In our warp-speed culture, one can’t help but smile at the idea of major recording artists and megacorporations like Pixar and Nike turning to an aging, southern letterpress print shop for posters and packaging to drive sales. But as Jim Sherraden, manager, curator and chief designer at 128-yearold Hatch Show Print notes, "The computer is the best thing that’s happened to Hatch."

With the continual assault of advertising and media, we have all become desensitized to hyperrealistic animation, altered imagery and digital printing. These once eye-turning technologies are now everyday … and as a result boring. The work from Hatch, however, is anything but slick and far from bland. Its arresting, bold, tactile and unapologetic rawness puts the viewer a half-step away from the process. In fact, the printing process is the first thing that comes to mind after one’s initial thought of "How can I steal this poster?" Rich ink pressed into weighty paper is nothing new, yet it feels as unique as a three-dollar bill in our current culture. Every day, automation further removes us from each other, causing us to crave authenticity and human interaction. Whether it’s a handmade sweater or a hand-printed poster, the personal touch and investment of time immediately instill a spiritual worth, elevating a piece to art.

Sherraden shares a memorable moment: "One day Bill Monroe saunters into the shop. We’d only been on Broadway for a few months, and he was checking us out. He had a DJ from radio station WSM driving him around. Well, shortly after he arrived, I get this call from Norway, friends of mine on a boat having a party in the Oslo fjord. They were calling with a cell phone to say hello but the connection was bad, and i told them to call back because Bill Monroe was visiting. Since the party on the boat consisted of musicians, they all knew who Bill Monroe was, they just couldn’t hear me, so I kept shouting ‘Bill Monroe! Bill Monroe!’ and next thing I knew Monroe’s taking the phone out of my hand and singing ‘blue moon of Kentucky, keep on shining …’ hell, he was singing over the telephone to a damn boat in Norway!" Photo by Robin Hood

Memories Are Made of This
In 1879, CR & HH Hatch opened its doors and before long began producing show posters for carnivals, minstrel shows, vaudeville, magicians, wrestlers, silent films and, later, an endless array of music legends from Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash to Coldplay and Bruce Springsteen. But the shop’s tenure has been fraught with dark times—when it lay dormant waiting for its next guardian angel—to spells so fruitful that there was at one time a guy in the shop whose sole purpose was to package posters and get them out the door.

The sweat equity that countless individuals invested in this remarkable archive is astounding, and the end is far from near. Now owned and operated by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Hatch’s future feels secure, and Sherraden, its current guardian angel, has many plans to further nurture and protect this national treasure.

Someone to Watch Over Me
Sherraden does nothing halfway. In 1984 he was offered the chance to run the place and said yes because he "needed a job." Now 22 years later, he is Hatch, not that he would ever agree to that. He’s a humble soul, one keenly aware of all those who have helped bring the shop to where it is today. But he is the one who is on the road, sometimes 12 times a year, lecturing and running workshops at conferences, universities and even design firms. His "Hatch yack," as he calls it, wavers between historical documentation and pure theater. But there is no question, even during lighter moments, that this shop is much more than a job. It is his muse, and deep inside he feels that moving it further down the timeline is his personal responsibility.

Left: As a present to the shop for its 120th Anniversary, Hatch had a new typeface carved called Steamer #14. This was as close as they could get to the original type (for the word tonight) used on the very first Hatch poster created April 12, 1879. Right: To illustrate the enormity of this intricate work, Sherraden stands before a 1952 three-sheet poster (40 x 86 in.), one of the last carved by owner Will T. Hatch.

When he speaks, he works hard to make it real for his audiences through images, stories and impersonations of some of the characters that have graced its colorful past. Ultimately, his lectures are to Hatch what Hatch show posters are to the events they promote. His strategy of getting the word out and sharing the magic is the best way to ensure its continuance, because preservation through production has saved this archive more than once.

Ain't Living Long Like This
When Sherraden, a successful lyric writer with over 50 recorded songs under his belt, arrived, the shop was owned by a man named Bill Denny, who had originally purchased it from Will T. Hatch’s widow. In the early ’80s Nashville’s once- and now-thriving downtown area was barely hanging on. In 1974 The Grand Ole Opry, which had been a major source of revenue for not only Nashville but Hatch, left its original home in the Ryman Auditorium for a new location at Opryland theme park. The loss hit everyone hard, and during this time every single job at Hatch counted; the Hatch crew worked obsessively just to break even.

Two years later Denny sold the shop to Gaylord Entertainment, America’s fastest-growing specialty lodging and entertainment organization (it owns the Grand Ole Opry, Ryman Auditorium and WSM Radio), because he felt they would be able support the shop and thus preserve its legacy. Gaylord had the financial wherewithal and the very best of intentions, but a production-oriented print shop is a strange bedfellow for an entertainment organization. Because the archive contains tour posters that were created for Grand Ole Opry entertainers up to 60 years ago, Gaylord loaned the shop to the Country Music Hall of Fame so the latter could research the archive and document the holdings.

Storms Never Last
It was at this time, however, that the sun began to peek over the horizon and shine on Hatch. Some key jobs came in, such as Emmylou Harris’s Grammy-winning live album At the Ryman, and an MCA series of 15 CDs featuring members of the Hall of Fame, for which Sherraden carved traditional Hatch-style portraits of the artists. These jobs not only returned Hatch to printing commercially, but also provided outstanding exposure that began to turn the ship. This was also the time when Sherraden began hand printing or "re-striking" the large, old wood blocks on acid-free art stock to preserve them. When visitors began asking to purchase prints, business picked up.

When composing his works, "I don’t sketch as much as I mark on the back where I hope to hell it falls after my careful placement on the press," Says Sherraden.

"That carved imagery rose to play a higher part. It looked and seemed so comfortable on that Stonehenge and that Arches instead of the old, slick, slap-it-up-with-horse-paste paper," says Sherraden. The new audience spurred him to begin creating posters for the shop’s patrons, thus celebrating the archive for the public’s ongoing interest in letterpress.

There's Not Any Like You Left
Although their new technology consists of a pink rotary phone and one computer for non-design needs, Hatch Show Print’s unparalleled aesthetic, which conjoins disparate generations of imagery, is winning work away from major design firms. In a design field where technology bites at our heels like a dog, it is near impossible to maintain early 20th century work processes. But the Hatch team prides itself on antediluvian ways, which are not for show. They allow the shop to run as it always has, and with steadfast determination and grace they pull it off. Sherraden observes, "I know one of us at least once a day says, ‘We don’t offer four-color proofs because it is not congruous with how the shop operates in letterpress.’" What they do offer is a tiled black-and-white proof, faxed to the customer to assemble and approve. When this has not satiated higher profile clients, some have flown in for an over-the-shoulder approval … and a convenient excuse to visit the shop.

With over 600 custom jobs a year for clients as diverse as a science fair, a paper promotion, a local band or Jack Daniels, there’s a lot of work. Because Hatch is a nonprofit working museum, budgets are tight and time is short, so interns and staff alike are worked hard. Their reward comes in the form of the opportunity to have a true apprenticeship and work with an important archive under the gaze of a man who wants his staff to learn the craft authentically and understand the significance of the collection.

Although Sherraden passionately polices the practices and makes sure the work is in keeping with the Hatch tradition, he gives staff as much creative freedom as he can. "I try not to reign [the work] in at all, but I gotta laugh at all the negative space that’s coming through the place … I have to gnash my teeth sometimes and look the other way."

For interns, stepping into the shop can be disorienting at first. They must abandon some of what they learned on-screen, since the letterpress design process is much more restrictive than InDesign. Most seem to acclimate quickly, however, and their 21st century technical sophistication is a huge asset to the shop. The clientele has become more sophisticated, so having a team that can communicate on all levels is invaluable. "The staff all have their college degrees now in print making or graphic design, and that never was the case before," says Sherraden. "You had these great blue-collar guys, and you had Mai Fulton the bookkeeper, and they took their lunch in a box to work, and they probably didn’t call themselves designers, either. Now you’ve got a whole younger staff, a staff that I think has an inherent enjoyment of what they’re able to do with their hands other than peck at keys on a keyboard." It’s pretty hard to complain when you’ve spent your day designing and printing a tour poster.

You Put the Soul in the Song
As if running Hatch were not enough to max anyone out, Sherraden has found a more personal way of celebrating the archive. In 1992 he began printing monoprints after realizing that beautiful imagery could be achieved through the juxtaposition of multiple unrelated plates. This insight came about one day when his test sheets, which had been used for several different designs, revealed their intricate beauty.

Early on his work was more experimental and random, but with the advice of a friend he quickly realized that to make works of merit, he had to instill in his pieces a personal interpretation of the collection. Sherraden now begins the process with a theme and draws from the extensive archive to compose and choreograph messages and meanings. Like any skilled craftsman or artist, Sherraden’s thoughtful compositions make it look easy, but getting everything to line up and fit is the reward of copious amounts of math and careful planning … and these are only the initial steps. After the basic composition is in place, he goes back into the pieces, time and again. Layer upon layer, he builds complex compositions with the brayer and organic pigments that he mixes with transparent ink and mineral spirits to get particular patinas. These wondrous works of undulating hues offer viewers a new discovery each time they return to them. As the light changes, under-printings become more evident, and negative spaces reveal unexpected jewels.

It may seem odd that a songwriter would be able to shift gears into this new role so seamlessly, but in essence what he is doing now is the visual equivalent of what he was doing so successfully in his previous career: bringing meaning to preexisting matter. Whether writing lyrics for Scandinavian folk-rock artist Jonas Fjeld or local rockers The Claimstakers, Sherraden enjoyed working within the confines of the music and was rarely involved in changing any of the melodies. The unpredictability of the music business, however, proved to be too much. "I decided that I needed to focus on a vocation where I relied on fewer people for my future. As a Gemini, I needed a melody writer for the lyrics, and I now rely on the archive of a dead man for the printmaking." Today, he works within the confines of the archive, a challenge that’s spurred a collection of distinctive work. With 24 one-man shows from France and the Netherlands to Santa Fe and Seattle, his work is finding its audience, and collectors in the know are scooping it up.

"I sometimes wish we could do more with it, there’s so much in there," he says. Each monoprint is done as a tribute to the shop—a shop with a soul. Stepping across the threshold, one can’t help but feel the enormity of history. With 5500 square ft. packed stem to stern with type and imagery—one wall alone measuring 54 ft. long by 14½ ft. tall—there is clearly enough material for several lifetimes of work.

One Piece at a Time
Sherraden has seen each significant step of the shop’s metamorphosis, from a silent version of its former self to a cultural destination working full steam. Still, he feels there is much to do. The next big step is to tackle cataloging the archive, which got put on hold when business picked up. But before he can take this on, he must feel he can step away from the day-to-day working shop and leave it in the hands of the "next generation," which will come with time, and with funding, which takes time. Until then, he’s chestdeep working the shop, mentoring the interns, lecturing throughout the country, showing his monoprints around the globe and making time for anyone who asks.

Above all else, Sherraden’s hope for the shop is that the Hatch Show Print heritage continues, and it is those who understand its value who will help him achieve this goal. "I dreamed last night that the shop had to move again," he tells me. "I have these dreams every now and then, and I can recall them to this minute, and I can see the other buildings that we were in. They’re always old buildings, but there’s always something wrong. I just realized this, there’s always something wrong that makes it hard for the people to get in and see it. Because it’s the people, it’s the customers that keep it going." So much more than a job.

About the author
Kristin Ellison is the editorial director of www.wowio.com, a free online bookstore.

This article was originally published in the January/February 2007 issue of Step inside design magazine.

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