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Melbourne Museum of Printing

Our Staff and Volunteers

PAST AND PRESENT


Our Director

Michael Isaachsen, originally from Adelaide (South Australia), retired from Telecom Australia [now Telstra Corp]. Also Manager of our typefoundry, Australian Type Company.

Michael has been a hobby printer since the age of 9 and learnt typecasting about 1978.

Michael's other voluntary work is research into the environment and the effects of transportation on it. To avoid road traffic growing to four times its present levels (within less than a hundred years) rail traffic must grow to far more than four times, perhaps twenty times.


NOTE (2011): Staff listed below have left years ago. They made valuable contributions to the formation of the organisation. All are fondly remembered.


Katherine Foster

Katherine first came to the Museum to print something in our Access Studio. But the work was so absorbing, and Katherine met so many interesting visitors wanting to do the same, that she became a volunteer and stayed on for over two years and continued to visit from time to time.

Ron Hanniver

A volunteer who regularly helped in the office. Ron is a former trainee who stayed on after his traineeship.

Tony Farthing

Tony is a self-trained mechanic. He visits the Museum from time to time and helps on fixing things up.

Making and mending bicycles is one of Tony's great passions. He and his son Robert are also pretty keen on computers.


Alana Wignell

A trainee who developed an interest and great skills in assisting our visiting artists who come to use the Access Studio.

Alana has previous experience with printing (but not letterpress) and has took the opportunity to learn letterpress with great enthuiasm. Alana has moved on into mainstream printing.


Daniel Hone

A trainee whose main contribution was to reorganise our storage area so the we can find things and use the space more efficiently.

Furio Donato

A trainee who is very interested in the operation of Museums and who is learning what is involved in public relations. Furio was involved in moving and classifying our artefacts, and put in some time with hand typesetting and printing to get the flavour of letterpress.

Furio's interest outside the Museum is the curation of artefacts of ancient civilisations.


Wayne Duncan

Another Linotype operator, Wayne worked at a Melbourne newspaper in the composing room for many years, and now comes to the Museum as a volunteer.

Another of Wayne's great interests is the study of railways and tramways. This has taken him and his camera to many places around the world. This has led him back to New Zealand but hopefully we will see Wayne again.


Robert Mihkailovski

Robert is a former curator at the Museum of Art in Bitola, Macedonia, who came to Australia in 1992 (?).

Robert has learnt letterpress typesetting and printing and comes in occasionally to lend a hand on anything that's going on or produce a poster with hand-set large types.


Seiko Harada

Seiko took a year's leave from her Visual Communication course at Tsukuba University in Ibaraki, Japan, and in her travels found this Museum.

Seiko became a regular volunteer and apart from helping with a variety of tasks became busy practicing the fundamentals of letterpress printmaking.


Don Hauser

Don retired from the printing industry but keeps in touch as a consultant. Don has spent some time helping the Museum reorganise during and after our unwanted move, and intends to try his hand at his old trade, letterpress composing and printing.

Hortensiu Arosio

Hortense has given the Museum a helping hand on many occasions. He had no knowledge of printing but found it interesting, working with the thousands of varied items in the collection and starting a database.

Hortense, who came from East Timor, has now got a regular job. Good Luck!


Last updated December 2000


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