Just in case you thought we only had Heidelberg presses, here is a teeny one that lives on the reception desk. It is a miniature wooden handpress, ancestor to the Heidelbergs.
by Carrie Valenzuela, letterpress printer. 12:29 p.m.
July 1st was our monthly Boxcar potluck where we cook for each other and talk with those we don’t see too often. We feasted, we laughed, we cried (with laughter), we were serenaded by printer Dave, a true renaissance man. Not only is he a letterpress printer, he’s also a carpenter, a motorcyclist, a glass etcher, good joke teller, and as we were lucky enough to find out, a talented crooner, guitarist, & harmonica player- all at the same time! Kudos to you, Dave!
by Carrie Valenzuela, letterpress printer. 1:30 p.m.
Some of our Windmills primed and ready for printing!
by Carrie Valenzuela, letterpress printer. 1:06 p.m.
Heidelberg Windmill,
You are a glorious workhorse!
With you, so many wonderful things can be letterpressed & die cut & scored.
I love you, windmill! And all of the other presses too!
by Carrie Valenzuela, letterpress printer. 11:18 a.m.
Always on the hunt for new ways to improve our eco practices and to build great new partnerships, Boxcar Press recently teamed up with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as an EPA Green Power Partner. The Green Power Partnership is designed to encourage organizations to seek out renewable energy sources and to reduce carbon emissions. Boxcar is 100% wind powered through NativeEnergy
, an awesome organization that allows businesses and individuals to purchase carbon offsets and renewable energy credits. NativeEnergy actively works to promote Native American, family farm, and community-based renewable energy projects to help make renewable energy more accessible. It’s a pleasure for us to be working with the EPA and NativeEnergy to help promote renewable energy and we look forward to seeing an increasing number of businesses getting involved in the future.
Questions about how to get your letterpress shop powered by wind? Drop us an email at
info@boxcarpress.com and we’d be happy to tell you about how we became wind powered.
Everywhere, from supermarkets to superstores, the move toward more environmentally friendly products is growing exponentially. What used to be offered only at stores like Whole Foods are now common at Target. Letterpress printers are joining this trend in an attempt to show their true color: green.
The renaissance of letterpress has been one huge reduce/reuse/recycle extravaganza. Proof presses considered obsolete twenty years ago are now selling in the thousands of dollars, with prices for small hobby presses rising similarly. Everything is snapped up, from orphaned wood type and single cuts to pied lead, with demand outpacing supply. As new printers join the fray, there are numerous possibilities for creating a greener shop that’s easier on the environment and makes for a safer workplace too.
Boxcar Press has been supporting American Forests in a variety of ways this year — we’re planting one tree for every platemaking order over $100 in 2008; we match tree donations that our customers make if they purchase trees during checkout on our web site; and we’ve done various promotions for our custom printing, like donating 100% of certain sample purchases to American Forests, or giving printing discounts if our customers donate a certain amount of trees. We just did a year to date tally of our tree donations, and saw that we have planted 4,168 trees through American Forests this year so far! Each new tree planted by American Forests will absorb roughly 740 pounds of carbon dioxide, so doing some fancy-pants multiplication, we found that our trees will absorb roughly 3,084,320 pounds of CO2. Pretty cool stuff! (Photo of tree & forest from a letterpress photo shoot in Buttermilk Falls – Ithaca, NY)