Alan Qualtrough | Kiss & Bite Letterpress

Alan Qualtrough is the face behind Kiss & Bite Letterpress, a Plymouth-based print studio and workshop. Alan’s career in printmaking emerged later in life, after his retirement. He became interested in printmaking when he served an apprenticeship in a letterpress shop in the 1960s, but his involvement was more commercial and practical, than artistic. Publishing, newspapers, and writing dominated Alan’s early years. As a hot-metal compositor, he was a stonehand on the Liverpool Post & Echo, using metal type to make up the news and sports pages. When photocomposition arrived in the 1980s, he retrained as a journalist and went on to write for many of the UK’s national newspapers. In 2001, he became editor of the Plymouth Herald, retiring in 2012 as group editor-in-chief.

With time on his hands, Alan decided to enrol at the then Plymouth College of Art, now Arts University, Plymouth (AUP) along with one of his good friends. Here, he studied drawing, painting, and printing, and read Graphic Design. Alan tells us; “I could not believe my eyes when I saw lots of letterpress equipment and very few people who knew how to use it”. By his second year, he understood the brilliant mark-making qualities letterpress added to graphic design, and the spark was relit. “I combined my fascination with language and support of community politics with the power and textures of letterpress,” says the printmaker.

After graduation, Alan completed a master’s in visual communications, using the materiality of letterpress to interrogate the digital language around the Brexit campaign in the UK. As part of this, he produced a book, Truth Untruth, which comprised 60 Brexit lies, each handset in different fonts and printed on various substrates in different orientations. “I regret producing only two copies; one is well-thumbed and battered in my studio, and the other is in the Cambridge University library,” comments Alan. He also made a large-scale multi-media piece using letterpress, performance, and digital printing. Named Crypsis Mimesis because of the subterfuge that
Brexit supporters used, it was bought by AUP for its collection.

Alan has now been running Kiss & Bite Letterpress for almost 10 years, mainly as a hobby. The studio is home to a 1953 Heidelberg Windmill platen, a FAG Control 405, a Harrild Octavo (made in 1895), and an 1858 Albion Press that Alan restored, as well as a large collection of metal and some rare wood founts. Alan states; “I have never tired of the transcendental look on people’s faces when they print using letterpress for the first time”.

His first and favourite public letterpress project was the Truth Wall, a version of the Democracy Wall used by the Chinese to voice democratic ideas in the Cultural Revolution of the late 1970s. Initially, Alan devised and printed a series of provocative statements questioning the truth of current UK politics. Initially A3 size, they referenced news bills that stood outside newsagents before the time newspapers gave up on truth and objectivity and preferred clickbait instead. The project moved on to a larger version that involved his local community, and he even printed the truths on fabric using the FAG and hung them as flags in local trees.

Two years ago, Ocean Studios, where Kiss & Bite is located, held a Print in Action event involving all printmaking activities that take place at the studios. They filled approximately 50 metres of their courtyard hoardings with letterpress protest posters devised by visitors. This two-day event was the most extensive iteration yet.

Alan describes; “Like all letterpress printers, I’m anxious to pass on my skills and work to make the craft sustainable for the 21st century.” Thus, he now uses photopolymer to complement his wood founts and experiments with polymer plates for four-colour letterpress printing. Currently, Alan is developing photopolymer photogravure, an etching process, not relief printing, which produces a beautiful range of tones and the most velvety blacks. He will soon combine it with letterpress to create some sublime analogue prints.

www.alanqualtrough.com
@alanqualtrough

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