People enthralled with printing methods flock to classes at Dauphine Press

Mindi Lewis is anxious to rent printing time on an old-fashioned letterpress at the rear of the Dauphine Press store in Petaluma.

She's taken a couple of classes on how to print on the low-tech machine, and is ready to put the skills into action by creating her own notecards.

At the end of a class in letterpress technique, Lewis left Dauphine Press with a stack of personalized notecards. She's also made her own gift wrap using the printing press.

Dauphine Press began offering its third series of classes this spring, with one-day workshops in Spencerian script intensive, introduction to letterpress, box making, bookbinding and ribbon flower making.

The classes draw graphic designers, artists and non professionals who want to learn a new art form, said Trish Kinsella, who owns Dauphine Press.

Many of those who've signed up for workshops spend their days at a computer or in a corporate setting, and relish the opportunity to select paper, colored ink and graphic images for their projects, Kinsella said.

"For people with a love of paper, it's like a candy store," she said.

Lewis is a national sales representative for Carl Zeiss Vision, selling ophthalmic lenses, and she travels extensively for business. When she's in town, she craves classes that give balance to her life, and is captivated by the tactile and visual appeal of typography on the Vandercook letterpress.

Lewis describes herself as a "classaholic." She's nearing the end of a semesterlong floral design class, recently studied sustainable gardening and paper making, and took an extensive home chef series.

Dauphine Press produces custom stationery, invitations, notecards and other products at its Petaluma facility. Its downtown retail shop, which opened in October, has spac e for up to eight students per class.

The most unusual workshop on the Dauphine Press roster is Spencerian script intensive, and Kinsella said the instructor, Amelia Castro Urton, is one of only four people in the United States who teach the uniquely American penmanship.

In the 1850s, this artful style became the standard form of penmanship, prior to popular use of the Palmer Method.

In Urton's three-hour class, she describes how to create capital and lower-case letters and guides students in exercises to help them begin to write in the heavily flourished scrip t.

Dauphine Press also offers classes in calligraphy, with specific sessions in Mr. Johnston's foundational hand; Gothic cursive; gilded l ettering and unusual tools and materials; and Humanist Bookhand.

When Kinsella and Dauphine Press designer Kim Hillman were devising the class offerings they deliberately steered clear of paper arts classes that were offered elsewhere in the Bay Area, such as scrapbooking and rubber stamping.

"We narrowed it down to what people couldn't find at other places," said Hillman.

With increasing reliance on computers for correspondence and many other functions in daily life, Kinsella notices a bit of a backlash from those who hunger for opportunities for hands-on creativity.

"We're all paper fanatics," said Kinsella, referring to her staff of designers and instructors.

In the bookbinding class, students learn the anatomy of a book and the supplies and techniques to make their own books.

In a three-hour introductory session, students will make a few hand-bound books and learn about adhesives, lining up the paper properly, making proper measurements, and sewing methods.

"People are into mail art," she said. "They're creating little bits of art. A lot of our clients don't want to send e-mail to their friends."

In a three-hour letterpress class, students can design individualized "faux" postage stamps on dry-gummed adhesive- back paper to add to their letters. A pin-hole perforator is used to make the images look like stamps and students use them on correspondence.

Letterpress projects also result in hang tags for gifts, place cards for dinner parties, personalized notepaper, wrapping paper, business cards and party or wedding invitations.

"The idea is to get them to get the bug. If they fall in love with letterpress, they can rent studio time," said Hillman. "We try to introduce people to different things they can do on a press. Fifty percent do it once and have a good time, and others try to do more."

The letterpress machines at Dauphine Press were built in the 1950s and 1960s, and are no longer being manufactured.

"That's why it's a dying art. Artists started buying them up," said Kinsella.

"There's a certain magic when you pull the first proof off. It's almost like you didn't think it would happen. It's surprise and awe," she said.

The business also offers a custom letterpress class with a limit of one student at its Cypress Drive headquarters.

For $350, the pupil will spend two days designing and creating cards working with a Dauphine Press designer.

They use a Heidelberg Windmill press, and make photopolymer plates from film, then set up the press and watch as the designs are produced through the letterpress process.

More information about Dauphine Press classes is available at www.dauphinepress.com or by calling 775-4200.