If you were lucky enough to snag a seat to this month’s Creative Mornings, you’ll get to hear from Jim Moran, Director of the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. Jim is heading down from his post in Two Rivers, Wisconsin to give us a history lesson on the craft of printing past and present.

If you can’t wait until Friday to get schooled, here’s a preview of what’s in store.

What drives your desire to preserve history?
I’m a 3rd generation printer. It’s part of my DNA. Printing history reveals american history through all its images and I love seeing the way we communicated through time. It never gets “old”.

What are you most proud of, professionally or otherwise?
I worked with my Dad for 29 years in the family printing business from printer’s devil to owner. You don’t do it for the money and I’m glad I stayed with it.

How does the midwest influence you or your work?
As you grow older and travel, you re-visit where you are from and how much it’s a part of you. Sometimes we like to feel worldly but embracing my roots is truer to who I am. I learned that more through my fiction writing than my printing.

What may people not know about you?
I went to college to be a writer, not to study design or printing. I never graduated because: 1, I had a print shop to run and 2, because there are things I wanted to learn regardless of what a degree meant.

What should we expect from your talk?
What was Hamilton versus what is The Museum, why is it still valid. How can YOU be a part of it. The journey from the factory to the new place is a great study in how to survive when there’s only 3 people to do it.

Still hankering for more? Meet some of Hamilton’s devoted craftspeople. 

See you Friday!
Rusty