about US

CELEBRATING 20 years in 2023! Kathryn Hunter began Blackbird Letterpress in 2003 in Lafayette, Louisiana, after she bought a Chandler & Price 8x12 letterpress. Since she couldn't move the 1100lb press into her apartment, her friends, Pudd & Leigh Anne, came to the rescue by offering their back room as a printshop. The type came from a printer outside of Chicago. Pudd & Kathryn flew up to to the Windy city and loaded a couple tons of type and cabinets and other goodies out of a basement into a moving truck, and drove it back to Bayou Country. A collection of vintage printers' cuts came from a long time printer in New Iberia, Louisiana. The printshop grew up little by little in that back room from 2003-2007 until it was bursting the seams. Blackbird then worked out of a mural-clad building in Baton Rouge from 2007-2016, which they shared with a cool metalworking business and two frisky guard dogs. The printshop moved in Fall of 2016 and has expanded in space and equipment. We use the original C&P 8x12, along with a Vandercook SP15, C&P 10x15, and 2 Heidelberg Windmills. and have 2 new frisky guard dogs. You can see them by searching Instagram for #muddydogwaters and #avathegirlscout, and our beloved pup who is no longer with us #heartbuttjunior.

Kathryn Hunter - Kathryn was trained as a printmaker and has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking from Montana State University, Bozeman, and a Master of Fine Arts in printmaking from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. She continues to make fine art when she's not busy keeping up with Blackbird, designing, printing, and performing other operational tasks. See her fine art work at kathrynhunterfineart.com. Her work is represented by LeMieux Galleries in New Orleans, LA. She is part of the artist collective Luminous Lookout and an artist member of Baton Rouge Gallery of Contemporary Art, which is among the longest-standing artist cooperative organizations in the US.

Élise Lassonde- Élise has a Bachelor degree in Graphic Design from Université du Québec à Montréal (2004) and a M.I.S from Université de Montréal (2006). She has been responsible for the heritage collections of prints, book bindings, artists’ books and bibliophile books at Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec since 2007 and is currently doing a residency at Blackbird Letterpress . She is particularly interested in printing processes, reading dynamics and the democratization of printed art.

Dawn Black- Dawn is a visual artist in Baton Rouge. She shows her work internationally and is part of the artist collective Luminous Lookout. dawnblack.com

Selected Press:
Stationery Trends, 2020
The Advocate, 2019

Sadly, the original guard/shop dogs are all gone now. But they are captured perfectly in the video below. But be warned, it can be a little scary...