After a one-year hiatus, the Poste Print Festival returned to Perry Saturday, with artists and vendors displaying and demonstrating the ancient art of printmaking in its most modern forms.
Tara Bounds of Madrid, who organized the first festival in 2015 with help from her printmaking husband, Dan Bounds, said people this year really enjoyed the hands-on printmaking available at Betsy Peterson Designs and La Poste.
“We did cyanotype, lithography, letterpress and woodcuts,” Tara Bounds said. “Everybody loved it.”
A highlight of this year’s festival was a recently acquired job press, housed in the basement of Betsy Peterson Designs. The heirloom press was the gift of Susan Koch Bridgford of the Des Moines printing firm of the Koch Brothers.
Letterpress artist Rick von Humboldt of rural Perry encouraged visitors to try the letterpress process for themselves on his machines in the basement of Betsy Peterson Designs. He will start offering classes on the vintage job press next year, once it is fully restored.
Humboldt was also featured in a recent documentary film, “Pressing On, Yes, On,” which details the survival of letterpress printing and the artists who preserve the history and knowledge of the craft.
Beaverdale printers Ashleigh Brady and Elena Leon, owners of Side Garage Printing, similarly demonstrated the fine art of silk screening, with visitors given the opportunity to make a print of their own using the Side Garage process.
This year’s festival drew about a dozen print artists, with plans for next year’s festival already afoot.
