Month: December 2025

Moveable Type Studio x Shelbyville Bookbinding

Over one hot, stormy Brisbane weekend, Moveable Type Studio partnered with bookmaker Michelle Vandermeer of Shelbyville Bookbinding to deliver a two-day workshop introducing participants to the slow, deliberate craft of letterpress printing and Coptic bookbinding. What unfolded was an ambitious, rewarding, and deeply hands-on experience that reminded all of us why heritage processes endure, and why they’re worth preserving.

Day One: Letterpress with Moveable Type Studio

Saturday was hosted within the Moveable Type shipping-container studio at the Paint Factory. Despite the heat, our participants arrived ready to learn, experiment, and persevere.

Clint led the foundational session on letterpress: understanding points and picas, the differences between wood and lead type, lock-ups, composition, and the realities of setting type by hand. Meanwhile, Barnaby Florence and Dzintra Menesis kept the presses running so participants could focus on making work rather than waiting for ink to dry.

Our aim was ambitious, produce enough prints to give everyone a meaningful selection of colour spreads for the next day’s bookbinding. By the end, we had created around seven print designs, five of which were entirely designed and printed by the participants themselves. Many came from craft-based backgrounds, relief printmaking, quilting, mixed media, and it was inspiring to watch them translate those understandings into compositional and colour decisions in letterpress.

Everyone left exhausted, ink-stained, and genuinely excited to see their work transformed into books the next day. The heat at least worked in our favour: fast drying times meant all prints were ready to cut down and bind.

Day Two: Coptic Bookbinding with Shelbyville Bookbinding

On Sunday, we shifted into Michelle Vandermeer’s studio for a five-hour deep dive into Coptic bookbinding. Michelle guided the group through constructing a seven-section book using the prints from Day One, cut down to size and reorganised into thoughtful sequences.

Her teaching approach, patient, precise, and generous, contrasted beautifully with the energy of the previous day’s printing. For Moveable Type Studio, this was our first time fully participating in the bookbinding process ourselves, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with the same people who had printed in the heat with us the day before. It was grounding, humbling, and incredibly informative.

By the end of the session, everyone walked away with a completed Coptic-bound book , and a real appreciation for the slowness of the method. Many of our participants work full-time, some with families, yet they committed to the full weekend. Their dedication reinforced how important these heritage crafts are, not only as creative practices but as spaces for slowing down, focusing, and reconnecting with process.

Why This Workshop Worked:
A few reflections stood out clearly:

Intentional slowness matters.
Letterpress and Coptic binding both demand patience. That patience created the depth of engagement.

Participants were genuinely committed.
The weather alone could have chased people off. It didn’t.

The two processes complement each other.
Printing one day and binding the next created a fulfilling, closed-loop experience.

Michelle’s teaching elevated the weekend.
Her clarity, structure, and experience balanced our more energetic print day perfectly.

We learned alongside participants.
As bookbinding beginners ourselves, sharing the experience strengthened the studio’s connection to the people we teach.

Looking Ahead

This workshop confirmed that there’s real potential for longer-term, term-based engagement: opportunities for participants to visit the studio throughout the year, build a body of printed work, and later assemble it into books with Michelle. There’s scope to incorporate other art forms into these volumes as well, creating multi-layered “creative field journals” that document a year in making.

This two-day workshop affirmed what we’ve believed for a long time: heritage craft thrives when it’s shared, slowed down, and integrated into everyday creative practice. And we’re excited to continue refining, expanding, and collaborating so more people can experience it.

The Moveable Type Studio’s last Flying Arts funded workshop for 2025 found its home at the Toowoomba Art Society. Established in 1925, the Society has long been a cornerstone of regional arts, offering studios, galleries, and workshops that nurture creativity across generations. Toowoomba, Queensland’s largest inland city and the heart of the Darling Downs, lies two hours west of Brisbane. Its streets and surrounds carry a remarkable heritage, making it a fitting finale for the tour.

This stop marked the conclusion of the Moveable Type Studio’s 2025 regional Queensland tour. The journey began earlier in the year at Artspace Mackay, coinciding with the Libris Artist Book Awards. Across workshops and public demonstrations we collaborated with poets and printmakers, while connecting deeply with the local gallery and its community.

From there, we travelled south to Rockhampton, joining the Rockhampton River Festival for three days of music, entertainment, and hands-on letterpress with the public along the Fitzroy River. After returning to our home base at Yeronga’s Paint Factory, the former Taubmans Paint Factory, built in 1957 and now a thriving creative precinct, we prepared for the final stage of our Flying Arts supported regional tour: Toowoomba.

Unlike our Central Queensland engagements, which unfolded in our 40‑foot customised letterpress print shop, Toowoomba experienced the smaller version: our converted tradies trailer. Outfitted with two tabletop Poco proof presses, wood type, and all the sundries needed, it became a mobile studio ready to share letterpress with the people. 

The Toowoomba Art Society welcomed us to Culliford House, its purpose‑built home on Godsall Street, located right beside Queens Park and the Botanic Gardens. We set up our pop‑up press in the courtyard, with leafy views across the gardens and only a short stroll to the Cobb+Co Museum, making it an inspiring setting for the final workshop of the tour.

Ink & Drink Evening

On a warm November Sunday afternoon, we rolled into the courtyard, set the presses in place, prepared the plates, and readied ourselves for the Ink & Drink gathering. Local artists joined us, and photographer John Elliott, renowned for his outback documentary work, swung past during the setup to share a quick hello before the evening began.

Our typographic composition drew directly from Toowoomba’s identity: the Carnival of Flowers, its celebrated botanical gardens and tree‑lined streets, and the city’s reputation as a destination for heritage, vintage treasures, and antique shops. We created a collage of stereo blocks, echoing the finds one might stumble upon in those shops. The poster carried our narrative: *a little bit of vintage, a lot of fabulous*.

Participants worked across the two Poco presses, printing first passes with stereotypes and laser‑engraved plates, then overprinting with traditional wood type. The result was a simple yet striking two‑colour hand‑printed keepsake. Wine, cheese, and conversation under the stars rounded out the evening, everything you’d expect from the Toowoomba Art Society. 

Sunday Workshop

The next morning began with breakfast at Ground Up Coffee, a place of beautiful textures and the kind of café you return to day after day. By 10 a.m, our full‑day letterpress workshop commenced in the courtyard and studio spaces, joined by members of the Saturday Printmakers. 

This workshop built on the introductions from Ink & Drink, but went deeper: tools of the trade, points and picas, lock‑ups, make‑readies, and the intricacies of traditional letterpress. The Toowoomba Art Society and Saturday Printmakers had recently acquired their own equipment, so this was a chance to strengthen their skills and understanding. 

The narrative for the keepsake was inspired by Toowoomba’s heritage and blooms, paired with the slow, deliberate pace of letterpress: Time unfolds slowly amongst the flowers.

We printed from a laser‑engraved plate depicting a Banksia, based on an illustration by Sydney Parkinson, the botanical artist who accompanied Joseph Banks on James Cook’s first voyage. The image comes from Banks’ Florilegium, the monumental collection of engravings published from those original drawings. Over this botanical motif, we set traditional wood type, combining upper‑ and lowercase forms to create a layered composition.

This was a wonderful way to conclude the Movable Type Studio’s 2025 regional tour, made possible through Flying Arts and the Regional Arts Fund. We thank Robert Heather for his support, Tracy Heathwood and her team at Mackay Art Space, Tanya Woooley from Advance Rockhampton and the Rockhampton Shire Council, and all those who helped bring this journey together. 

This project was made possible through the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund, delivered by Regional Arts Australia and administered in Queensland by Flying Arts Alliance. We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to share the craft of letterpress with communities across the state. Without this support, reaching thousands of people throughout Queensland would have been a significant challenge. Thanks to the Fund, we’ve been able to celebrate the timeless art of letterpress and build connections that will continue to grow into 2026.