Gallery
About the Home for Broken Wood Type
I love how wood type carries the story of its human use; broken type is part of that visible story of our printing communities.
If you have pieces of broken wood type you aren't using: please email me!
I'll pay for shipping to get these to a good next home in my broken-type collection (and send you a print made from broken wood type if you're interested & I have any left). I'm interested in all kinds of broken wood letterpress type: they *really don't* need to have all the pieces of a whole sort, be an identifiable typeface or character, nor be mendable. Send me your unfathomable type-high wood shards, as well as things broken but closer to original form :) I'll take better photos of them, too—most of the current gallery is from type I didn't have a chance to photo up close before a winter storm closed the studio.
In early 2026, I started a broadside print project using Penland School of Craft Letterpress Studio's broken wood type. I then cleaned a case to make a new safe storage home for them that suggests mending, gently printing, and preserving rather than tossing into the dreaded Hell Bucket (Penland's is a whole bucket, not a jar/box; love it). I’ll be printing with more broken wood type, including to encourage folks not to discard it. I'll also document the different ways different kinds of wood type has broken (e.g. material, character, typeface, size, ???), and get practice mending and protecting such type when it's in mendable condition.
In case anyone is worried—no type is being deliberately broken! 😱 I have a background in book history, librarianship, and preservation. Any type that looks at risk of further breakage is *not* being printed with. Printable broken type is treated with extra care—e.g. not overtightening the quoins, attending to what the broken edges are against, etc. My goal is type preservation over print use <3. When a sort's printing time is done, it still has beauty, a story in its fingerprints and dings, and a reminder that much of our cherished letterpress equipment is rapidly aging and no longer replaceable (at least in quite the same way, same history and makers, etc.).
Penland's Home for Beloved Broken Wood Type
Sections for recognizable sorts, large pieces, and unrecognizable (when printed on their own) pieces.
Shelving alongside whole wood type encourages use & discourages throwing broken type away (or filing it into a missable "what do we do with this" pile).
I created a new case, lining, and labels (with some of my non-traditional letterpress color palette...) for Penland's broken wood type, in January 2026 during a monthlong fellowship & artist residency in the Letterpress Studio.
Printing (carefully) with broken type
This broadside will eventually include further text, but a harsh winter storm ended the Winter 2026 Penland artist residencies early, so the rest of the print is delayed. It currently contains only text made using broken wood type from Penland, arranged to say "'Broken' is a relative term".