I make no secret of my roots. I’m a Cleveland boy (not born, but raised). I’ve lived in Central Florida for nearly 13 years now, but the embers still burn for autumn leaves and lake effect snow.

It was our common roots that attracted me to my Chandler & Price printing press. Nearly a century before my time there, Cleveland was a hotbed of letterpress printing activity and the birthplace of my faithful press.

My family and I had headed north (our first autumn visit in several years) for my sister’s wedding and had a chance to visit the Burton Apple Butter Festival. There, I met Blake Leduc, Sr., the patriarch of Duke Printing just a couple miles from the house I grew up in. He was printing coloring book pages for children on a Vandercook 320G and had, amongst other prints on the cold wood walls, this amazing Cranky Pressman print.  I had known about the Cranky Pressman for years, but had never seen this lovely piece.

Now, fittingly, a Cranky Pressman C&P/Cleveland print has made its home above my ink-mixing station. It’s beautiful nexus of so many things I love and a striking addition to my still-too-bare walls.