbohm spoke with author Jay Doblin for his book One Hundred Great Product Designs in 1970, he described the form-follows-function philosophy behind his invention: “One of the aspects of our new generation crystallized as Bauhaus style: A table must be a table; a chair must be a chair; a bed must be a bed.” So it stands to reason that he would think that a coffeemaker must be a coffeemaker and then create one as iconic as an Eames Lounger or Warhol soup can. My sister occasionally uses hers as a flower vase.

THIS PIECE FIRST APPEARED OUR FEB/MARCH 2016 PRINT ISSUE AVAILABLE HERE

Top image courtesy of the author

The post Did You Know? Western Massachusetts’ Iconic Coffeemaker appeared first on Take Magazine.

We’re expected to start with that most New England of sodas, Moxie, so we won’t disappoint. Moxie Nerve Food was invented and patented in the late 1800s in Lowell, Massachusetts, by Dr. Augustine Thompson, originally from Union, Maine. It was produced in Boston during its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s, on up to its Ted Williams endorsement of the 1950s. Starting in the 1980s, Lisbon Falls, Maine, threw what would now be called Moxie-Con, effectively capitalizing on the nostalgia and uniqueness of the medicinal soda pop and birthing an annual Moxie Festival still being held today (usually July—wear orange). But there’s much more to weird, old New England sodas than Moxie. Growing up, I knew someone was sick if there was Chelmsford Ginger Ale in the fridge—a little warmer in flavor, a little sweeter, a little flatter—perfect for flu symptoms, a tonic in the original sense. And can we talk about half and half?

CONNECTICUT

Foxon Park Beverages
East Haven, 1922
Notable Flavors: Cherry, Cream, Diet Kola, Diet White Birch, Gassosa, Gingerale, Grape, Iron Brew, Kola Soda, Lemon Lime, Orange, Root Beer, White Birch, Tonic
Where to buy: Online, specialty grocers, independent stores, small restaurants

Avery’s Beverages
New Britain, 1904
Notable Flavors: Cream, Birch Beer, Root Beer, Golden Ginger Ale, Half & Half, Korker Lime Rickey, Orange Cream, Sarsaparilla, Tonic
Where to buy: Company store, online, local delivery, specialty grocers, independent stores, small restaurants

Hosmer Mountain Spring Bottling Works
Willimantic, 1912
Notable Flavors: Lime Ricky, Half and Half, Tonic, Peach, Chocolate Cream, ‘Dangerous’ Ginger Beer, Root Beer, Birch Beer, Cream, Sarsaparilla
Where to buy: Company stores, home delivery

MAINE

Green Bee Soda
Brunswick, 2010
Notable flavors: Lemon Sting, Ginger Buzz, Blueberry Dream, Half & Half, Love Potion
Where to buy: Online and throughout New England

Capt’n Eli’s Soda
Portland, 1996
Notable Flavors: Sea Dog Root Beer, Ginger Beer, Blueberry, Strawberry Pop, Orange Pop, Black Cherry
Where to buy: Online, Federal Jack’s Brew Pub, retail locations in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont

MASSACHUSETTS

Chelmsford Ginger Ale
Worcester, 1901
Notable Flavors: Golden Ginger Ale
Where to buy: Market Basket Supermarkets

Harmony Springs
Ludlow, 1908
Notable Flavors: Birch Beer, Black Raspberry, Half & Half, Lemon, Orange, Peach, Pineapple, Quinine Water, Root Beer, Sarsaparilla
Where to buy: home delivery, specialty grocers, independent stores, small restaurants

Polar Beverage Company
Worcester, 1882
Notable Products: Vichy Water, Lemon Sour, Half & Half, Bitter Lemon, Tom Collins
Where to buy: online, most convenience stores in the Northeast, some national markets

Simpson Spring
South Easton, 1878
Notable Flavors: Root Beer, Sarsaparilla, White Birch, Fruit Punch, Raspberry, Lime-Rickey Cola, Ginger Ale, Cream Soda, Coffee Soda
Where to buy: Company store, specialty grocers, independent stores, small restaurants

Twin Lights Soda
Rockport, 1907
Notable Flavors: cola, orangeade, root beer, lemon-lime, grape, fruit punch, cream soda, birch beer, sarsaparilla, golden ginger ale
Where to buy: Company store

AJ Stephans
Fall River, 1980s
Notable Flavors: Black Cherry, Lemon & Lime, Cream Soda, Ginger Beer, Lime Rickey, Strawberry, Sarsaparilla, Birch Beer, Root Beer
Where to buy: Distributed throughout New England

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Squamscot Beverages
Newfields, 1863
Notable Flavors: Birch Beer, Cola, Cream Soda, Fruit Bowl, Ginger Beer, Half and Half, Root Beer, Yup, Maple Cream, Raspberry Lemonade, Creamy Orange
Where to buy: Company store

RHODE ISLAND

Empire Bottling Works
Bristol, 1930
Notable flavors: Banana, Spruce Cream Soda, Ginger Ale, Lemon Lime, Pineapple, Sarsaparilla, Olde Rhode Island Molasses Root Beer
Where to buy: specialty grocers, independent stores, small restaurants

Yacht Club
Centerdale, 1915
Notable flavors: Quinine Tonic, Ginger Beer, Birch Beer, Yacht Up!, Cream, Cola, Golden Ginger Ale, Sarsaparilla
Where to buy: Company store, specialty grocers, independent stores, small restaurants

VERMONT

Vermont Sweetwater Bottling Company
Poultney, 1993
Notable Flavors: Country Apple Jack, Kickin’ Cow Cola, Mango Moonshine, Maple Seltzer, Maple Soda, Raspberry Rhubarb Ramble, Rugged Mountain Boot, Tangerine Cream Twister, Back Country Blueberry Lemon
Where to buy: Online, specialty grocers, independent stores, small restaurants

Hosmer Mountain Spring Bottling Works
Willimantic, 1912
Notable Flavors: Lime Ricky, Half and Half, Tonic, Peach, Chocolate Cream, ‘Dangerous’ Ginger Beer, Root Beer, Birch Beer, Cream, Sarsaparilla
Where to buy: Company stores, home delivery

This article originally appeared in the February/March 2016 issue of Take.

Top Illustration by Amanda Fadum Hall

The post Sweetest New England Sodas appeared first on Take Magazine.

Fedoras, cloches, newsboys, toques, and fascinators have returned to the vocabulary of style. Here are some of our favorites.

Swan & Stone Millinery
Brandon, Vermont

Nora Swan, who co-owns the shop with Sam Stone, calls this hand-felted merino wool hat a “flat-topped fedora. We attempt to source everything as close to home as possible. The bit of rusted metal on this hat is a fragment that was left on a river bank by Hurricane Irene. My son and I collected all sorts of things in the aftermath of the storm, and I began putting them on hats when I noticed how well the rusted metal went with our felt.” Price range $200-$400.

GALVIN-ized Headwear
Boston, Massachusetts

Working with felt, wool, and stylish fabrics, Marie Galvin uses traditional milliner techniques to create her contemporary line of hats, fascinators, and hair accessories. “My mission is to create unique handcrafted headwear, providing multiple expressions for the women who wear them.” Hat from the Raven Collection of signature felt-feather headbands, headpieces, and berets. Contact shop for prices.

Orsini-Medici Couture Millinery
Pawtucket, Rhode Island

Elsie Collins is the owner and designer of Orsini-Medici Couture Millinery. Her styles lean towards the first half of the twentieth century, romantic and floral. Heavy black velvet toques, houndstooth berets, and wide-brimmed, ribboned straw numbers are all hand blocked to order via Collins’ Etsy shop. Spiraled Beehive Hat in light pearl grey or camel, with a stitched soutache braid trimming. $225.00.

Maxine Hwang Blomberg
Boston, Massachusetts

Maxine Hwang Blomberg is a young artist who grew up in Trumbull, Connecticut. She specializes in live chalk drawing, illustration, portraiture, and handmade headgear. The piece above, titled “Space Helmet for Exploring Yourself,” is part of an ongoing “bonnet series,” says Blomberg. “It first came to life as a wearable artist’s tool for introspection.”

Karen Allen Fiber Arts
Great Barrington, Massachusetts

Karen Allen (yes, that Karen Allen, co-star of Raiders of the Lost Ark) is a knitwear designer who creates multicolor fabric from 100% cashmere yarn to create her hats, sweaters, scarves, and accessories. Her shop features local, national, and international knitwear craftspeople in addition to her own work. Karen Allen Monterey Hat, 100% cashmere. $200.

BLOMBERG PHOTO BY IZZY BERDAN, ALL OTHER PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE MAKERS

This article originally appeared in the February/March 2015 issue of Take.

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