Kelly Shields is an artist, educator, and lover of paper and print. She started Red Flower Letterpress in 2013 after she had the good fortune of acquiring a Vandercook 4t printing press at auction at the Cincinnati International Airport, which she lovingly restored. The studio serves as a rebellious counterpart to her day job as a high school digital art teacher.
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She fell in love with letterpress because it allows her to employ antique and modern technologies together in the production of beautiful, tactile, affordable art. To her, it is the perfect balance between hand skills and the computer. She sees her press as a modern artistic tool that is grounded in centuries of letterpress history.