Elisabeth & Darrell Hyder are the NB Town House Artists of the Month for September 2026

The Friends of the North Brookfield Town House offer you not one, but two “Artists” of the Month for September. Elisabeth and Darrell Hyder have been together for 60 years, 55 of them at their home, studio and printing shop at 23 High Street in North Brookfield. Elisabeth is the artistic one, known for her decorative and colorful paste papers. That’s an old method that is similar to finger-painting in that pigments are applied to dampened paper. But the working out of many patterns, designs, and colors is where her art comes in. And making products with those papers is where they become interesting to others.

Darrell is more the craftsman, having worked with the old method of printing from metal type called letterpress, first as a boyhood hobby but much later as a livelihood. He met Elisabeth in Vermont, they got married near her home in Switzerland where she taught kindergarten for several years, while taking classes in spinning, weaving, dyeing, and woodworking. Textiles and paper were always an interest. Darrell found printing work for the several years they lived there, but the grass eventually seemed greener back “home,” which turned out to be in Barre. Getting fired from a publishing job there changed course for them both. Darrell tried to go on his own with a small printing operation just as many firms were transitioning from the old letterpress technology and equipment became available at near-scrap prices. Luckily, an old house with attached barn was found to repair, then house a growing collection of type and presses.

Work came slowly to the growing collaboration, now named Sun Hill Press. Elisabeth found many tasks besides a large garden and eventually four children. She sewed booklets, designed bookplates, touched up her own and others’ artwork, folded and stitched pamphlets. New England customers eventually included Old Sturbridge Village, the Boston Athenaeum, Boston Public Library, Museum of Fine Arts, American Antiquarian Society, and some from New York as well. 

In 1993 with the children mostly grown, Elisabeth got her own studio over the printing shop and began to make her own paste papers. She fashioned these into albums, journals, and boxes and sold them at craft fairs. These papers and products proved to be her strengths, given her sense of design and refined color sense. She still mixes her own colors, makes new patterns with her own tools, some even cut from erasers. She continues to try new variations with the strong colors and small editions she prefers. Eventually she began cutting up the papers to create collages with them. Sidney Berger, a major collector and connoisseur of decorative papers, claims her to be “among the most innovative and accomplished paste paper decorators in the country.”

While doing that work, Elisabeth also worked up pattern designs to be printed in traditional letterpress by Darrell. These found enthusiastic nation-wide distribution by OrangeArt of Woodstock, Connecticut. They were importers of specialty papers, but developed a new proprietary series of cards, stationery, boxes, and eventually miniature books of quotes under the title “Brookfield” and called it “art you can use.” That profusion of work filled out the last half of Sun Hill’s 50 printing years.

Since none of the children chose to carry on the press, Darrell began downsizing 2018 but still has a little type and a press for his own projects. Elisabeth continues to make and sell her papers and products.

As part of the Back Roads Studio Tour, Elisabeth will have an open house Saturday and Sunday October 3 and 4 from 10 to 5 at 23 High Street in North Brookfield. Her work can be seen at BackRoadsStudioTour.org.

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As part of the
Back Roads Studio Tour, Elisabeth will have an open house Saturday and Sunday October 3 and 4 from 10 to 5

at 23 High Street in

North Brookfield.

Her work can be seen at BackRoadsStudioTour.org.

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