About
The workshop is in Creetown, on the beautiful west coast of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. I print on an Albion iron press (1847), a Crown Folio Arab press (about 1911), a Harrild proofing press (1880's) and an Autovic (1950's). These, along with a considerable stock of type, tools and binding materials, were left to me by my husband Graham Moss of Incline Press. I've also recently taken custody of a second, larger Albion and the workshop dogs who are called Dino and Pip.
I have been printmaking for around 30 years, and completed my art degree as a mature student in 2011 after an 18 year career managing nature reserves in Kent. My start to letterpress printing began with an Adana 8x5, a cabinet of terrible type and a lockdown project restoring a pretty (but fairly useless) Cropper Minerva press. I managed to maintain a great enthusiasm for printing very bad pamphlets for a couple of years before meeting Graham who was to become my beloved, and my teacher.
From him, I learned many skills that keep the craft of making traditional private press books going: design, dummy books, typography, illustration, working with writers and artists, imposing on the stone, press work, collating, binding and marketing. I swept the floors, dissed cabinets of type in the eternal fight against woodworm, did the bookkeeping and lived as the Incline Press printers devil in a whirlwind of Grahamish enthusiasm that only those who met him, will understand. I consider myself to be an enthusiastic novice at most of these skills, and spinning them together cohesively is certainly a challenge in itself that would be a lifetimes work for anyone. He also taught me about the history of our work and how our mutual hero Billy Morris of Kelmscott Press, is still relevant and important. He showed me how slow working with your hands and keeping these increasingly rare skills and machines going, is vital in this crazy AI world.
So I am starting over at the grand age of 58 without him, but Graham also taught me how to be recklessly wholehearted, so I'm giving it my best shot.
Helen Moss, May 2026.
I have been printmaking for around 30 years, and completed my art degree as a mature student in 2011 after an 18 year career managing nature reserves in Kent. My start to letterpress printing began with an Adana 8x5, a cabinet of terrible type and a lockdown project restoring a pretty (but fairly useless) Cropper Minerva press. I managed to maintain a great enthusiasm for printing very bad pamphlets for a couple of years before meeting Graham who was to become my beloved, and my teacher.
From him, I learned many skills that keep the craft of making traditional private press books going: design, dummy books, typography, illustration, working with writers and artists, imposing on the stone, press work, collating, binding and marketing. I swept the floors, dissed cabinets of type in the eternal fight against woodworm, did the bookkeeping and lived as the Incline Press printers devil in a whirlwind of Grahamish enthusiasm that only those who met him, will understand. I consider myself to be an enthusiastic novice at most of these skills, and spinning them together cohesively is certainly a challenge in itself that would be a lifetimes work for anyone. He also taught me about the history of our work and how our mutual hero Billy Morris of Kelmscott Press, is still relevant and important. He showed me how slow working with your hands and keeping these increasingly rare skills and machines going, is vital in this crazy AI world.
So I am starting over at the grand age of 58 without him, but Graham also taught me how to be recklessly wholehearted, so I'm giving it my best shot.
Helen Moss, May 2026.
