Don’t call me ‘Gabby’.
We are continuing our ‘Meet Your Maker’ series this week profiling the fine people at The Mandate Press who help get your projects off the ground. A few weeks ago we tried to interview Ben, but he wasn’t super interested in a surprise interview for the blog. So this week we took a different approach with Gabriel and actually made him aware of the interview (like ten seconds) before we started asking questions. Read below to find out some fun facts about Gabriel:
Matt: How did you get into letterpress printing?
Gabriel: I can’t… You’re going to have to start this over…
M: Just start talking.
G: I’m originally from Portland, Oregon. I was interested in printmaking in general… classical styles like woodcut, etchings, that kind of thing. I was taking classes in Portland before I moved here. I moved here with the intention of checking out the printmaking masters program at the University of Utah… but got hired at The Mandate Press within a couple weeks of moving here. That’s kind of how I got into this whole ‘letterpress’ thing. I had worked at a print shop in Portland doing some letterpress printing on a Chandler and Price machine. But Mandate was the first place I did any Windmill printing.
M: Okay… favorite movie?
G: Oooh…….. I’ll say RoboCop. The original 1987 RoboCop.
M: Favorite band?
G: Uuh…. That might be harder…
M: Is that the name of the band?
G: No… let’s just say that it varies from time to time. Judas Priest, can’t go wrong with that.
M: Favorite food?
G: Barbecue… Sushi… Uh… Mexican. American. Hamburgers (I had to cut him off here, because he was just going to keep listing things.)
M: If you had to rank cake/pie/cookies in order of your favorite first what would it be?
G: Oh. Pie. Cake. Cookies. Yeah….. Well… I like chewy cookies more than I like crunchy cookies… So there’s that…
M: Okay. We’re done.
Moving right along.
Gabriel has been a pressman with us for two years. And despite the endless workload, always manages to maintain a positive attitude. He creates his own art that can be found here. He enjoys bowling (specifically, The Heavy Metal Bowling League), eating food with metal utensils, and listening to heavy metal. He is in a long term monogamous relationship with a metal girlfriend, so don’t ask. And just before posting this, I was informed that he also likes Blue Öyster Cult.
