project: mohai

seattle's museum of history and industry (mohai) received a donation of ten giant woodblocks from historic seattle (and one portland) theaters. these were carved for printing and i was asked to print a few sets for them. this was by far the most interesting and fun project i've done so far.

first, mohai's images of the nine woodblocks i printed:
blue mouse colonial everett granada
madrona metropolitan music hall orpheum
paramount      

the process:
paper tower dirty block clean block on press
paper is cut to 3' x 4' from 10 yard rolls the wood needs to be brushed and cleaned   the woodblocks are carefully lined up on the press
inking inked release completed print
a giant roller is used to ink up the wood inked wood after printing, the paper is carefully removed final print!
misregister laura dirty paramount clean paramount
most of the blocks are made up of several different pieces. this is how it looks when they shift while being printed. laura reiter, one of my assistants who helped with this project cleaning the paramount blocks. this really shows the separate pieces. cleaned!
inky madrona printed madrona dirty colonial clean colonial