Doing It

Step Inside Design, Nov/Dec 2008 by Simmons, Christopher

EVERYONE REMEMBERS THEIR FIRST TIME.

Memory can be a tricky thing. In my last column I recounted a story I heard Stefan Sagmeister tell about not acting on his impulse to tell a stranger she was beautiful. I wrote it as I remembered it, but David Asari, a friend and colleague (and, we now know, also a STEP reader) sent me a gentle note to set my recollection straight. It turns out that Sagmeister did summon the courage to ccmpliment that woman on the train in Vienna. He confirms the fact in his recent book: "Just as the doors were closing, I jumped out of the train (it was not my station) and ran after her. "'Hey, lady... I just want to tell you how fabulous you look!' Her eyes lit UP. Her entire face broke out into a smile ... I decided then and there ... I would do this all the time."* So, Sagmesister actually did it.

PROCEED & BE BOLD

If having guts always works out for Sagmeister, the same can be said for Amos Kennedy. A former computer programmer for IBM and later a manager at AT&T, Kennedy experienced an epiphany 28 years ago when he took his two young sons on a trip to Colonial Williamsburg. "The print shop there was absolutely amazing to me," he says, the wonder still in his voice, "It was the first time I had seen any kind of printing press, and I was just amazed at what it could do." When he returned home to Chicago, Kennedy enrolled in a letterpress class at Artists Bookworks. "It was like falling into a hole," he says. "Gravity took over." Kennedy's enthusiasm for printing soon created its own pull. Not long after beginning his courses, he was given his first letterpress by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. "It was a surplus press," he explains. "They wanted to get rid of it, so I accepted." Not long after that, while borrowing a small job stick from another printer, Kennedy was shocked when the printer instead offered him his entire collection of metal type. "I'd only met the guy twice," says Kennedy. "But that's how it was back then. The printers I met when I first started doing this were mostly older men in their 6os, 70$ and 8os. They were extremely generous with their skill, and I think they were excited to pass their knowledge on to another generation."

Armed with a press, a type collection, some training and an unyielding passion for expressing himself through print, Kennedy decided he'd had enough of corporate life.

WE DEMAND THE VERY BEST FROM OUR CLIENTS

Today, Amos Kennedy is a printer. Depending on your generation and profession, the term "printer" may hold a different meaning for you than it does for some. If you're a print designer, you probably think of a printer as someone who faithfully reproduces your design only after all the details have been meticulously decided. Amos Kennedy is not that kind of printer. If you're thinking he sees himself as a "partner" or "collaborator" with his clients, you'd be wrong there, too. Kennedy is very specific. He prints only posters, usually on 12½ x 19-in. chipboard, and always on the hand-cranked letterpress in his rural Alabama studio. He might let you pick the color or suggest which word to emphasize, but that's about it. The rest, he says, he doesn't know until he gets on press. "My process is pretty simple: Send me the text and a check, then go home and pray." If that sounds like a haughty dismissal by a self-important artist, you'd have him wrong again. Kennedy is otherwise warm and generous but bristles when people label him an "artist."

"I'm a printer," he says with both humility and pride, "not an artist." His voice is soft and ambling and the thoughtful spaces between his words are punctuated with chuckles. "The 20th century changed what it means to be an artist," explains Kennedy, his tone becoming almost imperceptibly less approving. "Artists have become a select group of people who make a product for another select group of people. It's become a system of galleries and critics and fame." There is clear disappointment in his voice as he laments this cultural realignment. "Now, people who call themselves artists make things with the intent of becoming famous from it. They don't paint just because they enjoy painting and can make a living from it, they paint because they want to be famous as a painter." A printer or a designer, says Kennedy, is more concerned about the craft and the work as a means of individual expression.

THE DANCER MOVES FOR ALL OF US

Kennedy's rejection of the artist moniker and his aversion to the pursuit of fame allow him to create completely on his own terms. His work is direct, charming, candid, sometimes shocking, but always engaging. He is as happy making posters for the local craft fair or bake sale as he is creating work that addresses issues of race, culture and identity. For him, it's all about the making, the doing. There is no highbrow or lowbrow, and he'll never charge more than $10 or $15 for one of his prints.

The purity of his pursuit has resulted in a remarkable collection of work that has started to attract the interest of the art and design world. Ironically, fame has now found Amos Kennedy. He's had several exhibitions of his work, speaks to students and other groups, is the subject of a recent documentary and is currently an artist-inresidence at the Coleman Center in York, Ala. Kennedy says he's slowly becoming comfortable with the title and the attention. "It's my understanding that when Caesar would walk into the Colosseum, there was a person whose job it was to walk behind him and whisper to him, 'And you too shall die.' So, that helps me keep things in perspective. I don't understand why I deserve any special attention ... other than the fact that I enjoy printing, and I sincerely hope for everyone to get to do what they enjoy. That's why I'm doing this."