Durham North Carolina’s Golden Belt Arts is the workplace of Brian Allen, artisan and letterpress printer, in an art studio that celebrates handcrafted communication.
Many people feel overwhelmed by technology; our lives increasingly filtered through flat screens. We seek a healthier balance between that and our needs for community, connectedness to the physical world, and our spiritual lives.
Letterpress printed pieces are imbued with humanizing and intimate qualities that you can touch. Recipients make a more personal connection to unique works of handcraft, which support and enhance the fundamental spirit of human expression.
The studio offers hand-set metal type plus the intriguing marriage of computer-generated design with the oldest, slowest, most obsolete printing method – the relief printing of Johann Gutenberg's time. Relief printed plates derived from digital files, ironically, subvert the computer’s own larger effects!