Aberdare Art

Bench patterns

As part of the printing heritage project in Aberdare; Sebastien Boyeson, the artist who designed the new benches and other features in the town centre gave a talk on how he came to produce the designs he did. Here are some of the patterns and samples he brought along. The bench supports, made from cast iron, actually represent individual cast sorts. The front is the type face. and the back represents the foot and groove of the sort. The rest of the benches are made from aluminium.

The theme for his artwork follows the brief to produce benches that would reflect the rich printing heritage of Aberdare.

Adana letterpress

Adan Five-Three

We recently aquired this small printing press on e bay to demonstrate how letterpress worked as part of the project Lucy is doing with the town heritage initiative and the history of printing in Aberdare.

We want to use it to make some invitation cards for the exhibition in the museum in February. As we have run out of time to buy suitable typefaces I made up some words out of lino which I set in the chase at the same height as the type. Its a great little machine and is ideal for invitation cards, business cards and greetings cards.

Aberdare Printing History

Linocut mast-heads and block type

 

Alongside the actual refurbishment of some of the buildings in Aberdare town centre, the Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI), partly funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), is celebrating the culture of the town through raising awareness of its history. One such area is the rich printing heritage of Aberdare especially in the mid to late nineteenth century. This was a time of great change not only in the developing technologies of the industrial revolution but also in the areas of religion,  politics and  social structures. Aberdare newspapers played an important role in this change as their readership included much of south and mid Wales.

As part of the THI programme, Lucy is working with a class in a local primary school to develop an art led project based around printmaking promoting Aberdare's printing heritage. I am supporting her by producing a number of educational aids including copies of old newspaper mastheads (made from lino) and large block type. The idea of the type is to show how letterpress was compiled before the days of computers, although these letters are also large enough to be used as stampers.

Once the work with the childeren is completed it will form part of an exhibition at Cynon Valley Museum in half term week.