Worshiping at the Altar de Posada

North Bay Letterpress Arts celebrates the famous Mexican printer responsible for much of the imagery we know from Day of the Dead

North Bay Letterpress Arts director Andrew Mecum (left) demonstrates pulling a print at an Intro to Letterpress class themed around Posada’s work. Posada’s original prints are on the wall in the background.

For such a small town, Sebastopol has a tremendous, sometimes surprising cultural richness. A case in point is the unique celebration that has been happening all month at North Bay Letterpress Arts (NBLA) of the work of Jose Guadalupé Posada, one of the greatest printers in Mexican history and the creator/popularizer of much of the Day of the Dead imagery we're familiar with today.

Posada, who was born in 1852 and died in 1913, worked as a lithographer, engraver and a caricaturist. He invented the now ubiquitous Day of the Dead figure known as La Catrina - the female skeleton with the wide, broad-brimmed hat. (It's said that Diego Rivera gave her that name.) Though Posada covered Mexican politics as a cartoonist, he's most famous for his Day of the Dead images.

North Bay Letterpress Arts, which is located behind Beekind in south Sebastopol, has a small collection of Posada originals on display, as well as printer plates that visitors can use to print a Posada-like chapbook.

The space alone is worth a visit: it's a large, high-ceilinged room filled with gorgeous old letterpress machines, created in an age when even machines were things of beauty.

The Posada exhibit is the brainchild of NBLA director Andrew Mecum, who says this is just the first in a series of monthly tributes to great printers.

Mecum gives credit for the Posada exhibit to Jim Nikas of the Posada Art Foundation in San Francisco.

Nikas and his wife, who have a weekend home in Forestville, began collecting Posada's work more than 20 years ago when they met a friend of Posada's old publisher. Together, they acquired a huge treasure trove of his work - original prints, plates, chapbooks, letters and other ephemera.

Thanks to his passion for Posada's work, Nikas has become an accidental expert on Mexican history of the late nineteenth and early 20th century. 

"If you want to learn about history, just start collecting something," he jokes.

Speculating about why Posada's skeletons have such a hold on the popular imagination, he says, "A skeleton is just the bare bones of what each one of us has inside of us. And it makes the perfect communication vehicle for satire, or for making a statement about how maybe we all end up in the same place and therefore we should try to get along."

The ofrenda to printer Jose Guadalupé Posada at North Bay Letterpress Arts

A series of fortunate events

Earlier in the month, on Nov. 2 (All Souls Day), NBLA created an ofrenda, a Day of the Dead altar, in Posada's honor, and Wednesday, on Nov. 16, they're doing a letterpress workshop themed around his work.

There are still several events to come:

NBLA is having a big celebration of Posada’s work on Saturday, Nov. 19, 4 to 6:30 pm, where you can learn about Posada and see the original prints and plates from The Posada Arts Foundation. Jim Nikas and other guests will discuss Posada’s legacy. There will be live printing using replica plates, making commemorative prints the guests can take home. The event is a fundraiser for NBLA, and the tickets are $50. Get tickets.

On Sunday, Nov. 20 and 27, as they've been doing throughout the month, North Bay Letterpress Arts will have a free open house from 12-5 pm where people can, as Mecum says "Pop in, pay tribute to Posada, share, learn, print, and pop out."

Posada’s La Catrina.