Ensatina Press

Ensatina Press was founded in 2005 by Laurie to pursue her love of type, words, and the letterpress as an artistic medium. Her early career was focused on this medium, but design school, the digital type revolution, and the opportunity to run her own professional design firm intervened.

All typesetting at Ensatina Press is done by hand using authentic wood and metal foundry types. The three- dimensionality of these types heightens awareness of them as objects and shapes. The letterpresses are a Vandercook Universal 1 Press and a Vandercook #2 press both hand-operated.

Ensatina Press mixes its own ink colors, often using ink salvaged from old print shops. Artist oil paints are also used, providing the opportunity for deep, rich, unusual colors, as oil paint is a more pliable and less stiff medium than printing ink.

Electric inking is used when printing cards or broadsides in small editions. The Vandercook #2 has no inking system and all work must be inked with brayers. Most prints made on the Universal 1 are inked by hand. Subtleties of color and accidents occur when inking large wood type with brayers making each Ensatina Press print a record of the creative experience.

Ensatina Press is located in the midst of an oak woodland forest on Sonoma Mountain in Northern California’s wine country, where a diversity of wild life, including the namesake ensatinas of her press, make their home.

 

Ensatina Press produces and sells works made by Szujewska on her press.

An ensatina is a salamander measuring 1-1/2 to 3-1/5 inches which breathes through its moist thin skin. The legs are long and the body is relatively short. Here on Sonoma Mountain the coloring is dark brown with yellow to orange coloring at the limbs. The eyes are quite large.


A view of the landscape at Ensatina Press