JENNA RODRIGUEZ

After completing my 2nd year at Columbia College my best friend and I traveled abroad for five weeks.  We began our journey in Bogotá, Colombia and bused our way through Ecuador and Peru.  I stumbled upon numerous letterpress, lithography, and off-set presses.  I even found a man in Colombia binding his own books as a street vendor.  My absolute favorite experience was in Lima, Peru.  I was heading to a plaza and turned down a random street which had a familiar smell but I could not figure out what it was until my eyes spied an off-set printing press.    Before I knew it I was walking down a printers heaven.  I found a printers row!!!!  There was shop after shop of off-set presses and letterpress shops.  Men were carrying stacks and stacks of paper and scraps of papers laid on the floors in piles from the trimmings of the guillotines.  Check out the photos.

This man was incredibly nice and taught me how he made his books.  Cartagena, Colombia had the most book stores and street book vendors I have ever seen.  It was fascinating.  This guy was located on a street that had one outdoor book vendor after another.  It looked like it was an outdoor library and every vendor tries to persuade you to buy their books as you walk by.

The last three pictures are from the “Printers Row” in Lima, Peru.