Yesterday I've met wonderful people - Brian Bagdonas & Rebecca Gilbert from Stumptown Printers (Portland, OR). After taking part in St Brides Wayzgoose they came to Belgium for a few days so we headed to MIAT this afternoon.
Rebecca Gilbert from Stumptown Printers
From 1999, the Stumptown Printers (Portland, Oregon) are manufacturing unique album covers, CD packaging, posters and so much more for the music scene and beyond. They focus on two traditions of printing–letterpress and offset lithography.
"Stumptown" is a nickname for Portland that originated in the 19th Century. At that time, what was essentially a logging camp quickly grew into an urban center. New buildings and roads shared the scenery with stumps from fresh cut trees, and the stumps became a familiar part of the landscape, so much so that
Portland was known as "Stumptown".
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Besides them being founders & workers at the Stumptown printers Brian & Rebecca are founders, volunteers & board members at the C.C.Stern Type Foundry museum located in Portland, Oregon.
The C.C. Stern Type Foundry’s Museum of Metal Typography is a working museum–with a focus on “working.” With one of the largest collections of Monotype casting matrices in the United States, the C.C. Stern Type Foundry honors the memory of C. Christopher Stern, who built and operated the foundry at Stern & Faye, Printers of Sedro-Woolley, Washington.
Chris Stern passed away in the fall of 2007. In June 2008, the foundry was moved by friends and fellow printers from its home in Sedro-Woolley, Washington to a storage facility near Portland, Oregon and plans were made for a new home: the C.C. Stern Type Foundry. In March 2011, they've opened the doors of the public museum. The museum is open on every third Saturday of the month from 11:00am-3:00pm.
The C.C. Stern Type Foundry owns the various Monotype composition casters, Thompson caster, Linotype Model 31, Gorton 3u Pantograph, Ludlow Typograph Model L, Hand casting mold, proof press and table top press and a collection of books on typecasting and other reference materials. Brian & Rebecca were telling that the organisation is using and maintaining the machinery for educational purposes and to promote creative use of these tools.
It was lovely meeting Brian Bagdonas & Rebecca Gilbert in Gent! Thank you for the lovely gifts!
