I am happy to announce that I’ve been chosen to receive a Fulbright award to study Book Conservation at West Dean College in West Sussex England. I’ll be studying for two years, beginning September 2010.

Community engagement and cultural exchange are integral parts of the Fulbright program, and accordingly I am looking to conduct free workshops in letterpress printing and press maintenance in the UK. I’m searching for printers in the UK who are interested in hosting these workshops (especially if they have a Vandercook, FAG, or similar press). I would love to reach out to a younger generation of artists and printers in the UK.

I will also be available for hire for Vandercook press maintenance or more complicated repairs.

If anyone is interested, please contact me at alex@press817.com

thanks, Alex Brooks

press eight seventeen – lexington letterpress

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A first generation college graduate, Alex Brooks studied Creative Writing at the University of Kentucky. During his college years he was a faithful apprentice at the King Library Press in Lexington (www.uky.edu/Libraries/KLP/tour) – a press modeled after the Bodleian Library Press (www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/csb/bibliographyroom.html) and founded by Carolyn & Victor Hammer. After graduating in 2003, he worked for five years as a waiter while building his own letterpress business, Press Eight Seventeen. Along the way he’s made ends meet as a freelance writer, construction worker, teacher, press mechanic, artist, and pedi-cab driver.

Since 2008 he has been solely occupied as owner & operator of Press 817, a small letterpress printshop and book bindery, where he makes posters, invitations, custom enclosures, and hand printed & bound special edition books. The print shop contains presses and machines (all restored to working order by Brooks) that date from 1887 to the 1960′s.

Brooks has also had a solo show of his works, curated a group show of young letterpress printers from across the USA and Canada, apprenticed at the Dale Guild Typefoundry, hunted typefoundries & printshops in Japan, and moved approx 70,000 lbs. of new old stock type at NA Graphics in Silverton, Colorado. In 2010 he started a Community Supported Art project where 150 shareholders receive a hand printed woodcut every month of the year.

In his free time he travels, writes, builds and rides bicycles, makes woodcut prints, gardens, and plays bike polo.

During his Fulbright year he will be studying book conservation at West Dean College (www.westdean.org.uk).

Articles by Alex Brooks

Gray Zeitz & the Larkspur Press : http://www.larkspurpress.com/articles/SS-mag-9-09.pdf

Printmaker Ross Zirkle Remembrance : http://www.woodengravers.net/B&B38.pdf

Graphic Novelist J.T. Dockery : http://www.bizlex.com/Articles-c-2009-03-04-85452.113117_Art_from_the_Fringes.html

Pedicab Confessions : http://noclexington.com/?p=609

press 817 flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/press817/