November, 1999                                                                                                                  Number 89

 

 

A New Home for Baby

 

          During the AAPA convention in Little Rock, while drooling over John Horn's wooden hand press, I asked if anyone knew the name of the craftsmen who made the wooden hand press that once greeted visitors to Mackenzie Harris Type Founders in San Francisco. Not only did Berry Schrader know Richard Hick's name, he had his address. I wrote a letter in hopes that Mr. Hicks still lived in Cedar Crest. In the return mail, both electronic and snail, came a most welcome response, photos of some of Dicks treasures added to his offer to either sell me his personal press or build me a new one of my choice.

 

          At the tail end of a much needed vacation, Sally and I paid a visit to  Shirley and Dick's lovely home on the dusk side of a desert summer day in New Mexico. We, by that time, had worked our way back from several days in Colorado via the shopping trail connecting outlet malls, with specialty shops in Denver to artists galleries in Taos, fashion shops in Santa Fe, to points of colorful interests along the silver- adorned reservations of the Southwest.

 

     Surprisingly there was still room in the car. For some unknown reason to me, we were driving Sally's Pathfinder having left my truck at home. Perhaps I did not want to admit up front that my hope all along the trip necessarily included a stop in New Mexico to see and buy this special of all special presses.  Hiding my secret intentions not longer, we were in the A-Frame sipping wine and beer listening in total fascination the details of Dick's ability to craft Kentucky rifles, carousels horses, and of course printing presses. As we gazed around the pinion pine forest along the eastern side of the famous Sandia Mountains, we admired the small gage railroad obviously a project of love intended as much for the Grand Children as for the Grand Parents. Clever and interesting people, both.

 

      As the day turned pastel, we ventured into the basement to see the press. Wow, what a beauty. I did not truly believe that Dick would sell this masterpiece. I toyed, however  briefly, with the notion to take him up on the offer to build me one. My patience, always a short suite of mine, ran thin again. After I convinced my self, largely when Dick said he would build himself another press, I wrote the check to gain title to the seventh of thirty some hand made presses by Richard Hicks. The Plaque on the press reads:

 

 

This Printing Press has been made in the style of a 17th Century field press. With the chest of types it was easy to move from place to place by wagon. I will use it to print a few small books in the manner of the first printers.

Richard Hicks

Cedar Crest, New Mexico

Model No. 1  1979  Serial No. 7

 

 

     Dick helped me take the press apart, with love and care,  explain to me each and every part and how the brass parts are hand cast, the way the mahogany polished to a hand smooth finish,  how to take care of the working parts, and then helped me to somehow fit it into the car. 

 

         In short, this press was his baby. It had spent a former summer in the Phoenix Library teaching children the power of the press using the anniversary of the French revolution as the example. Baby has traveled in the back of small cars taking it's the power to fairs, schools, and exhibits since it's birth in 1979. Truly Baby is a working press spreading the word and power of the printed word to the generations building our new millennium.

 

      Baby has a new home now and I hope to provide the same her the same opportunities to print the powerful words that have made our future as bright as the brilliant stars.

     

 

 

 

GEMPress