Y’all know that I can’t get enough of encaustic these days. As I become more comfortable with the medium, I’ve considered incorporating it with other techniques close to my creative heart. After a visit to Hatch Show Print in Tennessee in the Fall, I was invigorated.
A work table at Hatch Show Print in Nashville, Tennessee
Established in 1879, Hatch Show Print reflects the history of American advertising and entertainment as one of the oldest letterpress design and print shops in America. Each Hatch Show Print poster is a unique creation hand crafted with a technique that dates back several centuries. The process, known as letterpress, involves selecting or carving images in wood or linoleum, then inking and pressing these elements to form a poster or print.
Smelling ink and rolling presses feels like home to me. Enter fantasies of me moving my family to Nashville and working for this print studio creating concert posters and carnival ads. Enter the reality of finding ways to combine encaustic and printmaking in my basement studio.
I have pulled about 100 monoprints over the Fall and Winter and have been finding ways to incorporate them into my abstracted nature works. Stay tuned.