Photo: James Kriszyk
By Leah Grant
Issue 3, June 2015
“This is the inking table and the press and you hand ink each time before you drop the paper on and then pull the roller over.” We are in Dennis Gould’s letterpress workshop surrounded by lovingly created cards and posters, the air permeated with the smell of wet ink and hard graft. It is in this small room where I meet Dennis for a quiet chat on a Tuesday afternoon and come away with armfuls of his iconic artwork. “I tend to print just cards and posters. I like the ephemeral nature of them and they’re accessible to most people.”
Born in Burton-On-Trent and raised in Derbyshire, Dennis Gould is not just a man defined by his letterpress printing, although for this he has become renowned in the local area and beyond. His background is marked by his pacifism, by a stint in the army and a spell in prison, and finally, by his poetry. “DH Lawrence was a major influence on my writing, on writing poetry, because he’s well known as a novelist, but he’s also a brilliant poet…I began writing after reading his essays and letters and poems because they seemed very simple, but of course simplicity is the hardest thing in any field.”
In printmaking, Dennis has found a way to present his poetry that perfectly echoes the beauty of his prose and in combining these two passions he has created a career that spans almost twenty-five years. But life wasn’t always so straightforward and the circuitous route Dennis took to get to this point has had a dramatic impact on the man and his art.
After leaving school at sixteen, Dennis spent two years as a trainee hotel manager before joining the army: “I saw these wonderful adverts – ‘join the army, see the world’ - and I was very naïve, but I did ask if I could make maps.” Dennis was enrolled at the School of Military Survey near Newbury and spent eighteen months there before being posted to Cyprus. (Interestingly, he frequently utilises maps in his artwork, contrasting their fine detail against the heavy print of his letterpress.) On leaving the army, Dennis spent a year with the International Voluntary Service and then became involved with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Committee of 100. It was during this time that Dennis and thousands of others were imprisoned, yet he speaks passionately about the peace movement of the sixties and it is clear in his work that this is a subject close to his heart.
In a roundabout way it was Dennis’s pacifism that brought him to Stroud in 1989, when he came to visit his old friend and fellow peace activist, John Marjoram. But it was printmaking and the beautiful countryside that forced him to return; when asked what he loves most about the area, Dennis said, “I like the diversity of the people, the fact that it’s a working town and it’s got lots of craftsmen and artists, poets and writers. And I love the countryside, I write a lot of poems about my cycle rides and the landscape.”
Dennis’s smooth transition into life as a ‘Stroudie’ is evident in the vast quantities of his work that is sold both on his stall in the Shambles market every Saturday morning and at Made In Stroud on Kendrick Street, yet despite the popularity of his prints (which are replicates of both his own poems and the works of people he respects such as Bob Dylan and Lawrence Ferlinghetti), Dennis admits that for the first ten years of letterpress printing his lack of technical knowledge meant he still considered himself an apprentice. Now, he passes his skills on to those wishing to experiment in the trade themselves, opening up his shared workshop for free and demonstrating the process of setting a poem or a business card: “The essential thing is for people to feel relaxed when they come in here…”
It is this generosity of time and knowledge that perfectly characterises Dennis. As I leave his workshop, keen to explore my armful of goodies, I find myself inspired by his unique adaptability and as I search through the pamphlets and poems, newspaper and barely-dry prints, I soon find myself reaching for my notebook eager to pen a verse of my own.
Leah Grant is a writer and photographer with a keen interest in art and literature. On her blog, Bellyful of Art, you can find reviews of exhibitions, installations, dance performances and literary events as well as her own lovingly created pieces of short fiction.
UPDATE! On Thursday 9th April we will be screening a 25min Dennis Gould documentary by local filmmaker Alasdair Ogilvie on our YouTube channel. Click here to watch the screening at 8:15pm and here for the facebook event page for further info…
As well as our recent project (Good On Paper TV) following Good On Paper’s current hiatus over the next few month’s we will be putting up articles from our archives for our readers to easily access and share…Community and culture can carry on in different ways. For now….