ImagineARiver Press is a collaborative print shop run by printer Sy Auerbach. At the heart of the press is ‘Bertha’ a 1922 10×15 Chandler and Price. ‘Bertha’ lives in the downstairs of an 1896 Carriage House on a hill above Dolores Park in San Francisco.
The shop is simultaneously a studio to develop work, a collaborative space, as well as an open place of opportunity for artists to come and bring their ideas to fruition. Covers have been printed for local publications and poems have been hand set by the poets themselves.
On April 21, 2019, ImagineARiver Press had its second open studios! Work made by the printer in both the Cowell Press and on ‘Bertha’ were shown including book work, Wings are Wisdom: Three Songs of Hildegard of Bingen, a project inspired by study of composer-artist-healer-poet-writer-mystic-abbess Hildegard of Bingen.
Thank you to all those who came and made the open studios a success!
ImagineARiver Press’ Story:
Sy Auerbach began printing in the Fall of 2015. After years of walking and studying within UC Santa Cruz’s campus forest, they stumbled upon the Cowell Press, a letterpress print shop run by printer-poet Gary Young. Sy spent the rest of their time in Santa Cruz in the press, creating L’aragosta A Queer Fairy Tale a book decorated with suminagashi, and glued into a concertina now in the Special Collections of UC Santa Cruz. They also completed a suite of lace prints inspired by their time on the island of Burano in Venice. The series, In the Church of Saint Anne was shown at Gospel Flat Farms in Bolinas, December 2017-January 2018. To see more:
After graduation with Highest Honors from the Feminist Studies department with a concentration in Law, Politics, and Social Change, Sy Auerbach traveled with mentor Gary Young to a warehouse full of printing presses at the Hicks Brothers in San Jose. There lay resting ‘Bertha’. By September, ‘Bertha’ had found a new home in San Francisco and ImagineARiver Press was born.
Through multiple floods and the pandemic, ImagineARiver Press continues! Currently Sy Auerbach is collaborating with local poets to create both broadsides and a bookwork.
Please e-mail to set a time to visit and/or get involved!
imagineariverpress@gmail.com
