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Gutenberg Museum lab is hands-on magic Posted
August 8, 2004
By DEBORAH BLOCK MAINZ, Germany— On a small table in a two-room lab with an office, hidden in a corner in Old Town across from the Gutenberg Museum lies three glass blocks, each with a primary color of ink spread thin by a black rubber roller. This is where the magic happens.
“When children look at me and I do something, they say it’s magic because the paper is white and, then all of a sudden, it has all of these colors on it,” said Renato Battistella, an artist at the Gutenberg Museum printing lab. Battistella works with school groups and tourists, demonstrating how the ancient printing presses work and letting visitors take a turn and printing by hand. The lab hosts, on most week days, two groups of school children or birthday parties, as well as tourists, artists and other visitors. “The main thing we do here is let people come in and try it for themselves,” Battistella said. “Everybody has a possibility to create something.” The Gutenberg lab has been open for 14 years as a part of the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, where Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of printing presses using movable type, is from.
“There are two things Mainz is famous for,” said Arno Finger, who does public relations for the lab and keeps the printing office running smoothly. “There is the carnival and Gutenberg.” At the Gutenberg lab, visitors can make prints using pictures and type. First, you must choose your design and lay it out on the hand press. Then you secure your design with magnets. Next, you use the rollers to brush cover onto the stamp-like letters and designs. Color must be applied from lightest to darkest— first yellow, then red, then blue. Finally, you put a piece of paper on top of the wet design and roll the hand press over it.
You lift up you paper, and—tada!—like magic you have a beautiful print. For a more interesting look, you could also color the paper first by rolling a color roller on top of it, or rolling a color roller over a design that has already been colored a different color and then rolling the printed roller on the paper. The museum also has a small printing press that is similar to the one Gutenberg used. It involves using levers to lower and one-ton weight onto paper on top of a design or a page of text. There is also an embossing machine and silk screening with which visitors can experiment. “We are preserving techniques that are in danger of becoming extinct,” Finger said. “We need older people who have learned professions that you can’t learn anymore, like typesetting. Our goal is to have old machinery and materials for our work today. We are not just imitating, but creating something new out of something old.” Julie Major, 35, a graduate student from the University of Miami, enjoyed learning these techniques.
“I liked seeing how things were operated at things were made before computers,” she said. “And it is still relevant as a design and printing method today. It’s an art.” She and other college students were given the opportunity to play with the machines and make their own projects. “I am a huge fan of embossing, so I liked playing with the embossing machine even though we only got to emboss Johannes Gutenberg’s face,” Major said. Other students agreed with Major about learning the ancient printing process. “It was really interesting to see what people used before InDesign,” said Jennifer Boehm, 23, a visual communication student at the University of Miami.
If You Go...
Directions The lab is located next door to the main entrance of the Gutenberg Museum and its gift shop. The museum is located in the plaza near St. Martin Cathedral.: The address is 5 Liebfrauenplats in Mainz. Telephone: 06131-232-955. Hours: The lab is open Mondays through Fridays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Sundays from about 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. On Saturdays, elderly volunteers come in to work. Individuals may drop by the lab between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. daily. The museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The museum is closed on Mondays and on public holidays. Admission: Use of the lab is free, but donations are accepted. Groups: For groups, make an appointment at least six months in advance. Online: http://www.gutenberg.de/ .
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