Tucson, Arizona

 

 

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1951. My Dad was a former machinist who had a lot of tools and stuff in a basement workshop. Early on I developed a fascination for working with metal, so when I entered high school I signed up for metal shop. On the first day of school, two significant things happened: I met the love of my life, Denise, and due to a scheduling conflict, the whole metal shop class was switched to print shop. But I took to printing instantly. The shop had a bran new Chief offset press that was broken, and remained broken for the four years I was there, but the letterpress equipment worked just fine.

 

In 11th grade (1967), my shop teacher got me a job working on weekends and summer vacations for Ray Conaway Typesetting. At this shop we set lines of hand type and pulled proofs of them on Vandercook presses for eventual use in pasteups for offset printing. There were hundreds of cases of pristine type that we set from.

 

In 1969 I enrolled in the industrial arts education program at California State College, in California, Pennsylvania. Part of my tuition was paid for by a scholarship from the Graphic Arts Technical Foundation. But after three years, I decided that teaching wasn't for me, and I dropped out of school and entered the work force.

 

I worked briefly at a mom and pop print shop on Brighton Road, on the North Side. where I imprinted a lot of cards for funeral homes on a 9x12 C&P. Then I worked briefly at Package Products, a place that produced paper products for the food industry. Finally, I got a job at Burgum Printing Co., downtown, where I stayed for four years. Initially I was a compositor, setting hand type and casting on a Ludlow, and making up forms of hand type, Ludlow, Linotype and photoengravings. Later, I ran the presses: Miehle Vertical, Kluge, C&P with Kluge feeder, and a large Miehle cylinder press on which we printed books.

 

In 1976, I decided to try something else. I enrolled in a carpentry program sponsored by the Federal CETA program, but soon I was back in printing at Broudy Corporation. I did all the letterpress work, some bindery work, drove the delivery truck, and ran Multilith offset presses. I had the opportunity to become a helper on the new Heidelberg 4-color offset presses, but I loved hot metal too much.

 

Denise and I had been going on backpacking trips for years. In 1980, I quit working at Broudy and we hiked the 2000-mile Appalachian Trail. On December 2, 1980, I began working at the Embosotype Co., doing engraved stationery and occasionally doing thermography or foil stamping on Kluges. The shop burned down on Friday the 13th, October, 1986, but we salvaged what we could and rebuilt the business. During this time I also got a degree in Electrical Engineering Technology at Point Park College and played in a blues band that was nominated twice by the Pittsburgh Music Awards.

 

Denise and I moved to Tucson, Arizona in 1992. I got a job at Trade Embossing Co. doing foil stamping, embossing and die cutting. In 1999, I bought a home shop that had been owned by Bill Leya. Coincidentally, Mr. Leya was also from Pittsburgh, and his Kluge and C&P had been brought to Tucson from the steel city. I began doing work, mostly numbering and die cutting, at home at night. Over the next several years, I acquired some 400 cases of type, a Vandercook proof press, five small foil stamping presses, a Ludlow Typograph machine, and other equipment. As my business grew, I cut back my hours at Trade Embossing. Then I got a job as a part-time rural mail carrier and quit my job at Trade Embossing. Business continued to grow, so I quit working for the Postal Service (but I still work once in a while on a contract mail route that takes me through mostly unspoiled desert along a scenic highway).

 

Most of the work I do still consists of numbering, perforating, die cutting, embossing and foil stamping for local offset printers, but I do general printing for the businesses and people of my town of Catalina, about 20 miles north of Tucson. An increasingly significant portion of my work now comes from all over the USA via the internet, mostly high-quality stationery, wedding invitations, and specialty products.

 

I got into printing accidentally, and tried to leave the trade a few times, but I have come to realize that I am............Jim Irwin, Printer.