12th Annual Roadworks Steamroller Print Festival

The brainchild of San Francisco Center for the Book, the festival is a day long celebration of printing and book arts, featuring demos, vendors and hands-on activities for the public. Creating an unlikely printing press by using a 1924 seven-ton Buffalo Springfield steamroller as a giant cylinder, and the surface of Rhode Island Street as the bed of the press, a team of featured artists and printers make large-scale prints from three-foot-square, hand-carved "battleship linoleum" blocks.

It takes a dozen people to make one Roadworks print:
1.The Artist, who may need three months to cut a 3x3 foot battleship linoleum plate
2. Steamroller Operator
3. Steamroller Fireman
4. Steam roller Engineer
5 and 6. Inky hands team: inking
7 and 8: Clean hands team 1: paper handling
9 and 10: Clean hands team 2: print blanket handling
11. Master of the Press
12. The Buyer!

The lovingly restored vintage Buffalo Springfield* steamroller is trucked down every year from Willits by the Roots of Motive Power, an organization dedicated to steam-powered engines. This little machine is the smallest piece of equipment that they operate, and exerts 7 tons of pressure on the linoleum plate.

It was hugely entertaining to see beautiful intricate prints created on the spot. The steamroller blew it's ear-splitting whistle before it began to roll, crowds gathered, and excitement mounted each time the team lifted the print. I wanted to show the finished piece, as well as some of the process: The steamroller is just rolling over the blankets placed on top of the paper and the plate; the clean hands team lifts and displays the finished print.

*Additional factoid: the band called Buffalo Springfield was named for the steamroller...

And for anyone who wants to know: I used PicFrame to make the collage. It works pretty well.

And, just in: a video of the entire process, courtesy of MrS.