Letterpress Paste-Ups in Old North Show Off a Historic Art

SPECIAL TO THE RFT

A building in Old North now displays the work of the Ladies of Letterpress.

If you’ve seen printed paste-up slogans, flowers and butterflies around St. Louis’ Old North neighborhood in recent weeks, you’re in on something that’s no longer a secret: Letterpress printing is back.

The paste-up work now decorating boarded-up buildings is the work of the Ladies of Letterpress, who are redefining the historic printing technique to spark community and connectedness. 

“There isn’t anything like it in the letterpress world in America,” says Kseniya Thomas, cofounder and current director of Ladies of Letterpress. 

The organization’s conference, PRINT TOWN, recently took place at Central Print (2624 North 14th Street), a St. Louis book arts studio and letterpress printing museum, and sought to empowerthe voices of the Old North community. Participants posted the letterpress-printed signs of messages portraying togetherness on boarded up buildings in the community.

“It’s kind of what we needed after Covid. We needed more togetherness,” Thomas says.

SPECIAL TO THE RFT

Another paste-up job in Old North.

PRINT TOWN included community voices in all stages of its work. Thomas and Central Print Director Marie Oberkirsch met with Old North residents to determine the best locationto paste up the prints.

Although Thomas is based in Philadelphia, she worked closely with Oberkirsch, who lives and works in Old North. PRINT TOWN’s work is part of a larger effort to rehabilitate the north St. Louis neighborhood after decades of disinvestment beginning in the 1950s.

They found “buildings that looked like they needed a bit of a lift-up to warm up a space that may have been neglected,” Oberkirsch says. 

During the first day of the conference, participants met in groups to decide on what they would print and the desired aesthetic. By the end of day two, the prints were out in the community. “Participants loved it,” Thomas reports. “[It] looked really good, it brightened the neighborhood up a little bit.”

Thomas and Jessica C. White founded the Ladies of Letterpress in 2008 as an international community of letterpress connoisseurs passionate about reigniting letterpress printing through conferences such as PRINT TOWN that can educate, unite and empower local communities across the country. Although events are open to everyone, Thomas says she “wanted to start an organization that was primarily for women.” Their first conference in 2010 was a huge hit, as more than175 people attended.

The St. Louis conference, held in September, was the 13th annual for the Ladies of Letterpress. "Old North is a special place and we thought it would be a good place, with resident permission, to host an event,” Thomas notes. 

Thomas says the response was so positive that they’re thinking about hosting another conference in St. Louis in 2024. The paste-up work, adds Oberkirsch, was “definitely noticed and appreciated by residents. A lot of people talked about it being there in the community, I think it was a nice surprise.”

Letterpress is the oldest form of printing in the modern world and has historically been used as a means of production. The Ladies of Letterpress hope to change this narrative by using it to “make art and make it active in the community,” Thomas says. “You’re making something that has a message, and you don’t have a chance to do that every day.”

Learn more about the Ladies of Letterpress at ladiesofletterpress.com and about Central Print at centralprint.org.

SPECIAL TO THE RFT

The messages seek to inspire.