A Reflection by Studio Intern Hsathablay Paw
“As the 23’ Spring Semester has come to a close, I look back fondly on the time we spent with Hsathablay Paw in our Letterpress Studio these past few months. It’s always a pleasure to work with curious, creative, and driven students in the studio, and working with Hsathablay Paw was no different. Catching on very quickly to typesetting & forme building, we worked together on numerous prints for the shop, including stationery & multi-layer greeting card designs. Not only did she create a lot of hand-printed ephemera for the Shop, Hsathablay also designed and printed exhibition covers for TWO exhibitions in our Book Arts Gallery [link to exhibitions page] .
I wish Hsathablay the best of luck on her new college adventure studying art, knowing that working with Book Arts has given her invaluable experience in hands-on artmaking & design. I look forward to working with her in Open Studios in the future:) And now, I look forward to our THREE new interns that will be joining us this summer – stay tuned for more info! Read on to learn more about the Hsathablay Paw’s experience as a Book Arts Studio Intern this past Spring!”
– Rosemary Williams, Book Arts Education Director
Hello, my name is Hsathablay Paw and I go to Erie Community College. I am in my second year and will be transferring to a four year college for the Fall semester of 2023. At ECC I was majoring in Liberal Arts & Science- General Studies, but I will continue my studies in Fine Art at the four year college. I have gotten my associate’s degree for my two years at ECC. I am interested in anything art related, but I like to draw, design, and paint. From time to time, I like to do arts and crafts like making a small wooden house out of popsicle sticks or making a mobile.
The first thing I made at Book Arts was a “Hello” and “Hi, Welcome” stationary card where people can write something on it. I had to make a design using the different types and ornaments to design it. After designing, the design would be transferred onto a printing press to begin printing. Before printing, the press and types needed to be inked up to print. The “Hello” stationary card was yellow, with a typeface of Gallia in the point size of 18. The ornaments used were two thin curved borderlines, two swirl shaped corner lines, and a rose. For the “Hi, Welcome” stationary card, it was printed in green, with a typeface of Britannic Monoline Script in 18 point size. The ornaments used were three flowers, a circle, swirl corner ornaments, and four border ornaments. Both stationery were to represent nature.
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After that I made two birthday cards, one with stars and another with flowers. The star birthday card was blue and red, and said “Happy Birthday”, with stars surrounding the happy birthday. The flower birthday card was purple and peach color, and said “Happy Birthday”, with flowers surrounding the happy birthday. The star birthday card used the typeface of Neon in the 42 point and 54 point, all uppercase, and the flower birthday card used the typeface of Brody in 72point, uppercase and lowercase. These birthday cards went through the same process as the stationary cards.
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While working through my projects, I also had the opportunity to design and make pamphlets for two exhibitions, one for “Christina Corfield” and another for “Anna Scime”, which printed well. I also participated in two events, one was the “Shakespeare Broadside Printing” event where I helped with typesetting the sonnet and helped with the hand-printing of the sonnet during the event. Another was the “Edible Books” event where I designed the poster and helped guests print the poster during the event. I had fun. Also, if there is time I plan on doing at least one screen printing project, which I could not do during my internship due to the limited time left for the internship. I will do it!
During the whole internship, I had fun and learned a lot about typesetting, the different types, and about the printing press. The people back in the days were very diligent to do all these typesetting.
Working with Book Arts has helped with focusing, organizing, and communicating, which is needed in everyday scenarios, especially for studying.
Anyway I liked interning at Book Arts and was happy that I got the opportunity to do so. Thank you for everything, not that it is going to be the last time I go there, as I want to try screen printing. I will go when I have time open!