A visit to the Arts and Crafts Press - Bruce Smith and Yoshiko Yamamoto

A visit with my friends Bruce and Yoshiko Smith

 

I drove up to Port Orchard, Washington to visit with my friends Bruce and Yoshiko Smith. I brought an offering of brilliant yellow and orange tulips. While Yoshiko placed them in a hand crafted vase, Bruce took me on a tour of the studio. Bruce and Yoshiko are living their Arts and Crafts values with heart and soul.

Limited edition linoleum block print by Yoshiko Yamamoto,
of an early morning view of the Colvos Passage, near the seaside town of Olalla,
looking eastward towards Vashon Island...

As Bruce showed me the Arts and Crafts Press print shop, their apprentice, Ryan Rodel*, tended to the letterpress printing press as it clattered through a short run of one of Yoshiko's original note card designs. Bruce told the tale of his recent adventure picking up the shop's second press.

I reveled in the irony as Bruce Smith, the Arts and Crafts scholar and Greene Brothers expert, described how he recently drove a truck, loaded down with wares from his friend, Dard Hunter III's Dard Hunter Studios, over the Rockies, through winter storms, to deliver the 1,250 pound Vandercook Model 4 press, so that Yoshiko could produce her hand cut block prints. The things we do for love and art!

End of part 1 of this post... More to follow...

 * (Parents are Kevin Rodel and Susan Mack)    http://www.kevinrodel.com/