If you’re a nonprofit member of ours and you’ve received a unique card in the mail from your friends at WIN Warehouse, well… we’ve got quite a story for you, and it involves one of our other members, Central Print.
Let’s give you a little backstory first. If you aren’t familiar with them, Central Print is a non-profit arts organization that has been promoting the art of letterpress printmaking in the historic neighborhood of Old North St. Louis since July 2014. Their mission is to preserve and promote printing techniques in the face of ever-changing technology. They offer workshops, classes, programs, open studios, and summer camps for kids, focusing on design and production using historic printing equipment. You’ve probably seen them at local events as vendors, offering works for purchase and sharing their knowledge with curious visitors.
Central Print’s Executive Director, Marie Oberkirsch, has an incredible passion for the presses and art, which is something we were fortunate enough to have experienced first-hand! We spent two days in their classroom space, designing and creating cards that spoke to both Central Print and WIN Warehouse’s missions. Here’s what happened!
Day One:
We started by deciding the size of card we wanted to send, the image, and the card’s message. For the image, we chose the St. Louis Arch hand-carved wood block from an array of different blocks Marie has in her collection. From there, we picked a metal type and coloring for the print.
After cutting paper, it was time to mix up some colors. Marie guided us through the ins and outs of locking up the image and showed us how to set up the press for printing. Then it was time to print! We enjoyed every moment of this experience and couldn’t wait to go back the next week for printing the message on our cards.
Day Two:
We were chomping at the bit to get back to the classroom and finish our colorful creations! With our card image printed and wording picked out, the next step was to lock up our logo for the back of the cards, mix up paint, and print. We’d like to thank Marie and Central Print again for collaborating with us on this project. We love the way these turned out with each having its own character, and we are grateful to you for showing us a new perspective of your artful organization!
Since becoming a nonprofit member of WIN Warehouse in 2017, Central Print has been able to receive a flammable cabinet, box lockers, stools, WD40, and much more at a lower cost. In fact, they’ve saved more than $1,700 this year alone! “WIN Warehouse makes it affordable to acquire equipment and supplies,” Marie said. “A lot of the equipment we get is secondhand, but when we’re in need of WD40, stools, and other items, WIN makes it easy and affordable to access.”
This amazing organization has some great plans for the coming year as well. They will be expanding their programming, particularly adding more single-visit workshops and many series of classes!
To see their space and hear first-hand about all of the programs Central Print has to offer, please be sure to visit them at www.centralprint.org!