|
"I am Bill Ritchie, and I make etching presses. I began with a 24-inch bed-size and got help from a skilled steel wright in Seattle in making the rollers and frame. I started with plans from buildyourownetchingpress.com (Canadian), revised them and designed my press to be reminiscent of sailing ship interior design. I called my press, the Century, after a speedboat I wanted as a kid.
"When it was finished, I said to my friend, the steel wright, 'I wish I had a scale model of it,' and he said, 'I make models.' I was only joking, sort of. But he was serious. He showed up at my studio with a one-fourth scale model of the Century. I called it the Mini Halfwood because the Century and its child are that -- half wood and half steel.
"I took it with me on picnics, showed how to print etchings in street fairs and people asked me where I got it, and how much did it cost. Over the next four years I made and sold almost fifty halfwoods.
"And the story is still going on. In 2011 I made a color photo book, 'Halfwood Press Memories' you can buy on Lulu."
|
 |
| Bill Ritchie |
|
|
Bill Ritchie is a retired art professor in Seattle, Washington. He has been making prints as his main art form since the early 1960s. He went to college at Central Washington University and San Jose State in California. His art is in several hundred private and institutional collections. He makes his art and his presses today to support his lifelong dream -- to teach printmaking online, using new technologies and virtual world settings as his campus.
|
|