PORT TOWNSEND — “Moveable Type: A Cross-Country Adventure in Letterpress Printing” comes to town this week, bringing a mobile, fully functioning letterpress shop to the Northwind Arts Center, 2409 Jefferson St.
The traveling letterpress show will arrive Wednesday for a public demonstration from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free.
Visitors to the arts center will meet Kyle Durrie, the proprietress of Power & Light Press in Portland, Ore., who used Kickstarter.com, a funding network for independent creative projects, to raise the money for her Moveable Type vehicle, a converted 1982 bread truck.
On Thursday, Durrie will drive Moveable Type to 1530 Holcomb St. in Port Townsend to teach a workshop from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
The cost is $30 per person, and would-be participants can phone 360-379-3660 or email cyoungmann@gmail.com to make reservations. The workshop is limited to five students.
Interest in book arts and letterpress printing — which involves setting type by hand— has seen a resurgence on the West Coast, Durrie said.
In addition to driving the mobile letterpress, she operates Power & Light Press as part of the Em Space cooperative studio in southeast Portland.
The idea for her Moveable Type odyssey, which will span a year, was hatched while riding along on a band tour when she realized people don’t know that letterpress printing is still alive.
Her KickStarter video pitch resulted in 350 contributors pledging more than $17,000 within a few weeks.
Durrie’s van, outfitted with cabinets of lead type and hand-operated printing presses, will crisscross the Northwest, stopping in Montana, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon.
Durrie also will travel to California and then the Midwest for farmers markets and festivals.
Finally, she’ll drive to Florida, where the tour is scheduled to end in early 2012.
