Art and archives: Old image plates find new life and purpose at Catapult Creative House

About a month ago, some facilities management personnel at Southeast Missouri State University were going through a storage area and made a discovery that would become an intriguing project for Terry Davis.

Davis is the student manager of the press area at Catapult Creative House on Broadway in Cape Girardeau. He's also pursuing a bachelor's degree in fine arts with an emphasis on printmaking.

So when he heard from members of Kent Library's archive department that 59 boxes of old image plates had been found -- an entire pallet's worth -- Davis began helping to clean and catalog them for posterity.

He learned along the way that the rights to the image plates were signed over to the university by the Southeast Missourian newspaper sometime in the 1980s.

"Somehow, in between, [the plates] got lost," he said.

Terry Davis carves out an image block at Catapult Creative House in Cape Girardeau on Wednesday.Laura Simon

Over the decades, some of the forgotten plates gathered dust, while others suffered encroachment by mice and exposure to the elements.

But so far, Davis not only has cleaned and repaired many historic images from the local area, but also image plates of famous figures such as former president Dwight D. Eisenhower and civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

When his work on the archival project is finished, Davis said he plans to make prints from each of the image plates using the presses he works with every day at Catapult.

Those, too, are from the Southeast Missourian and, though old, have found new life and purpose.

"We've got old technology working alongside new technology," Davis said.

One of the presses is a 1930s-'40s-era Chandler & Price machine that is cranked by hand and can turn out 1,500 to 2,000 sheets of paper per hour.

Davis said the press is referred to as a clamshell press because of how it claps together to transfer ink to paper.

Another of the working presses on site is a Vandercook SP 20 and is designed for proofing pages. It has a long, flat surface that feeds paper through a roller so the press operator can see how the finished product will look.

Both machines are parts of a fascinating whole that also includes a retired linotype machine, piles of neatly organized metal type for typesetting and retro printing blocks that once dashed out images for a countless array of printed products.

"They were used for all kinds of things -- ads for churches and businesses," Davis said.

Now, he and other students put artistic spins on the ready-made artwork, using them for original greeting cards, posters and any number of items.

Some students even carve their own images on special blocks.

Unlike the slicker, more disposable printed items people have become used to seeing every day, the original pieces Davis and the other students who work in the print shop produce can be run out on high-quality cardstock with textured embossing.

"People are kind of missing that handmade quality that they can touch and feel," he said.

ljones@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3652

Pertinent address:

612 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo.