A couple weekends ago, I took both kids out to the School of Visual Concepts’ (SVC) annual Wayzgoose festival, which is an open house and a celebration of letterpress printing. My friend, Kate, teaches at the school and I wanted to go to support her and check out the event and the SVC letterpress studio as I love letterpress printing (nearly as much as Jill!). We ended up meeting Tim, little MJ, Jenny, Koga, and Kate down there!

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Earlier, Dylan’s interest in going had waned and he wanted to stay home and play trains. I was able to change his mind by telling him that there would be a steam-roller down there and that Kate would be driving it. That did the trick.

Kate had finished her stint as driver, but we did see 3′ x 5′ letterpress posters being created 2 at a time by a crew of volunteers, big linocuts, a couple of 4′ x 8′ sheets of plywood, and the steamroller for the actual pressing. Pretty ingenious. The posters were hung from the school balconies to dry and were auctioned off as a fundraiser. My favorite was the Godzilla/sushi poster created by a crew from Starbucks.

A Wayzgoose is a tradition in the letterpress printing world that dates back to the 17th century, when master printers would serve a feast to their apprentices in recognition of the impending shorter days of fall and winter which would require the difficult work of hand-setting type by candlelight. Goose was often served, along with whisky. Now shops had adopted the past time as a way to open their doors to the public and showcase the work that has been going on.
— Kate Fernandez