PRESS is on the MOVE!

Five years ago this summer I founded PRESS up the street from our current location as part of DownStreet Art, never imaging that I would still be here on Main Street printing with the Vandercook and sharing the magic of letterpress, five years later.

As many of you may know, this project was supposed to be a temporary one until our space on MCLA’s campus was renovated and available. Well five years later it is, and this weekend, October 24th, we moved to Bowman Hall.

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So what next?

Our storefront space PRESS is now exPRESS, a collaborative home to Williamstown Film Festival’s Wind-Up Fest, IS 183 Art School of the Berkshires classes, the Berkshire Cultural Resource Center, PRESS on the Move and new home for MCLA student activities events.

Some of our PRESS equipment will remain at 49 Main Street. And you will still be able to see us in action there and purchase our calendar, pick-up our mantra cards and see the magic of letterpress. We will be printing on our little Golding on wheels at different events and who knows where. Keep your eyes on this blog as we unfold that adventure.

At our campus location, we will continue to print, create and host workshops and events, in addition to collaborating with other departments on campus and offering classes to students. In November we will have a welcome party in the new space as we celebrate the completion of the 2016 calendar. Sign up for our mailing list to get notification of that date.

The most important piece, is that PRESS is not closing. We are transitioning to something different. What that exactly is will evolve over the next year.

I can’t thank you, reader, enough. For reading this blog, coming to our openings, purchasing our prints, supporting our programs. With that sentiment, I would like to send out the following thank you’s:

To all of you who have supported us through your presence, kind words and shared love of this printed medium. Without your enthusiasm for what this is, it would never had made it. Mayor Alcombright and the city of North Adams, we love you!

There are many people at MCLA who encouraged this idea from the start and helped make it possible. I especially want to thank Cindy Brown, Jerry Desmarais, Jim Stakeanas, and Jonathan Secor for their belief, guidance and support of this project.

To Terrie Pratt for helping with all things administrative.

To the countless artists, poets and printmakers who generously allowed us to show and sell their work.

To Douglas Molin, for always being there for me.

But most importantly to the student and community interns and volunteers. You are the ones who have made this place possible from our very first moment, from the small to the big jobs, you are the ones who make this place hum. I am forever grateful and humbled by your efforts.

I would like to especially thank Jonas McCaffery and Nicole LeClair. In the past two year, you have been my right and left hands. Your devotion to this vision and this project have fueled me in so many ways. I will never be able to thank you enough.

And to all the student and community interns and volunteers. Thank you. As you read the names of these wonderful people, I invite you to think of all the people who have helped you and who you have helped over the years and send them gratitude, and to do the same for each of the people who have helped make PRESS PRESS.

Kate Hall       Marli LaGrone       Sarah Howard       Jason Peabody       Pam Buchanan

Andrew Cross       Sharbreon Plummer       Isaac Wood       Emily Cohane-Mann

Hayley Parker       Adriana Alexatos       Antoine Scalbert       Sophia Nora Giordano

Leeya Rose Jackson       Angela DiGennaro       Ben Charbeaneau        Misty Elliot

Michaela Jebb       Carrie Converse       GW Dunbar       Emily Breunig

❤ Melanie