This two color poster by Richard Kegler was recalled from a blog post at Boxcar Press:
“In late 2010, I was excited to see a Facebook posting for a show by Carlene Carter at the home of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Carlene Carter is the step daughter of Johnny Cash (daughter of June Carter Cash) and ex-wife of Nick Lowe. Kleinhans Music Hall is a modernist/deco building desiged by Eliel and Eero Saarinen. Being a fan of them all, I thought it might be great opportunity to do a poster. The Western New York Book Arts Center had been doing outreach to other cultural organizations to create posters (at no charge) for events as a way of getting our name out in the community and showing off our work, and as a good will gesture to help other cash strapped cultural organizations who could not budget for a letterpress poster. I had emailed the marketing department at Kleinhans Music Hall but hadn’t heard back. We always try to get permission for gratis posters (or even better, get hired to do actual paying jobs) but rarely would do a poster without some nod of approval from a promoter or artist. Since I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do yet did not hear back, I figured I would just print it, go over and show them one, they would love it and say “yes, we would love for you to print us a poster.” The main idea was to use an assortment of oversized wood type that was particularly distressed as overlapping shapes in combination with a stylized guitar fretboard made from the backs of wood type blocks. The fret markers were made by drilling a shallow hole with a cordless drill into the back of a few blocks. The holes would not affect the the printing of the other side, and wood type often has some sorts where an industrious printer needed a letter so the back is hand carved; dilemma averted. The combination of the homage to Hatch Show Print posters a la Johnny Cash and the Art Deco caption text evoking the Kleinhans Music Hall seemed to be a good fit. I confirmed the info from the Facebook posting and then went to work to set up the poster in the bed of our Vandercook SP-20. To render the guitar strings, various width of printers rule was set to have a full bleed and printed in metallic silver/blue. After getting about halfway through the first color (chocolate brown), something made me double check the show date. Instead of Facebook, I went to the actual venue website. Sure enough, the Facebook date was wrong. Oh well, glad I checked before the second color went on. So in changing from Saturday to Friday, I discovered there were not enough letters to spell everything out that was needed. In fact there were not enough ‘A’s for the Saturday setting so there is a V in BUFFALO. Friday had to be set in the other color – again, not a major problem, just one that needed a solution. On day two, when the second color was underway, some old acquaintances came by the printshop. They loved the poster but rather shyly pointed out that Kleinhans was spelled wrong. At that point I figured this poster was not meant to be since I never heard back and I decided it would all be put away and never discussed again. Within a couple of days, I heard back from the people at Kleinhans and they loved the idea of the poster and were looking forward to it. I somewhat reluctantly reset the type, fretboards and the strings and tried to mix the colors…and make sure everything was spelled correctly. In the end, we gave the venue and Carlene Carter copies of the poster and she signed one and sent it to us with a nice note. Lesson hammered home once again — proofreading: not overrated.”
• 13" × 20"
• Metallic Blue and Brown ink
• Tan cover stock
• Limited edition of approximately 50