The PressFancy Ink Press is a letterpress boutique and printmaking studio, producing hand-printed art and letterpress stationery. The studio is located on the second floor of the historic Squire Building in downtown Steamboat Springs, and is open daily by appointment.
LetterpressLettterpress is a centuries-old method of printing text and images on to paper. A raised surface is inked with rubber rollers, and pressed on to a piece of paper to produce a printed design that you can see and feel. The impression left in the surface of the paper is characteristic and unique to letterpress printing. Each piece of paper is fed in to the press by hand, one at a time, one color at a time. Letterpress printing at Fancy Ink is done on a 120 year old Golding Pearl Old Style letterpress.
Limited Edition PrintsAn original limited-edition fine art print is a work of art conceived and developed by the artist for the purpose of making an edition. Limited-edition fine art prints are not to be confused with reproductions of existing works that are reproduced photomechanically. Most posters and museum reproductions fall into this category of commercially mass-produced prints.
Intaglio is a general category of printing techniques characterized by the incision of lines or images into a surface of a plate, which is usually metal. The whole plate is inked and then wiped by hand to remove the ink from the plate's surface, leaving ink only in the incised areas. The paper is dampened so that, under pressure, it will be squeezed into the inked recesses of the plate.
At Fancy Ink, all intaglio prints are wiped and printed completely by hand, and printed on a Conrad Etching press. Prints are made using 100% cotton, archival paper, and oil based inks; with proper care they will last many lifetimes.
PrinterChristie Ginanni, owner of Fancy Ink, is an artist/printmaker working in various printmaking techniques, including etching, relief, digital, woodblock and letterpress. She holds a BA in Studio Art from Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO, and was a 2009 recipient of a month-long Artist Residency at Scuola Grafica in Venice, Italy. Her work has been included in exhibitions at Coburn Gallery, Colorado Springs, CO; Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL; 808 Gallery, Boston, MA; The Eleanor Bliss Center for the Arts, Steamboat Springs, CO; The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA; and Shy Rabbit Contemporary Arts, Pagosa Springs, CO.
Before opening Fancy Ink, Christie was a fine art printer at Riverhouse Editions where she printed with a number of inspiring artists.
A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Christie now lives in Steamboat Springs, CO with her husband, Joe, and their dog Mowgli.