SEATTLE — For more than 40 years, a family business in Seattle has kept an antiquated trade alive using century-old tools and genuine passion.
Day Moon Press in the Beacon Hill neighborhood specializes in letter press printing, using manually-powered machines to make “relief prints” by applying ink to a surface and pressing it into paper.
"Pretty much in its essence [its] unchanged since the 1500's, 1600's,” said Maura Shapley, who founded the small business.
The age-old trade is celebrating a renaissance, but don't call it a comeback for Shapley.
"I always had it, so I just kind of meandered in to the letterpress revival - I've been doing it all along,” she said.
She opened Day Moon in 1976 with one printing machine, and ran it for decades with her husband Jack.
"If I try to describe very, very quickly to anybody what it is that we're doing physically, it's like 'Well we print like it's 1932 and we're happy there,’” Shapley said.
These days, machines built in the 1920’s are still running - but Shapley turned operations over to the best apprentice she ever had. Her daughter, Tess LeNoir.
"I came home from school every day, here,” LeNoir laughed.
She once treated type like toys, but is now committed to preserving the antiquated technique. LeNoir combines her art degree with the thoughtful processes required in letter press printing. It requires math, engineering and patience.
"It is still just fundamentally difficult and complicated in a way that means you have to care a lot about doing what you're doing in order to do it at all,” LeNoir said.
Day Moon prints everything from greeting cards and invitations to decorative poetry and event posters.
One day, the machines and type will wear out, but LeNoir doesn't want Day Moon to function as a museum.
"It's not exactly a Stradivarious violin but it should still be in continuous use in order to be useful and relevant,” she said.
LeNoir is making it even more relevant, by using old feats of engineering to create new art forms. Though Shapley is technically retired, she still spends a lot of time at the shop to watch the future of what she created - as a printer, and a parent.
"It's a marvelous thing for me to see this extension of what I would have loved to do if I'd been smarter and braver,” she said, laughing. "I'm amazed every day. I love it."
In addition to printing jobs, Day Moon hosts small workshops and school tours. It located at 3320 Beacon Ave. South and is open Monday – Saturday from 12 – 5 p.m.
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