“If” by Rudyard Kipling ~ A new broadside

Tags

Letterpress, Wood Engraving, wood engravings, commissioned work, arts, Rudyard Kipling, Broadside, rewards and fairies

I recently had a commission to produce this classic for a customer and I’ve always had somewhat of an admiration for that “stiff upper lip” British mentality that this poem so embodies. So I made some extras for me and some for you as well, if you so desire…

The text is set all in 18pt ATF Garamond with the title in Americana. I was hoping to do the text in Baskerville to keep it all UK centric but, alas, when hand setting type one is constrained to the amount of sorts in the case. Even with the Garamond I was short four “o” and had to run the last four lines as a separate pressrun. The paper is Domestic Etch and sheet size is 10 x 16 inches, they are signed and numbered in an edition of 55 copies, printed in 2 colors and are available for $45. It is now on the website here:

http://deepwoodpress.com/books.html

The image is a old wood engraving of mine that first appeared in a small edition (50) of poems by Terry Wooten back in 1997 called Hermaion. With a few more cuts to the block I think it makes an admirable companion to If.

If you’re British or an Anglophile you know all about this poem of course. It’s been voted Britain’s favorite poem uncountable times by various survey entities and carries significant meaning beyond the aforementioned immutable British stereotype. I’ll let you do your own googling for info on Dr Leander Starr Jameson and the Boers War. Kipling wrote this for his own son who died in WWI only a few years after the poem was published in Rewards and Fairies in 1909, a shock Kipling never fully recovered from.

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

           And treat those two impostors just the same:

Wood engraving by Chad Pastotnik, detail of Garamond type.

The wood engraving and part of the type set up on the galley.

“The Path” now completed

Tags

arts, Fine Press, fine press books, Hahnemühle paper, illustration, Letterpress, linoleum cuts

Center Spread

As promised, here I present to you the first new book for 2013.

The Path – front cover

Half title page

Title Page

Final page

Inside back cover

Sigrid performing

Sigrid signs the books

 

The Path was a dream Sigrid had of having beautiful children and when shared with friends it quickly evolved into the children being songs and signified to her that it was about making and nurturing songs and the life of songwriting. Aside from the chorus the tale is told as an exact retelling although she relates “in the dream I was told that the bed comes from Guatemala and I just couldn’t fit that in gracefully. I love my dreams but that one was amazingly linear, complete and detailed. I put the last part, about “each of us have light” in because I worried about my audience feeling down about themselves. I wanted them to feel included in the dream and in the experience.”

When I heard this first it was around the proverbial north woods fire ring where several talented friends were taking their turns with guitars until the early morning hours. I was moved by the tune – it describes my own family here on the stream all so well. It didn’t take much effort to persuade Sigrid to allow me to turn it into a book. Keeping true to the original form, Sigrid has gone back into the studio and recorded this new track and it comes with the book. In the back cover there is a pocket with a download card from cdbaby so you too can enjoy this lovely magical lullaby as well.

The text is hand set in ATF Freehand type with Lydian Bold for display sizes and is printed on Hahnemuhle Schiller paper in 7 colors. The regular edition is set at 100 copies and they are bound in a limp binding of “Dark Roast” made by Paperworks Studio, a special commissioned paper I had made just for this project made of reclaimed cotton rag and spiced with fair trade coffee grounds (nicely buffered for your great great grand children’s future enjoyment.) There are also a set of three books that were printed on some quite vintage Fabriano Umbria stock I’d been saving which will be turned into presentation bindings in due time.

It’s now available to purchase on my website for $150.00 and can be found here:

http://deepwoodpress.com/books.html

New book: “The Path” by Sigrid Christiansen

Tags

book arts, fine press books, multi color linoleum cut, Sigrid Christiansen

Well I’ve been a slacker as far as posting on this blog and updating the website but I have been busy here in the shop. Here are some pics of the latest book which has been completed just earlier this week.

More details and pictures of the completed book forthcoming.

Feature in Traverse Magazine & video

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fine press books, Letterpress, Linotype, The Intruder, Traverse magazine feature

Northern Michigan’s Traverse Magazine has me and Deep Wood Press as a feature story in the new January issue which is now available. In addition, they have done a video piece that is online and can be found here.

The magazine article was done by a different writer and goes into more depth and history if you happen to find one on a newsstand near you.

 

The Trout in Winter is now available

Tags

arts, ATF Kelly 2 letterpress, future projects, Glenn Wolff, intaglio, Jerry Dennis, Letterpress, literature

Jerry, Glenn and I got together Sunday and went through the pile. We ended up with 65 passable prints for the edition then proceeded to number and sign them together as we toasted another fun project. Jerry put up a nice piece about the project on his blog today if you are interested.  Rumors are flying that our next collaborative book will be a little something about the least visited national park in the country. Any guesses?

the process

The print is available for purchase now on my website and Glenn has also put it up on his here. $225.00 + shipping

Jerry Dennis, Glenn Wolff & Chad Pastotnik

The Trout in Winter – new broadside

Tags

arts, Glenn Wolff, intaglio prints, Jerry Dennis, Letterpress, literature, The Trout in Winter

Jerry Dennis, Glenn Wolff and I decided to get together and produce a second edition of our first project together – the long gone, highly sought after and divinely inspired The Trout in Winter.

We can’t remember when it was exactly, around 10 years ago we were probably maddened by the off season and inspired enough to do something about it. We printed 60 copies back then, no pictures or other documentation beyond a few mushy proofs and half set type samples. We sold them fast and we sold them for little money. The one good copy that I thought I had actually turned out to be a variation on the final text layout which was unfortunate because I used it as a template for setting the new type and when Glenn showed up with his last remaining print we all remembered the old story.

As the text is all hand set type and from a case of large display size type (24pt) one tends to have a very finite number of each individual letter. I realized we would quickly run out of lower case “e” and asked Jerry if he wouldn’t mind if we judiciously italicized some words, preferably words with “e”s. Even so far as changing some words on the fly (wonderful to have the author present while setting type) as most profoundly evidenced by the last line where the final word in the manuscript was “leave” but was sacrificed and changed to “go”. All in the futile grasp for artistic perfection and keep the body type all the same throughout the broadside!

We’re somewhat more refined now so we thought we might attempt to express that for this edition as well. Glenn’s copper engraving didn’t do well in the years of idle storage, he made up for it by engraving an additional “remark” on the plate. Some of the lighter detail was quite difficult to wipe so again our edition is limited to 72 pulled copies, maybe we got 65 good prints out of it and now the plate is permanently retired. I took advantage of the opportunity to re-set the type composition, while it is faithful to the original now the capitals have been mortised properly, ligatures added and a much better job on the print quality from the press.

We’ll decide a price when we get together this weekend after the paper is dry (it needed to be soaked for the intaglio printing and kept damp for the letterpress run) to sign and number the edition. We’ll announce when and where you can get it by Monday.

Click on any image for the big picture slideshow.

Jerry and Glenn admiring “The Intruder”

Scheming the new changes

Glenn’s intaglio plate

Wiping the intaglio plate

Jerry takes a turn at the intaglio press

Type form

Fancy type mortising (kerning)

Hand inking the gold initials with a small brayer

Cranking the Vandercook

A printed sheet next to the type form

The Trout in Winter

. . . and charge the big hook jaws . . .

Glenn’s remark

The new edition of The Trout in Winter

Words – the only poem Jerry Dennis claims to have ever written

Intaglio – Glenn Wolff’s deft hand with graver and copper plate.

Printed on Somerset Velvet paper buff and composed in Baskerville type, mostly in 24 pt size. Paper is 15.25 x 22.5″ and the intaglio plate is 17.5 x 12″. Printed on a 26 x 47″ BAG Intaglio Press and a Vandercook 219 Old Style here at Deep Wood Press

“20 years of Deep Wood Press” retrospective show

Tags

arts, exhibition, fine press books, intaglio prints, Letterpress, wood engravings, workshop

This Friday from 6-9 pm is the opening for my exhibit at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center. The show will be up until December 7th so if you happen to be in the area please stop in to have a look.

In addition to the books that I’ve created or designed over the past two decades there will be a fair sampling of my intaglio and relief artwork framed and hung on the walls. I’m also putting some of the better work produced by my apprentices and collaborators here in the studio. Not so much of the commercial or commissioned work and none of the social garbage I was forced to do to feed myself and family in the early dark years of being letterpress when letterpress wasn’t cool.

I am including some of the early book work and design stuff that I now consider pure “junk”. But it’s honest. None of us (or precious few) start out doing spectacular work and it’s never easy to admit we were once so daft as to think we did. I put in the junk because this particular venue is also a teaching environment and hopefully it will be inspiring for those just getting started on their path into the black arts to see the evolution of someone else’s path. Maybe see the processing of ideas and skills from dreck to my present understanding of what it is.

On Saturday I’m teaching a small workshop during the day at KBAC where we’ll be printing beer coasters. I know, real highbrow stuff, but also very useful for the staff and student community. Back in 2009 I sold the center a platen press which hasn’t got much use, mostly because it’s very intimidating and has the potential to smash body parts if you don’t know what you’re doing. Beer coasters are nice and thick and are easy to pick up and feed into the press – perfect for learning on a platen. As a bonus, who wouldn’t want to have their own custom coaster for the upcoming holiday season?

This Friday is also Art Hop in Kalamazoo so the town will be buzzing with studio visits  and gallery doors being open later into the night. Some of my favorite printmakers are in town such as Mary Brodbeck and Ladislav Hanka – both do amazing work and I’m looking forward to seeing the new stuff and visiting over the weekend.

I’m staying through to Monday to give a studio interview with Rebecca Theile at WMUK, the local NPR affiliate college radio station. I’ll post info about airing dates and availability of an online stream once I know.

 

Political Printing

Tags

frustration, job work, torture by locale community

No, not for the big guns out in Washington. A local effort at a level where politics might actually be effective – my friend Tim is running for a township trustee opening. Since the position has a huge pay of about $25.00 a meeting (monthly if he’s lucky) and an equally miserable benefit package of absolutely nothing for a township of maybe 800 people we thought we’d approach this the way our founding fathers did – on the cheap!

Even better, we stole the wire frames for the road signs from the opposition! (joke)

Tim only needed about a dozen signs to keep him competitive with his opponent so we broke out some leftover tyvek house wrap and I got out cases of wood type. I hand inked the type in two colors with small brayers and in a few hours we were done.

I gotta say I felt a lot like ol’ Ben Frankiln doing this job. “The power of the press belongs to those that own one!”