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Kathryn started Blackbird Letterpress in Lafayette, Louisiana, in her friends' house (Pudd and Leigh Anne, from back where her people are from) in 2003. Blackbird began with the purchase of a Chandler and Price "Old Series" platen letterpress (circa 1904) from a long-time printer in Hammond, Louisiana. The type came from a printer outside of Chicago. One crisp October weekend (well, crisp in Illinois, not necessarily in Louisiana), Pudd and Kathryn flew to the big midwestern city, loaded a couple tons of type and cabinets and other goodies out of a basement into a moving truck, and drove it back to Bayou Country. A collection of vintage printer's cuts came from a long-time printer in New Iberia, Louisiana (the trip was luckily much shorter that time).
We work out of a mural-clad building in Baton Rouge, which we share with a cool metalworking business and three frisky guard dogs.
Kathryn Hunter was trained as a printmaker and has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking (1999) from Montana State University, Bozeman, and a Master of Fine Arts in printmaking (2003) from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. See more of her fine art work here.
Rebecca Kreisler earned an MFA in printmaking at LSU in 2011. She currently teaches at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. See her work at rebeccakreisler.com.
Hope Amico is a student in printmaking at Louisiana State University. You can find her awesome products at gutwrench.etsy.com, and all about the Keep Writing Postcard project at keepwritingpostcards.tumblr.com
The three pups below are the original guard dogs. To see a fun trick that these three dogs like to do, check out this video, Jaws of Doom. But be prepared, it's a little scary. |
