SOUTH STREET SEAPORT'S ANNUAL WAYZGOOSE

The South Street Seaport Museum

The South Street Seaport Museum celebrated their 4th annual Wayzgoose on November 17, 2016. This age-old printer's tradition, launched by Bowne Printers in 2013, was the Museum's first public event following the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy. This year's Wayzgoose marked the continued strides of the Seaport Museum in the rebuilding effort and welcomed community members to celebrate the progress of the cultural anchor of the district..

Wayzgoose is a traditional printer's party celebrating the changing of the seasons, and is an occasion where Master Printers give thanks to their crews for their hard work throughout the summer season. Bowne & Co. continues this tradition by hosting an annual open house celebration to welcome the colder weather, and to mark the launch of new products, new collections, and winter workshop schedules. Each of these offerings make Bowne & Co. the ideal venue for Small Business Saturday and your holiday shopping needs!

Located in the South Street Seaport at 209 and 211 Water Street, NYC, the Seaport Museum's historic letterpress printing offices Bowne & Co. Stationers and Bowne Printers use the traditional methods and historic presses that once documented marine trade, to create contemporary artisanal projects. The Printing Offices are open 11-7 everyday, and are stocked full of holiday cards, stationery essentials, and finely printed paper goods, perfect for holiday gifts.

For more information call (646)-628-2707, email bowneprinters@seany.org, or visit https://southstreetseaportmuseum.org/education/bowne-printers-workshops. All workshops are adaptable for private parties, school programs, team building, adult special interest clubs, and professional development for teachers. Advance reservations are required.

Winter Workshops:

December 4 - 1:00-4:00 PM - Holiday Card Printing Workshop ($75 per person)

Using a mix of type and "trade cuts" from the Museum's collection, Bowne Printers guides participants through the process of designing a holiday card to be printed on one of the historic printing presses in the collection. Each participant will leave with an edition of 15 holiday themed cards, just in time for the winter holiday season.

December 10 - 1:00-4:00 PM - Custom Stationery Workshop ($75 per person)

Using a sampling of type from the Museum's collection of movable printing type, Bowne Printers will take you through the process of setting lead type, locking up a form, mixing ink and printing a small edition of custom stationery. Each participant leaves with 25 pieces of social stationery with matching envelopes.

December 17 - 1:00-4:00 PM - Bookbinding Workshop ($75 per person)

Resident printer Rob Wilson will be teaching three book structures in this special 4-hour workshop. While this workshop does not involve printing, participants will have many opportunities to engage with the museum's collection as they learn how to glue and sew pages together to make a bound book. Workshop participants will leave with three books, and the knowledge of how to make books at home. These books make excellent sketch books, journals, or even thoughtful gifts.

Available Private Workshops:

500 Years of Printing in One Hour

Ages 12 and up. 60 minutes. ($175 per group)

Using objects and equipment from the Museum's collection, Bowne Printers will take you through the history of printing from Gutenberg to the New York Times. We will demonstrate on several presses and discuss the history of typography and printing, with an emphasis on the local New York context. Everybody will get a printed keepsake and a chance to pull a print on one of our presses.

Block Party Linocut Workshop

Ages 12 and up. 3.5 hours. ($175 per group, plus $50 per participant for materials)

In this 3-hour workshop Resident Printer Rob Wilson will teach you the basics of carving and printing linoleum blocks. Arrive with a couple ideas for images and we'll learn how to transfer and carve your design into linoleum. After designs are carved we'll try out inking and printing by hand. At the end of the class we'll pull some prints of everyone's blocks locked up together, on our Vandercook cylinder proof press. Each student will go home with their block, individual prints, and one poster of everyone's prints together. All materials supplied, except for your ideas: you bring those and we'll show you how to make them into prints!

Broadsides: Wood Type Poster Workshop

Ages 12 and up. 3.5 hours. ( ($175 per group, plus $50 per participant for materials)

A broadside is a large sheet of paper printed on one side to create a poster. Historically, this format was used by political campaigns, circuses, shipping lines, and any other person or group that needed to make a proclamation or advertisement. Today, the broadside has become popular among poets, typographers, and artists as an art form that is collectible, easy to frame, and sometimes printed in a limited edition.

In this 3-hour workshop participants will collaborate on designing and printing a broadside poster from moveable wood type. Bowne Printers will curate a sampling of wood type from the Museum's collection of over 100 fonts. After a brief introduction to the history and process of printing from handset type, students will have the chance to select type and spell out a word or phrase that fits into a specific line length. We'll test print these on a hand-operated proof press that dates to the 1890s. Next, everyone's phrases or words will be locked up together on our vintage Vandercook cylinder press. We'll learn about inking, registration, proofing, make-ready, and the physical origins of leading and character spacing. After the necessary corrections, everyone will get a chance to pull a final print. Each student will go home with their test prints and three copies of the group's poster.

Because of the collaborative nature of this workshop we recommend it to groups of friends!

Fresh Prints

Ages 12 and up. Every last Thursday of the month.

Fresh Prints is a printing party with an admittance fee of $10, $8 for Museum members. Visitors go home with a package of all three prints made live that night. For each event, our team of designers and printers launches a series of limited edition cards and prints that are on press all evening, and attendees have the opportunity to pull prints of their own and learn about traditional letterpress.

ABOUT BOWNE PRINTERS

Bowne Printers, a recent expansion of Bowne & Co. Stationers, continues the age-old tradition of job (or small batch) printing. Using seven historic presses from South Street Seaport Museum's working collection; our resident printers create individual designs using custom plates or historic fonts. Visitors are invited to watch and discuss the history and contemporary relevance of letterpress, buy hand-printed items and order customs prints. Printing Workshops at Bowne Printers use the traditional methods and historic presses that once documented marine trade, for contemporary artisanal projects. For more information on upcoming workshops click here or email bowneprinters@seany.org. All workshops are adaptable to individual and school groups as well as private events. All proceeds from sales, donations, and special events benefit South Street Seaport Museum programs.

ABOUT SOUTH STREET SEAPORT MUSEUM

South Street Seaport Museum is a non-profit cultural institution located in the heart of the historic South Street Seaport district in New York City. Founded in 1967, the South Street Seaport Museum preserves and interprets the history of New York as a great port city. Designated by Congress as America's National Maritime Museum, the Museum houses galleries and performance spaces, working nineteenth century print shops, a maritime library, a maritime craft center, and a fleet of historic vessels that all work to tell the story of "Where New York Begins."