Sally Sussman, a wonderful artist educator, who took one of the workshops at PRESS this year approached me about doing a small workshop with five fourth graders from Brayton Elementary School. She had ridiculously tight perimeters, no budget, and only an hour and five minutes of time printing at PRESS.

I agreed. Sally and I both are from Ohio. We both went to the Cleveland Institute of Art. 1969 was an important year for both of us. And well, Sally is just plain awesome. I hope I can have the same kind of enthusiasm and energy when I am her age. I really don’t know who had more fun on Tuesday. Me and Pam, or Sally and the five fourth graders.

Those five young ladies took over printing on the Poco like they had been printing for years. They turned the handle no matter how difficult it got. They inked. They composed. They printed. And most importantly they had fun, oh and they really helped each other too!

So what did we do?

Sally made sandragraphs plates with the girls during one of their sessions. During the next session, she borrowed two cases of gorgeous wood type, did a writing exercise and then each girl picked out a word that best described themselves.

Once they got to PRESS, we first printed the sandragraphs and then the words. Sandragraphs on the Vandercook. Words on the Poco.

Totally awesome.

It was really fun working with Shay, Tehay, Sam, Lana, Jess and of course Sally. I could not have done it without Pam Buchanan. Best teaching assistant/partner maybe ever.

Great fun.