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In the summer of 2016, Clifton Meador and I had a residency at the Estonian Printing Museum in Tartu. The museum was founded in 2010, and the core of the collection was formed from obsolete letterpress equipment and type from a few Soviet-era printshops.
We printed a series of three unique books, a portfolio of wood type specimens, and a very oblong book celebrating the Emajõgi river, which runs through Tartu.
The three unique books—Eesti I, II, and III—were printed using H. N. Werkman’s hot printing method on a Dingler iron hand press. Paper is placed in the press first and then inked type is placed on top before engaging the platen. The process allows for fluid and experimental designs that would be difficult to achieve using type in the conventional way.
Each of these three books were inspired by one of the large numbers of library discards and other unwanted books that the museum receives for resale, upcycling, and recycling. Most were printed during the Soviet period, which produced massive quantities of relatively poor quality and relatively uninteresting books.