Watching Angie Dell work a letterpress is like watching someone ride a bike. That makes sense for Angie, who says writing should engage all of our senses.
The Analogs is a production of KJZZ’s The Show in Phoenix, Arizona. This episode was produced, written and edited by Sam Dingman, with additional production by Amber Victoria Singer. The cover art is by Claire Lawton. The Show’s executive producer is Amy Silverman. Special thanks to Angie Dell.
Transcript
Sam Dingman From KJZZ’s The Show, this is The Analogs — stories about people who make things by hand, and what those things tell us about those people. This is Episode 5: The Rhythm Of The Press.
[ANALOGS THEME MUSIC PLAYS]
Sam Dingman Angie Dell’s letterpress machine stands in the corner of a workshop in downtown Phoenix. The press is about 3.5 feet tall, and it’s an elegant combination of levers, cranks and wheels. The press is flanked by a pair of windows, because Angie likes working in sunlight. There’s no outlet in this particular corner of the workshop. But that’s no problem, because the press doesn’t need to be plugged in.
Angie Dell This press is from 1911, so it’s over 100 years old. And they just don’t make ‘em like they used to.
Sam Dingman Yeah. Yeah — just looking at it, I mean it’s all wood and really heavy, I don’t know, is that steel, or iron?
Angie Dell Iron. I had to use a forklift to bring it into the space, because it cannot be moved. It is super heavy.
Sam Dingman To run the letterpress, Angie has to practically climb on board the thing.
Sam Dingman These are footpedals here, if I’m not mistaken?
Angie Dell Yes, this is an operating footpedal, this is the brake …
Sam Dingman Printing this way is a full-body process. First, Angie squeezes a spiral pattern of ink onto a large metal plate. Angie’s feet, meanwhile, start working the pedals, which makes the wheels start to spin. If you squint, it’s almost like Angie’s riding a unicycle that doesn’t move. As the wheels turn, a pair of rollers begin sliding back and forth across the ink spiral, gradually coating the circular plate with a thick layer of ink.
[SOUND OF PRESS RUNNING]
Angie Dell And the ink disk turns a little bit every time the rollers come up and down, as you can see, it actually has a process for moving it. So, it’s a really beautiful … [LAUGHS] I love watching the ink get dispersed over the disk, cause it always creates a different pattern every time.
Sam Dingman And you’re doing this all with the foot pedal.
Angie Dell Yes. … We’ll use this large wheel with your hand here, just to get a little bit of momentum, to get these heavy pieces moving. … And then, with your foot — it can take a little bit of getting used to for people who are new to it — you start to learn the rhythm of the press, and how much pressure it needs to keep moving fluidly.
Sam Dingman You can probably hear the physical effort in Angie’s voice — the sheer amount of energy it takes just to get the letterpress going is intense. And that’s all before you print a single word. Angie doesn’t mind, though.
Angie Dell I love being able to manipulate the machine with my body, instead of just pressing a button. It makes me feel a little bit more connected. … It helps me think more clearly … you know, take it out of the realm of the brain into the full body.
Angie uses the letterpress to make books — soup to nuts. Angie writes the words, then prints those words on paper using the letterpress, and then binds the whole thing together.
Angie Dell My way of thinking about writing has completely changed because of my passion for book arts. When I started off, I would always come in with a piece of writing, and be like, ok how can I make this into a book, how can that work? And … nowadays I’m often thinking more about form. And the way that the book can enhance the text.
Sam Dingman A long time ago, Angie wanted to be a regular novelist. But not anymore. Bookmaking is a way for Angie to tell more of the story.
Angie Dell It does make me feel more connected to it, because … I grew up really struggling with depression. And I’ve just found over time … that if I am sitting still, if I am looking at a computer, if I am looking at a screen … that’s what gets me sort of caught up too much in my own head. And tunneling into a heaviness … I think I was writing a lot of dramatic or heavy things as a writer. And I had a harder time figuring out how to be, like, joyful, as a writer. … For me, the physical process is what brings me joy. There’s something deeply connected with our sensory body experience that … stimulates our brain in a different way. So if I’m going to be spending all day or staying up late at night finishing a project, I would much rather be doing something that makes me feel alive, and makes me feel awake, than something where I’m just like sinking further and further into my psyche, if that makes any sense.
Sam Dingman On the day I visited the workshop, Angie had just started working on a new project.
Angie Dell I’m working on a book right now that is a small book that’s about American obsession with grassy lawns. And how — I grew up in the Midwest. When I get back, and I get to, like, feel the grass in my hands in Wisconsin, it, um, really makes me emotional. I became interested in being like, OK: What is that for people? A lot of it, for me, came back to smell. I know a little bit about how our sense of smell works, and how it’s so closely associated and located in the brain to our emotional receptors, and our memory. And so that is why, going back to Wisconsin, like, I am just walking around, like [SNIFFS] smelling everything. Because I don’t have a good memory, and so it’s hard for me to remember childhood unless I’m experiencing the senses.
Sam Dingman As a writer, Angie had always struggled with how to write about smell. So for this project, instead of trying to describe smell, the book itself will be a vessel for smell. In addition to the book, Angie is making an envelope for the book. And the envelope will be scented to smell like a freshly cut lawn.
Angie Dell So that hopefully, you know, at least for those buying a book and then opening it right away, they will be able to receive that scent of grass. It won’t last for a long time I don’t think, but I think it’ll be a really cool experience.
Sam Dingman So you’re facing this challenge that many writers have faced, which is not just how do I write about smell, but how do I write about childhood? You know? How do I write about this feeling? And for most writers, they just have to sit there and wrestle with the words, and try to get as close as they can. And you have found your way to this process where through not just the writing of the words, but also the making of the receptacle for the words, and putting more of your senses into the process of trying to capture this thing, you can get so much closer to expressing this thing — but you still can’t totally get there.
Angie Dell No, can you ever? In any medium? I don’t know. … For me, it’s the way that I’m able to access things that are otherwise locked away in my brain. … And I do think that it’s important that we engage all of our senses, just for the sake of our memories, for the sake of happiness in life. … I wanna see what could be done with the book in that way.
Sam Dingman Yeah, even if you can’t get all the way there, why not get as close as you can?
Angie Dell Yeah, how do we get the rest of the way? … I don’t know — edible books is something that would be fun to do, at some point.
Sam Dingman The Analogs is a production of The Show, on KJZZ 91.5, in Phoenix, Arizona. This episode was written and edited by me, Sam Dingman, and produced with Amber Victoria Singer. The Show’s executive producer is Amy Silverman. Special thanks to Angie Dell — and to you, for listening.
Next time, we’ll meet the woman who got me thinking about all this stuff in the first place.
Claudia Smigrod I used to think, when I wasn’t thinking, that … this is the way everyone saw. I mean, I didn’t think it was the way everyone saw, I just — it was obvious to me the way something could be. And then I realized that other people don’t see things that way. And so, what I do when I use the camera is I figure out how to translate my personal version of what I’m creating into the image itself.
That’s next time, on The Analogs.
