Sarah Budeski
Meet the artist behind WIR’s Illustration
Sarah Budeski grew up in Bozeman, Montana, a place and landscape that has influenced her work as a letterpress printer, designer, and illustrator.
“I’VE ALWAYS BEEN AN ILLUSTRATOR,” SHE SAYS. “I’M ALWAYS DOODLING. I REMEMBER WHEN I WOULD GO TO CHURCH AS A KID, I WOULDD ALWAYS BE DRAWING- IT WAS THE ONLY WAY I COULD FOCUS. I HAD SO MANY SKETCHBOOKS AND I WOULD DRAW LITTLE FIGURES.”
In High School, one of Sarah’s art teachers, Sukha Worob, let her in on a little secret —that she could replicate her illustrations using printmaking methods. The following year, Sarah took classes in graphic design but wasn’t immediately drawn to that path in the way she was to printmaking. “At the time, I didn’t love it,” she says. “I saw it as just selling things, and I didn’t understand at the time the impact it has on everything people do— everything from signs and advertising to navigation.”
When it came to University, Sarah thought hard about applying to an art school but was worried that turning her art into a profession would make her lose the interest and joy she found in it. She decided to stay close to home and the mountain landscapes she loves and attended Montana State University; her thought was that she could attain the art experience she was looking for and always pivot if something pulled her in a different direction. Her freshman year, she declared a BFA in printmaking.
Sarah spent the spring semester of her junior year in Italy with 16 other students, where one of her professors, Meta Newhouse, opened her mind to the concept that graphic design is part of everything and can be seen everywhere.
“I HAD A HUGE AHA MOMENT WHILE I WSA IN ITAALY STUDYING AT THE WORKING MUSEUM, TIPOTECA,” SARAH SAYS. “IT STRUCK ME THAT THE INTERSECTION OF PRINTMAKING AND GRAPHIC DESIGN IS LETTERPRESS.”
October 14th, 2023
When she returned to Montana in the spring of 2019, Sarah added graphic design as a second BFA, as well as a minor in art history. “I wanted to bring together what for me felt like two polarizing things,” she says. She started working at a letterpress studio, Ice Pond Press, in Bozeman, under the guidance of Molly Douma Brewer, who became a mentor and friend. “During that time, I really wanted to buy my own letterpress,” Sarah says. When her friend, Rosemary Middlebrook, found a used press on the Facebook marketplace in Lolo, Montana, she went out to look at it.
The press was a small, rusted tabletop press that had lived in the homeowner’s basement since the 70s. Along with the press, Sarah and Rosemary discovered that the previous owner of the press was Gary L. Kissler. Not knowing if they could get it to work, they bought the press for $200.00 and restored it together, adding the first letter of each of their names and renaming it the S.R. Kissler press.
At that point, Sarah had been working for Ice Pond Press for about a year and had accepted an internship at Hatch, the oldest letterpress studio in the country. She planned on moving to Nashville, TN, that summer to start, but then the pandemic hit; the internship was postponed, and Sarah found herself without any summer plans.
“I WAS REALLY BUMMING,” SARAH SAYS. “SO, ROSEMARY AND I STARTED IDEATING AN 8,000-MILE ROAD TRIP AROUND THE COUNTRY FO THE SUMMER OF 2021.”
With help from Sarah’s dad, the two built out a letterpress studio in the back of Rosemary’s very small, manual Toyota Scion XD and started a Kickstarter, raising $7,000.00 for the trip. Everyone who donated would receive a postcard that was printed at one of 20 different print studios from across the country. They called it their “Summer of Mobile, Moveable, Type” and hit the open road.
The idea for the trip stemmed from what Sarah and Rosemary had learned from their studies about the history of letterpress apprentices. Centuries ago, these apprentices traveled from print shop to print shop learning the trade from various masters. Later, the International Typographical Union would allow for union-card holders to travel and pick up work in various cities. These traveling printers were called Tramp Printers, and known as the original freelancers. In 2015, artist Chris Fritton, famously known as the Itinerant Printer, revived the practice, traveling across the world for two years modeling practices of the Tramp Printers.
Sarah and Rosemary knew of Fritton from lectures and appearances he had made at MSU. When word spread about their upcoming trip, Fritton reached out to them and offered to help connect them with print shops.
They spent two months traveling across 21 states, visiting 20 print shops, and printing 20 unique postcards. They brought their press, ink, and cleaning supplies with them and used the type collections at each studio they stopped at to create their cards. “It was an amazing trip,” Sarah says. “The press, the printers, and especially the people we met—they were the highlight.”
After returning to Montana in August 2021, Sarah finished her last year at MSU. The following summer, she finally moved to Nashville to take the internship that had been waiting for her, and last October, she took a full-time position as a designer/printer for Hatch.
Fall Collection
With three different styles, our Prairie Moment sweatshirt features a scene of reverence for the land as it harmoniously interweaves prairie flora & fauna with women working and caring for the land. A nod to the West's untamed spirit, it is a visual ode to the women who care for, coexist with, and work these lands.
