Made by Hand

We always loved the space at The Printhaus Workshop in Canton and knew it’d make a great venue for CreativeMornings. Some of our best mornings were held at The Abacus and The Printhaus has a similar feel of a place truly loved, well looked after and run independently for the benefit of the creative community.

For us, the right combination of venue and speaker is what can really make an event special. And we see Nick Hand and The Printhaus as just that—the perfect fit. Nick is literally keeping a traditional form of printing alive at his Letterpress Collective in Bristol and The Printhaus works hard running a not for profit art space and screen printing workshop to provide the local community with a unique chance to learn new skills from each other and from the talented team. It’s safe to say their hearts are in it.

Originally trained as a graphic designer Nick is a massive advocate of traditional craftsmen and women from across the country. He has created some beautiful work in the form of his own books, Conversations on the Coast, the Hiut Denim Yearbook and various other Bristol based arts projects. We had high expectations and the morning didn’t disappoint, lots of familiar and new faces, lots of chat and lots of coffee.

We ran a competition of sorts and collaborated with The Printhaus to produce a limited run of hand screen printed John&Jane posters. We loved them and thankfully everyone who came along seemed to as well. To echo what we felt was a great pairing in Nick and The Printhaus we asked for attendees to think about their favourite pairings or collaborations. We got some brilliant responses!

We really enjoyed hearing about Nick’s adventures. Both his adventures in print and those on his bike, and especially when these two things crossed over. Nick loves printing on his specially adapted letterpress bicycle and letting his ink dry on the cobbles. What I loved hearing about most was Nick’s approach to learning about people and their creative processes. It seems he’s always open to learning from every single person he meets, regardless of age or profession and also to new experiences. He reminded us that you have to have these adventures whilst you still can. 

I also liked his approach to choosing which adventure to tackle next, saying if he has a good idea and it’s still around a year or two later in his mind then it’s most likely something that should be acted upon. It was great seeing Nick’s photographs and film from his travels, it got us thinking about legacy and how people’s work can live beyond their own lifetimes.

Nick also showed us some of his work and kindly donated a signed copy of his book for our competition, the attention to detail and the passion for cycling is tangible looking at Conversations on the Coast. It’s a thing of beauty.

Lastly we’d like to thank Melin and the rest of the CreativeMornings team for being so gracious in supporting us to arrange a CreativeMornings that we always wanted to run. 

Big thanks also to Jude, Tom and Phil from The Printhaus for being so accommodating and obliging. You welcomed the CreativeMornings/Cardiff community so warmly and it was a real pleasure preparing for the event with you. We’ll definitely be heading back for their Cardiff Artists’ Books event in September, it looks really interesting and plus—Nick will be there with his letterpress printing bike. Hopefully see you there.