Riverfolk announce 2016-2017 Blacksmith Shop Concert Series with new poster

The Riverfolk Music and Arts organization of Manchester has long brought traditional music and art to the Manchester area. This year’s coming Blacksmith Shop Concert Series will be no different, with eight concerts scheduled to run at the Blacksmith Shop on Main Street from September to May.

This year, however, Riverfolk commissioned Ann Arbor-area printmaker and artist Jim Horton to design and print the new poster, making the advertising for the series as unique a work of art as the music. Horton has been a working printer and artist for 44 years. He is an honorary member of the British Society of Wood Engravers and organized the Wood Engravers’ Network in the U.S. Mr. Horton teaches widely at folk art schools around the country,  and for this project he also brought in a student printer to assist.

While Jim executed the engraving and the design of the poster, the printing was done by Molly Dickinson, a poet and printer studying at the University of Michigan in the Helen Zell Writers Program, where she also serves as a Devil and Shop Steward at Wolverine Press, a traditional letterpress studio operated by the Zell Program.

The first concert in the series is coming up, featuring the Metallurgy Brass Quintet. The show will be at the Blacksmith Shop at 324 East Main Street in Manchester, Saturday, September 24, 7:30 pm.

The members of Metallurgy have decades of combined experience performing with ensembles worldwide, including as an ensemble-in-residence for the Baroque On Beaver Music Festival, Beaver Island, Michigan.

As always, regional food and drink tastings will be provided.

Tickets available at Eventbrite $20 Adult, $18 Senior, $10 Student

And be on the look out for that poster!

Molly Dickinson, apprentice printer and poet, reveals a proof of this year’s Blacksmith concert series poster that she printed on Jim Horton’s vintage Vandercook printing press on Waters Road in Ann Arbor.

Jim Horton, a nationally renowned wood engraver, hand engraved this printing block image of our blacksmith shop using traditional techniques that date back hundreds of years.

The text forme for the poster was hand-set using vintage printing type from Jim Horton’s extensive collection. This is just one of three passes that each poster had to go through. This black pass was for the words, a brown pass for the wood engraved image, and then the colorful background was done in what is called a “rainbow roll” where several ink colors are distributed across a single roller in a gradient.

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by Fritz Swanson

Fritz Swanson has written for The Believer, the Christian Science Monitor, Print Magazine, McSweeney's, Esopus, LSA Magazine, and The Mid-American Review. He serves as a trustee on the Manchester District Library Board. He's the designer and publisher of The Manchester Mirror.

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