Valenteenies: Love Notes and Calling Cards

Well before the advent of text messaging, the Victorians announced their presence with tasteful calling cards and passed discrete slips of paper to arrange amorous liaisons. Participants in this lively half-day workshop combine antique dingbats, elegant zinc cuts, and movable type from the program’s collection to craft minuscule missives and petite prints. Students choose from a selection of phrases preset in metal type, set brief original messages of their own, or set their names in the manner of the traditional calling card, then letterpress print their designs on the studio’s clamshell presses. Beginners are entreated to attend this delightful printing excursion, as are more accomplished printers.