Two days ago, I DIYed a bangle necklace, read the Sunday supplements from the paper (best!), caught a train to Footscray and went to the open day and fundraiser at the MMoP. It smelled of my childhood. My grandparents owned and ran the oldest letterpress printers in Pune, my hometown. Maybe that explains my love of typography. The metallic blocks, the sticky inks and the wooden cabinetry all brought back memories I didn’t know I had. I remembered playing with the the cast metal pieces and the movable type, amazed at how many drawers and compartments there were in this one space, my half Scottish grandmother Reggie or Aai, as everybody called her, behind the main desk ignoring arthritic fingers and knitting little sweaters as if on auto-pilot. I remember all the workers drank hot tea in tiny glass tumblers, they bound all the blank pages left over in my school notebooks into fat scrapbooks at the end of each year. I remember dipping my hands in vats of adhesive and pulling it off like a loose layer of dead skin with only our dogs to share my disgust and awe with.
But I digress, The MMoP is a truly marvellous place. Here are photos.
There was a beautiful old typewriter and some lovely stamps and things. Oh and the bathroom was decoupaged in its entirety. Quite incredible.
Visit their website.
36 Moreland St, Footscray, VIC 3011
Wow I never knew this place existed and I live in Footscray! I might check it out, but I just want to play with it all not watch. i love print as a medium.
Well it’s a working museum, everything was out for the touching, so I’m sure you could.
Lovely to see and hear the latest from the Print Museum. I spent quite a bit of time there over summer, working on the biggest proofing press, working on a huge poster made of jumbled type faces (search letterpress on http://www.meliors.net to see pix). An amazing resource for Melbourne.
hmmm maybe I’ll check it out!