History of the Carmel of Reno Printshop
History is not science but an art-in this sense, it transcends who, what, where and when. It has to do with the past but also with the present and, yet another also when we add the future. As a separate entity, the Carmel of Reno began its official existence on a particular day in 1954-as a reality today it began in many and diverse people, in many and diverse regions of the country. It is concretized in the fourteen members who today make up the living,breathing community at 1950 La Fond Drive. We are part of Carmel throughout the world, part of the Church, part of the Dioceses, part of the City of Reno, part of the Christian Churches of the city, part of the business community. Perched on the southwest hills part and yet apart-living a particular life and living at the same time the existence that is the common heritage of all. The facts of our printshop as contained in the succeeding paragraphs tell something of our story and point to the reality of the lives of the Sisters who have built this business which is unique in Carmel.
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With the purchase of the new press in the spring of ‘59 another era had begun. In the fall we sent out our first separate mailing for a Christmas card brochure. The Fitchburg paper company donated a number of boxes of colored parchment cover stock for cards, (we had bought some from them previously) and Mr. Bell, a new found friend at Marset Ink company in New York provided us with gold and silver offset ink. (He had several other businesses and donated the two heavy folding tables we still have and the big grey rolling cart the laminator sits on. ) A card printer/designer, Wally Kibbe, in the Bay area gave us hints on how to print cards on the new Chief and developed into quite an encouraging correspondent. One of the sisters’ father was in advertising and he urged us do colorful brochures for our cards. He himself had a full color brochure done to advertise our vestments and gave us a color separation for one of our Christmas cards. The cost of color separations in those days was a deterrent for us to do anything further, though.
In January 1961 the old cutter was electrified. The investment of approximately $1300.00 for the power pack, etc. was well worth it in the time and energy saved, not to mention the better cutting of paper. The company which provided the electric power pack for the cutter had a used letterpress which was purchased for a nominal sum. (Probably under $2000) This was a Chandler and Price platen press with an automatic Kluge Feeder. (The one we still have!) It was a real step up . After work hours in the evenings Bert Miller and his apprentice, Walt Huff, explained how to work the press and showed us many things which saved us time and improved our work. Christmas card imprints, ordination and memorial cards, envelopes and parking tickets flowed forth with relative ease compared to the extreme efforts of yore.
Sometime in 1962 or early 1963 we purchased the Kenro vertical camera for around $1800.00 It was capable of all types of work, including color separations. A novice was trained for photography and learned color separation work from the Kodak technical representative, Mr. Frutiger. Mr. F. looked over our darkroom and made suggestions for improvement. At his recommendation we had a fiberglass sink constructed and put in a thermostatic valve for temperature control, as well as cabinets for storing film and chemical supplies. This was an additional $500 or $600 expenditure. The community invested this money in order to be able to do our own color work, since it would cost many times that to keep having work done outside.
These were the early years leading up to Vatican II and there was much enthusiasm in the Church and an abundance of vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Ordination cards and memorials were much in demand and, it seems, Carmel of Reno cards were the choice of many in those days. These were also the years of the first changes in the horarium and liturgy, dialog Masses, etc. Sister Formation was big in the US and we subscribed to the Bulletins on it and got all the new studies on religious life from the congresses being held yearly. The print shop was heavily invested in for the future, but we were even more heavily investing in the future of religious life with discussions and experiments in formation, etc. The community was still fairly young in age and the foundation was only 12 or 15 years in existence and not yet quite “off the ground.” In those days we lived without the worry of medical insurance or doctor bills, even though we had a lot of illness. St. Mary’s Hospital and every Reno doctor gave their services gratis. We did not have a car and there were no transportation costs to speak of (we were still quite cloistered.) With many paper donations the print shop overhead was relatively low. We did have expenses, but we considered them “investments.” In addition we took out loans, paying off one, only to take out another. As a result we were a “non-profit” organization in more ways than one. In this era too, we stopped taking “job work ”as we decided against obtaining a commercial printing license. Thus we removed ourselves from any semblance of competition on the local scene. Instead we got our BDA/Carmel of Reno (Legalese for “Doing Business As”) which freed us to control our own schedule, and to concentrate on our own religious graphic arts work as a non-profit religious organization.
To improve our professional skills we took Mr. Landes’ recommendation to join the Graphic Arts Technical Foundation and receive their training booklets which greatly supplemented the trade magazines and articles he had shared with us over the years. From these sources in the coming years we learned the essentials of the chemistry and physics related to paper, inks, printing techniques, climate control, photography and graphics as a whole.
In the spirit of the times we were intent on upgrading the traditional Carmelite mailings. Sr. Anne, with help from others, put a great deal of serious study and work into creating the texts of new biblically based “Days of Prayer.” Full color paintings enhanced these finished booklets. These and the paintings used for holy cards were color separated by the Sisters in the newly equipped darkroom. We also did color separation work for Bishop Dwyer’s Christmas cards. In this era we bought and set up the precision register punch and stripping system. This enabled us to make precision templates and establish a Color Key proofing system for use on our second hand vacuum frame. (The vacuum frame was later replaced by a new and more efficient model obtained by the Wiegand grant.) In addition this new system allowed us to do holy cards 6-up, a great saving in time and paper. With much training and practice, the Sisters had perfected line, duotone, and color separation work with production techniques based on the decisional choice to remain within the limits of small press work. In effect, this meant that our boundaries for card design, production, equipment and materials, could not go beyond the capacities of 10 x 15 size presses.
These years of training for professionalism in our work brought us to a place where we were a fully equipped and self contained graphic arts operation. We were thrilled when Mr. Frutiger and the paper sales reps took our work as samples of what could be done with their products on small presses. And locally, Mr. Landes showed our cards to his pressmen commenting to the effect that if these ladies can do this on a Chief 15, you should do as well on your big one! To accommodate the growing volume of demand for our cards it seemed logical to consider getting another press, to accomplish more in less time, and control our schedule, even though the price of presses had gone up over $4,000. And so in the spring of ‘64 the community voted to get another Chief 15 press with the trade-in of the old Multilith. Each previous investment decision had been blessed and we trusted that if we did our part to live our life faithfully while trying to produce “good work” for God, we would have continued blessing. Throughout these years while the print shop was being built up many other things were converging – the Council changes, experiments and renewal of our life, to name a few. We took very seriously the recommendations to discuss in community everything that affected our life. In a soul searching chapter discussion a decision was taken to concentrate our efforts on printing and give up the vestment work and sewing. This was in the interests of simplifying our life, focusing our energies and time on what we thought could be the main source of income and involve everyone in the community at one level or another. It was not easy to exchange the quiet, solitary and creative work of sewing and altar breads for the risky and demanding one of printing. The price was willingly paid by everyone and a united thrust into the future began. Meanwhile, in 1965, the historic first national meeting of Carmelite Nuns in the US, took place in St. Louis. Among the many surprising things coming out of this meeting, was the idea for an intermonastery magazine, to foster communication and exchange of ideas about Aggiornamento. A dream for better understanding among the Carmels was partially implemented by our decision to take on the printing and mailing of the fledgling magazine, Encounter, which we continued between the years 1965 and 1975 or ‘76 In addition to its purpose of fostering communication in the Post Vatican II era, it proved to be rich learning experience for us in the technical end of the publishing process. 



In 1968 we were 13. But we were also faced with new challenges arising from new needs for work, living and worship space. Work space needs had been created by the slow aggregation of equipment and our realization that greater efficiency would better serve the needs of the contemplative life. Very intense community discussions on the council documents led us to see the importance of re-modeling our worship space. Our library was overflowing its two small rooms on the upper level, occupying rooms (and corridors) which we now needed for people, storage and simple domestic functioning. In 1968, the monastery building was only about 10 years old and, providentially, had never been completed due to lack of funds. And so we began to plan seriously for a comprehensive re-modeling. Our intention was to make the printshop more efficient, create a more meaningful worship space, and enhance our personal living space. And all this was in the light of simplification and deepening the community’s prayer life. We borrowed the required funds (roughly $60,000.00) and repaid the loans in not too long a time.
In mid January, after the community made decisions on what was needed, David Vhay and George Ferrari, the architects who had worked on the original monastery building, drew up some general remodeling plans which included the creation of a completely new entrance/foyer. They left the finishing detail work to David’s son. Many discussions with him followed, in which our needs were worked into practical plans with the assistance of his expertise. The kitchen and refectory areas were to become kitchen, dining room and library. The printshop was planned to facilitate work flow and general efficiency.
The actual remodeling work began on April 30th and on May 5th we had the first Mass in the temporary chapel in the packing room. Upstairs we started by creating a new chapel – joining the outer and inner sections and removing the grilles. A wall to wall predella for the altar was placed in the center to delineate the enclosure instead of the grille. The small turn room, speak room and sacristy were demolished and the new foyer area next to the guest room was constructed. What was at one time four small rooms became a conference/visiting room. The sacristy was integrated off the chapel. Once that was fairly finished, the downstairs area was begun. Volunteers from the K of C and a crew of Chow McGarry’s colorful friends came with sledgehammers, wrecking bars, etc. and went to work knocking out walls and salvaging lumber for re-use. All the ceilings were lowered in the basement to insulate and soundproof the printshop machinery areas, so there would be more quiet in the living quarters above. The kitchen and refectory areas were re-done as planned and the library books found a new home in what had been the refectory. Out of many small cubicles and storage places came a cohered printing plant. The work flowed from the dark room, layout area to the press room/cutter area to the packing room. New custom module shelving and counters organized everything and provided a sense of order which had previously seemed unreachable in the cramped spaces. In all, from planning stage to completed new rooms, the re-modeling project took a full year. General chaos, noise, dust and daily clean-ups in addition to our daily work and regular observance posed a tremendous challenge. But in the end the renovation provided us with real space and the hoped-for simplified, efficient work flow.
With the completion of the remodeling, the community decided to have “Open House” in January, 1970. This was to let people know the monastery existed and enable them to see us at work and prayer. So at the close of the 60’s, and moving toward the new decade of the 70’s, we had thirteen Sisters, comparative youth and enthusiasm, new equipment, and a new printing plant. We began also, to organize the business end of the printshop, slowly attempting to track the buying of paper, parts and supplies and to keep “printshop” records.
Springtime of 1970 ushered in a period of greater stability. This was reflected in the quality and improvements in our life as a whole and especially in the printshop work. The average age was 44 years and of the people in the printshop it was 36. Youth was on our side . 



- Analyzing our work flow, he noted that our design and production were outstanding but that we had no provision for marketing our cards.
- He taught us a program developed for the building of the Nautilus submarine, known as the PERT CHART ( Program, Evaluation and Review Technique). This concept still underlies the running of the printshop. With this theory as our guide we looked at the end product desired, the time line needed to get there and we personalized the process by including in all equations the needs of our contemplative community.


by Sister Rosemary Kluepfel