Colorado College | Bulletin

	"The Pressroom as Classroom" Exhibit
	By Jane Turnis

The late CC art professor Jim Trissel was passionate about making beautiful books.

That passion and the exquisite results of it are celebrated in “The Press at Colorado College: The Pressroom as Classroom,” an exhibit that debuted at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in April and will travel the country in coming years.

In 1977, Trissel — whose father and grandfather had both worked as printers — learned all he could about fine printing and set to work on an old press brought to CC by former provost Jim Stauss.

In the next 20 years Trissel and his students turned out nearly 40 books. At least 200 students — about 10 each year — worked with him, tweezering letters into place, aligning registration so a color would print perfectly on pages as they were fed into the press, one at a time.

Three of the press’s books were included in New York Public Library exhibits, and a book was produced on commission as a 75th birthday gift for Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Trissel died of pancreatic cancer in 1999. The Press at Colorado College continues to print — poetry, sacred literature, historical documents — and students carry on Trissel’s legacy.

The exhibit is expected to travel to Scripps College, Newberry Library in Chicago, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, and University of Arts in Philadelphia. The exhibit catalog is available ($15) at The Press at Colorado College, (719) 389-6376.