Statement of Support for the Letterpress Community & Hamilton Response

The following statement, was approved by the membership and has been published as a series of slides in a post on Instagram. 

In light of recent BIWOC residency cancellations by the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum without adequate notice or cause, SGCI acknowledges the harm done to affected letterpress and book artists.

These actions follow a pattern that has motivated many letterpress artists to call for significant changes to the Museum and its leadership. 

SGCI gives our enthusiastic support to the letterpress community as they endeavor to make one of their most revered institutions better represent the values of the community. 

It has been inspiring to see the camaraderie amongst letterpress artists online as they come out with resolve and persistence to urge reform from the Museum Board. Within days the majority of the contributors to the upcoming Wayzgoose at the Museum had withdrawn, citing the cancellation of residencies and the opacity and obtuseness of Museum leadership. 

Hamilton has been the home of the Wayzgoose conference for many years, bringing together letterpress artists from around the country. The Museum’s collection and resources made it a natural home for the gathering. 

The Museum is valuable to these artists, as they have continuously acknowledged. It is clear that these artists are even more vital to the Museum and its mission of press access and inclusivity. 

SGCI leadership is made up of well intentioned, though fallible volunteers. The organization has faced its own just call-outs in recent years and persists in striving toward meaningful change for, and expected by, our artist members. 

Without acknowledgement of shortcomings both past and present, and direct actions to address those faults, the organization would lose the trust of our membership and face grievous losses. This experience motivates us to encourage all organizations to change course to best serve their contributors and constituents.

Under the current climate, many institutions and identities who dare to be different and insist on speaking truth face fiscal and existential threats. SGCI is proud to support press access and the power of the democratic medium to bring visibility and empathy to print people everywhere.

Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum, after hearing about SGCI’s plan to release a statement, sent the board a letter. 
SGCI agreed to share this response with our membership. In the interest of transparency, we chose to share our full correspondence. Please read it in full below.

Hamilton Museum & SGCI Correspondence

Note: This letter arrived several days after the membership vote was well underway. There is little new information beyond the Museum’s previous social media posts we suggested you read in our newsletter, so we chose to wait to share the letter with you after the vote. Given the overwhelming support of the SGCI community for the letterpress artists, we are confident it would not have altered the results of the vote. 

Dear Southern Graphics Council International Board and Director,

The Board of Directors of the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum values our long-standing relationship with Southern Graphics Council International.

In consideration of your recent member communication and vote initiative, we are writing to request that you share the following information with your membership before SGCI takes a formal position on current concerns.

Since the beginning of 2025, the Executive Committee of our Board has worked closely with museum staff to transition from the outgoing executive director and to prepare for new leadership; the explicit goals were, colloquially, to get our house in order and document processes. The Board ran an executive search and our recruiter consulted with many stakeholders, including members of the printing community suggested by staff and board. For the new fiscal year which began in July, we carefully budgeted to support a new director with time built in for deep immersion into Hamilton. Concurrently, we planned deliberately to relieve staff of demanding production burdens beyond our annual fall conference. The Board scheduled the month of August for candidate visits to the museum. We knew it was imperative that a small staff, the recruiter, and search committee volunteers have the resources needed to complete recruitment well and finish the transition during a time when we did not have an executive on staff.

Our organization had unauthorized commitments made on its behalf for August, including plans for artists’ visits which we weren’t informed of in time to cancel gracefully. As a result, the museum had to do last-minute communications work. We reached out to those affected and tried to explain our perspective, but our decision is still being characterized by some as something it was not.

The Board of Directors wants to be clear that there was no discriminatory intent of any kind. We take such allegations very seriously and reject them firmly. We have a long-time, strong commitment to our diverse communities, as the museum’s historic practices exemplify. The decision to rescind the residency invitations was based solely on the museum’s organizational transition related to the strategic plan that has been in progress for several years. During this period of transition, no new programming commitments were authorized by the Executive Committee and no expenditures outside of the projected budget were approved by the Board of Directors. As with any organization, there is a process for reviewing proposals and identifying funds to cover costs, and the Board’s commitment was finding and hiring a new executive director with the expectation that they would bring their expertise to planning.

Hamilton is focusing on its internal health and team dynamics in support of long-term strategic plans in service of the organization and the broad community it serves. As of earlier this month, the museum has a new award-winning executive director, Beth Kowalski, who will lead the organization’s efforts to realign our policies and procedures with our mission to emerge a stronger, focused museum fully committed to preserving the valuable collections and rich history of type manufacturing and printing. Ms. Kowalski, brings nearly thirty years of professional museum experience to our non-profit organization and is dedicated to moving the museum forward with a plan that is thoughtful and inclusive of all whom the museum seeks to serve – historians, printers, crafts people, and members of our community–from Two Rivers to the global community.

We remain deeply saddened that the response to a business decision continues to be characterized as having malicious intent. We remain steadfast in our commitment to the preservation, study, production, and printing of wood type and preserving that history for creative use today.

We ask that you share this statement with your membership and withhold judgment. The support and partnership of SCGI has been essential to advancing the museum’s good work over the years, and we want to continue to work together with transparency, thoughtfulness, and commitment to our diverse communities.

With respect and appreciation, 

Tracy Honn, President

On behalf of the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum Board of Directors

SGCI Response to Hamilton letter:

Dear Tracy,

Thank you for your email sent on September, 29th which was sent to our full SGCI board. We appreciate Hamilton taking the time to respond to the ongoing concerns of the SGCI membership, who we accurately try to represent as evidenced by our membership poll. We will share your correspondence with us to our membership in our upcoming publications and look forward to future fruitful relationships between our organizations. 

Best regards,

Myles Calvert President
Blake Sanders Executive Director