Kyle Durrie’s van doesn’t serve tacos. She printed a sign carrying that message from inside her 1982 Chevy step van.
Durrie’s van houses a letterpress print workshop which she uses to demonstrate the value and unique nature of moveable type.
Since June, the Portland, Ore., resident has driven on a cross-country tour, stopping at print studios and other venues to give presentations on the medium. Durrie stopped by the University’s Design Building on Thursday to describe her journey. She also hosted a demonstration in downtown Baton Rouge on Friday to display how the press works.
“There’s a constant sense of exploration,” Durrie said. “There’s so many things you can do with this kind of printing.”
Durrie explained how, despite inefficiencies, letterpresses can make varied, unique art.
“It’s a little limiting because we’re working with fixed materials, and we don’t have the endless array of tools we have on our computers,” she said. “But within those limitations, there’s so many different configurations you can experiment with in terms of composition and color and text and form.”
The van boasts an 1873 platinum press, as well as a larger 1960s press with an underlying magnet to hold print-making blocks onto the press. They work differently, but each holds inked blocks in place to press ink onto paper. Since many blocks are older, their type styles reflect the era in which they were produced.
Durrie bought her 30-year-old van, which was formerly used to deliver lemons, on Craigslist. The previous owner had converted the van into an RV, but Durrie gutted it to make room for a print shop, she explained during her Thursday presentation.
The scope of her current trip differs from Durrie’s other tours, spanning nearly 40 states.
“It’s so much more far-reaching than any other trip I’ve been on,” Durrie said.
But she’s not done. The road trip is scheduled to last nine months or longer.
Durrie garnered funds and support for the trip through Kickstarter, a website which assists fundraisers. Durrie said she thought the popularity of print art and road trip stories appealed to many who supported her project.
Kathryn Hunter of Baton Rouge’s Blackbird Letterpress, located on North 19th Street, saw Durrie’s project online and arranged for her to drop into the capital city during her tour.
Studio art senior Hope Amico, an LSU print club member and Blackbird Letterpress employee, then arranged for Durrie to speak at the Design Building.
Durrie didn’t do much letterpress work in college. While she dabbled in printmaking as an art student at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, the school lacked a letterpress. It wasn’t until she graduated and took a class in letterpress that she developed a passion for the medium.
“I just fell in love with it and stuck with it,” Durrie said.
Durrie completed several apprenticeships in letterpress, eventually opening her own Portland studio in 2009 called Power & Light Press.
Durrie’s studio prints humorous posters and cards, and she continues to do so on the road; she makes a poster for each location she stops in.
She said she developed an appreciation for the humor of letterpress while interning with Blue Barnhouse in Asheville, N.C., which often produced perverse but funny greeting cards. The break from traditional style influenced her to continue developing a unique vision.
“Because digital media is so accessible to us and printing something off your computer is second nature to all of us, it feels a little bit cheap at times,” Durrie explained. “Because of that, this new generation of hand-craftedness is coming about . . . there’s kind of a return to quality over quantity.”
 
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Contact Austen Krantz at
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