Arts & Crafts printer articulates an enduring movement
By: Lee Stevens
At a time when the tools of graphic design and digital publishing are at the fingertips of anyone seeking to promote their ideas, Clinker Press is a rare gem. In his private letterpress studio located outside of Portland, Oregon, printer André Chaves uses old tools and techniques to produce books, pamphlets, and posters relating to the art of printing and the Arts and Crafts movement, an interest of his for more than 30 years.
“This is a personal endeavor more than a business for me,” Chaves explains. “I align with [19th-century British designer/social critic] William Morris and his idea of printing what one feels is interesting, regardless of recompense. The subject has to interest me, and with the Arts and Crafts movement, it’s the aesthetics, the principles, and its connection to The Roycroft [community], that draw me in.”
Chaves arrived at this point after 35 years as a hand surgeon, turning full time to his interests in book collecting, printing, and the design iteration of Arts and Crafts — a cross-media movement prizing solid, handmade goods that began more than a century ago as a social and artistic protest against Victorian industrialization and over-embellishment.
Born in Brazil, Chaves spent his senior year of high school in 1966 as an exchange student in East Aurora, NY, the home of Roycroft, a community of makers that brought Arts and Crafts principles into prints, etchings, and engravings. After returning to his home country for medical school, Chaves began his practice in California, settling in Pasadena with his wife Ann.
For ten years, they lived in the Duncan Irwin House, designed by architects Greene & Greene, and turned it into a “temple of the Arts and Crafts movement,” according to friend Peter Hay, owner of the Book Alley, a nearby antiquarian bookstore. This friendship led to the launch of Clinker Press in 1996, when Chaves, Hay, and two others set up a press in the garage of the Chaves home.
“The name,” Chaves explains, “was derived not only from the clinker brick of the garage” — a rare, old architectural style featuring dark and overlapping pieces — “but also because clinker implies something humble. I often remind visitors to the press that printing is a trade … one may print artistically, but the process is still ink and pressure.”
Today, Clinker Press is a full letterpress shop of moderate size, similar to a shop from the 1950s or ’60s. Chaves prints posters, pamphlets, original material, and reprints of period books in limited editions — never exceeding 120 or so copies. The crafter has been a regular at the National Arts and Crafts Conference in Asheville almost since its inception. The event returns in person again this February, and Chaves will present a talk on A&C design on opening night.
“The conference brings together so many people, whom we now consider friends, with a strong interest in one subject — [that’s what] makes it so interesting,” he says.
The 35th Annual National Arts & Crafts Conference and Shows happens Friday, Feb. 18 through Sunday, Feb. 20, at the Omni Grove Park Inn (290 Macon Ave., Asheville). Chaves will present a seminar, “From Victoria to Bauhaus: The Evolution of Arts & Crafts Design,” 8:15-9pm on Friday night, following opening remarks by Director Bruce Johnson. For more information, see arts-craftsconference.com or clinkerpress.com.