George Walker Editions

Proprietors Press Profile Gallery List of Works
	Press mark of Columbus Street Press Copyright/Source

Proprietor

George Walker printing on Vandercook SP15 Repro Press Copyright/Source

George Walker was born in Brantford, Ontario in 1960. He attended the Dundas Valley School of Art, the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) in Toronto and Brock University in St. Catharines. Since 1991 he has worked at OCAD, teaching in the Printmaking Department. George has coordinated the biennial OCAD Printmaking Anthology since 1986, and continues to organize the OCAD Book Arts Fair, held annually. He is currently working as a designer at Firefly Books in Toronto.

Press Profile

In 1981, George Walker decided he wanted to hand print a book. Under the tutelage of Bill Poole at OCAD, he set out on the ambitious task of printing On Being Professional, a text supplied by Robertson Davies, who was then with Massey College in Toronto. Says George, "We made all the paper (adding tea leaves to the pulp because Davies like to drink tea), we handset the text, designed the book, and bound the 40 copies."

The Columbus Street Press, George's longest running press, was established in the basement of he and his wife Michelle's home on Columbus Street in Toronto, in 1984. Since then, the Vandercook SP15 Proof Press, weighing approximately 600 lbs., has been moved from basement to basement through three different houses -- forcing them, Michelle says, "to look for new, strong friends each time." Columbus Street's publications grew initially from Michelle's poetry and prose, "gifts of love," when conflicting schedules and a new family kept George and Michelle busy. These works became the common thread in their lives, connecting them on a daily basis, though they worked on them apart.

From his first forays into printing, George has continued under a variety of press names, collaborating with other artists and influencing a generation of curious students at the Ontario College of Art. Besides Columbus Street Press, his projects have appeared under the names of Pancake Press, Cheshire Cat Press (with Bill Poole, Joseph Brabant and Andy Malcolm), and Wind of Change (with Roger Burford Mason).

Along the way, George fell into wood engraving "much in the way one might fall into a pile of autumn leaves -- not entirely by chance but the urge to jump in overcame me."

The skills involved in a mastery of letterpress printing continue to sustain George's interest in private press production. His website can be found at www3.sympatico.ca/george.walker