Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Midwest Craft Pilgrimage, Part 2
Tomorrow morning Annie & I head out on the second leg of our
Midwest Craft Pilgrimage. First stop is Oxford, New York where we will
spend two days making paper on Mina Takahashi and Marco Breuer's farm.
From Oxford we will wind our way up to Shanty Bay, Ontario for pochoir
lessons with Walter Bachinsky and Janis Butler of Shanty Bay Press. From there we will slip back down to the lower 48 for two days of hand press printing with Bob and Freddy Baris at the Press on Scroll Road.
Propelled by the intoxicating vapors of craft immersion we will plow
onward to Chicago where I will be giving this year's American Printing
History Association Lieberman Lecture at the Newberry Library.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Midwest Craft Pilgrimage: Stockholm, Wisconsin
After breakfast in Decorah we headed for Stockholm, Wisconsin to visit Gaylord and Brenda Schanilec. Gaylord is a wood engraver, letterpress printer, maple syrup maker, and fisherman who's books draw their unique power from a close examination of his natural surroundings, a method Brenda refers to as playful science. In two of Gaylord's recent books, Mayflies of the Driftless Region and Sylvæ, he has treated the observation of the mayflies he uses for fly fishing or the trees on his property as his starting point, and allowed the content of the book to grow and gather around his findings. For his current multi-volume work titled The River he is engraving specimens of fish and mussels that he catches in Lake Pepin, a natural swelling of the Mississippi River near his home in Stockholm. For this purpose he has outfitted a motor boat with an observation tank, a drawing table, a small library, and a cabinet for his camera equipment. His goal is to eventually catch every species in the lake. As he collects, records, and engraves specimens for the first volume, he simultaneously collects historical narratives about Lake Pepin. The various passages he gleans from these narratives will form the text of the book. Although our work is very different, I feel a great affinity for Gaylord's process—Sylvæ made me first consider appending notes to my alphabetical works.
Gaylord can engrave on wood with more delicacy than I can draw with ink and this entire trip grew out of my desire to take an engraving lesson with him. When I first brought the idea up he said, "I can show you how to use the tools but I can't imagine you'll want to invest the time to become an engraver." While it is true that I am not interested in making traditional wood engravings using what Gaylord calls the "flurry of lines" technique, I am interested in involving more autographic processes in my work. As long as I know one of the greatest living wood engravers, I might as well learn to use the tools from him. The engraving lesson, though, was only part of the draw to visit Stockholm. Every year or two Gaylord comes for a visit to stay with us in New York and I have come to regard him in an urban setting. He talks about cutting down trees or catching mayflies but his stories remain abstract. I have never seen him in his native surroundings. His description of his property as being two miles from a town of 80 people is not something I can easily visualize. Similarly, when Gaylord began work on the River project I told him that I used to do a lot of fishing when I was a kid. I don't think he believed me. Our knowledge of each other was limited by urban settings—it was time for a visit.
Winding our way north through Iowa, both Annie and my cell phones lost reception at the Minnesota border (perhaps that's what they mean by "driftless region"). Gaylord had suggested driving up the river on the Minnesota side and then crossing into Wisconsin at Wabasha or Winona. Shortly after merging onto routes 14 & 61 in La Crescent, Annie pointed out the passenger window and said "That's a really big bird." I turned my head to see an enormous bald eagle keeping pace with us. Somewhere just north of La Crescent we had crossed the less clearly marked border into Oz. My excitement at seeing a bald eagle in flight was soon tempered when I noticed that they were everywhere—sitting in trees, circling high above, criss crossing their feeding trough, the Mississippi. After the fourth or fifth eagle sighting I had become jaded enough to wonder if the bald eagle is to the Minnesotan what the pigeon is to the New Yorker.
With an hour or two to spare before we were scheduled to arrive in Stockholm, Annie and I decided to lunch and take in the sights of Wabasha, Minnesota. Entering the town limits we learned that Wabasha was the location of the film Grumpy Old Men, suggesting that the iconic scenes of ice fishing from said movie may have been filmed on what I had thought of as Gaylord's lake. Prior to arriving, Annie had queried the town on her iPhone and discovered that, in addition to our various dining options, Wabasha was home to the National Eagle Center, a sight not to be missed. After a delightful lunch of grilled cheese, salad, and Cheesy Chicken Tortilla Soup at Stacy's Kitchen, we trudged through the rain to the Eagle Center. I had assumed the Center would consist of a series of dramatic dioramas, patriotic soundtracks along the lines of "American by birth, Harley rider by choice", and some pay-as-you-go binoculars, but the first thing I saw on entering the Center was a young woman with a gigantic eagle perched on her hand. I suppose I should have been excited but my first impulse was to flee. In a contest of strength or will, I would surely be defeated by such a bird. Is it even legal to keep a bald eagle captive? I steeled myself, paid the $16 entry fee for two and cast myself into the fray. The picture below will give you a good idea of what I look like when I think my eyeball is about to be plucked out by a huge, predatory bird.
Quitting Wabasha, we crossed over into Wisconsin. The river bridge eases into a causeway on the Wisconsin side and travels through a diverse wetland, with shaded eddies, tall grasses, and verdant trees arched above secret pools. Just like my experience in Iowa, I didn't know what to expect but my expectations were wrong. When we hit solid land in Nelson we paid "Smiling Bob" a visit at the discount liquor store and picked up a bottle each of Santa Margherita Chianti and Knob Creek bourbon as house gifts. At the checkout counter I noticed a bottle of maraschino cherry-colored liquor called "Ice Hole" with a surprisingly moderne label. We chose not to sample it but I bet it has kept a lot of solitary ice fishermen company in their shacks. After a bit of a drive, we passed by the designated turn off at County Road JJ in favor of touring through the town of Stockholm. To our surprise, the town sign listed the population at 66 rather than the oft-remarked 80.
Gaylord and Brenda's land is perfect for an artist in the same way that it is probably all wrong for a farmer. Their house and out buildings are perched on the peak of a hill from which their property falls away into a ravine. There is just enough flat land for the four buildings, a kitchen garden, a small orchard, and a regulation tennis court. Grading downward in all directions are their woods. In addition to being the source of his book Sylvæ, the woods are where Gaylord taps his syrup trees (a distant cousin of the money tree) and where he and Brenda go morel hunting in the spring. Prior to arrival, Gaylord made it clear that a morel hunt was in the offing. Of the four buildings on their property, one houses a printshop, one a wood working shop, and one exists solely to store and kiln-dry wood. Gaylord's printshop is roughly six times the size of mine and, as is true for all printshops, it is just a little too small to fit that one last piece of equipment.
Gaylord's wood loft.
The next morning we set to work. I'm a little embarrassed to say that I had never seen someone engrave in wood before our lesson. In all of our conversations about engraving, Gaylord has been insistent that he can only teach me how to hold the tools, the rest is practice. What I found most informative about the lesson, though, was watching the pace with which Gaylord works with those tools. I have always imagined that the fine white lines of wood engravings are made with a continuous, fluid movement, making the precision with which people like Gaylord engrave seem otherworldly, or at least unattainable. Instead, the process is extremely slow and measured, each line engraved one tiny bit at a time. In many ways the pace reminded me of complex vector drawing on the computer, though of course with very different results. Every time I began to cut I had to check myself to slow down. After thirty minutes of messing around, Gaylord showed me how to shorten the gravers to the correct length, packed up a selection of his homemade wood blocks for me to practice on, and began getting the boat ready. The lessons I will be taking on this trip will be concise sessions that I will follow up in correspondence. Since returning to New York I have begun engraving a block and as I progress I will proof it and send prints to Gaylord for comment.
Gaylord showing me how to hold the graver.
Master and student at work.
Gaylord engraving.
Next we set out for Lake Pepin for an expedition on the boat. Since Gaylord began work on The River I have been hearing certain names recur—Lake of Tears, Point au Sable, and Point No Point—names that seem more likely to pepper the notebooks of Meriwether Lewis than the blog of a friend of mine. Point No Point has been a particular curiosity to me. It is such a graceless name that I cringe every time I hear it, making me want to see it all the more. True to form, it was fascinating, the only true geological tropme l'oeil I have ever seen. Motoring north up the lake after a brief mussel hunting excursion on Point au Sable, Point No Point came into view and remained, without ever changing shape, as we progressed up river. The point never came to a point but always looked like one. Until, suddenly, we crossed the perspectival barrier that revealed the point for the gentle bend that it is. Crossing the lake to the Wisconsin shore, Gaylord set me up with rod and reel and nearly fell off the boat with disbelief when I actually caught a fish: an enormous white bass that is sure to be a record breaker.
Gaylord on the boat.
Casting a line.
Un-hooking the record-breaking bass prior to release.
The next day it was time for the hunt. Brenda had made fresh morels for dinner on both nights of our visit thus far and the stocks were getting low. I have never met a serious book person who does not also love food and there are few more appropriate activities for printers to engage in (when not printing, of course) than to hunt for food. In fact, for many printers it seems that printing is what one does to fill in time between eating. After tooling around the shop all morning, Gaylord, Brenda, Annie, the two dogs, and I packed off to hunt the elusive mushrooms.
The hunters.
The quarry.
The kill.
To cap our visit off, Terry Belanger, Director Emeritus of Rare Book School, and Dan DeSimone, Rosenwald Curator at Library of Congress, just happen to be visiting the bookseller (and Gaylord Schanilec bibliographer) Rob Rulon-Miller in St. Paul. They drove down for a studio visit and to join us for dinner at Pepin, Wisconsin's world famous Harbor View Restaurant. After a sizable and delicious serving of food, Annie and I turned in to bed for our last night in Stockholm.
Rob Rulon-Miller and Terry Belanger looking at books in Gaylord's printshop.
Dan DeSimone and I deep in conversation.
Gaylord can engrave on wood with more delicacy than I can draw with ink and this entire trip grew out of my desire to take an engraving lesson with him. When I first brought the idea up he said, "I can show you how to use the tools but I can't imagine you'll want to invest the time to become an engraver." While it is true that I am not interested in making traditional wood engravings using what Gaylord calls the "flurry of lines" technique, I am interested in involving more autographic processes in my work. As long as I know one of the greatest living wood engravers, I might as well learn to use the tools from him. The engraving lesson, though, was only part of the draw to visit Stockholm. Every year or two Gaylord comes for a visit to stay with us in New York and I have come to regard him in an urban setting. He talks about cutting down trees or catching mayflies but his stories remain abstract. I have never seen him in his native surroundings. His description of his property as being two miles from a town of 80 people is not something I can easily visualize. Similarly, when Gaylord began work on the River project I told him that I used to do a lot of fishing when I was a kid. I don't think he believed me. Our knowledge of each other was limited by urban settings—it was time for a visit.
Winding our way north through Iowa, both Annie and my cell phones lost reception at the Minnesota border (perhaps that's what they mean by "driftless region"). Gaylord had suggested driving up the river on the Minnesota side and then crossing into Wisconsin at Wabasha or Winona. Shortly after merging onto routes 14 & 61 in La Crescent, Annie pointed out the passenger window and said "That's a really big bird." I turned my head to see an enormous bald eagle keeping pace with us. Somewhere just north of La Crescent we had crossed the less clearly marked border into Oz. My excitement at seeing a bald eagle in flight was soon tempered when I noticed that they were everywhere—sitting in trees, circling high above, criss crossing their feeding trough, the Mississippi. After the fourth or fifth eagle sighting I had become jaded enough to wonder if the bald eagle is to the Minnesotan what the pigeon is to the New Yorker.
With an hour or two to spare before we were scheduled to arrive in Stockholm, Annie and I decided to lunch and take in the sights of Wabasha, Minnesota. Entering the town limits we learned that Wabasha was the location of the film Grumpy Old Men, suggesting that the iconic scenes of ice fishing from said movie may have been filmed on what I had thought of as Gaylord's lake. Prior to arriving, Annie had queried the town on her iPhone and discovered that, in addition to our various dining options, Wabasha was home to the National Eagle Center, a sight not to be missed. After a delightful lunch of grilled cheese, salad, and Cheesy Chicken Tortilla Soup at Stacy's Kitchen, we trudged through the rain to the Eagle Center. I had assumed the Center would consist of a series of dramatic dioramas, patriotic soundtracks along the lines of "American by birth, Harley rider by choice", and some pay-as-you-go binoculars, but the first thing I saw on entering the Center was a young woman with a gigantic eagle perched on her hand. I suppose I should have been excited but my first impulse was to flee. In a contest of strength or will, I would surely be defeated by such a bird. Is it even legal to keep a bald eagle captive? I steeled myself, paid the $16 entry fee for two and cast myself into the fray. The picture below will give you a good idea of what I look like when I think my eyeball is about to be plucked out by a huge, predatory bird.
Quitting Wabasha, we crossed over into Wisconsin. The river bridge eases into a causeway on the Wisconsin side and travels through a diverse wetland, with shaded eddies, tall grasses, and verdant trees arched above secret pools. Just like my experience in Iowa, I didn't know what to expect but my expectations were wrong. When we hit solid land in Nelson we paid "Smiling Bob" a visit at the discount liquor store and picked up a bottle each of Santa Margherita Chianti and Knob Creek bourbon as house gifts. At the checkout counter I noticed a bottle of maraschino cherry-colored liquor called "Ice Hole" with a surprisingly moderne label. We chose not to sample it but I bet it has kept a lot of solitary ice fishermen company in their shacks. After a bit of a drive, we passed by the designated turn off at County Road JJ in favor of touring through the town of Stockholm. To our surprise, the town sign listed the population at 66 rather than the oft-remarked 80.
Gaylord and Brenda's land is perfect for an artist in the same way that it is probably all wrong for a farmer. Their house and out buildings are perched on the peak of a hill from which their property falls away into a ravine. There is just enough flat land for the four buildings, a kitchen garden, a small orchard, and a regulation tennis court. Grading downward in all directions are their woods. In addition to being the source of his book Sylvæ, the woods are where Gaylord taps his syrup trees (a distant cousin of the money tree) and where he and Brenda go morel hunting in the spring. Prior to arrival, Gaylord made it clear that a morel hunt was in the offing. Of the four buildings on their property, one houses a printshop, one a wood working shop, and one exists solely to store and kiln-dry wood. Gaylord's printshop is roughly six times the size of mine and, as is true for all printshops, it is just a little too small to fit that one last piece of equipment.
The next morning we set to work. I'm a little embarrassed to say that I had never seen someone engrave in wood before our lesson. In all of our conversations about engraving, Gaylord has been insistent that he can only teach me how to hold the tools, the rest is practice. What I found most informative about the lesson, though, was watching the pace with which Gaylord works with those tools. I have always imagined that the fine white lines of wood engravings are made with a continuous, fluid movement, making the precision with which people like Gaylord engrave seem otherworldly, or at least unattainable. Instead, the process is extremely slow and measured, each line engraved one tiny bit at a time. In many ways the pace reminded me of complex vector drawing on the computer, though of course with very different results. Every time I began to cut I had to check myself to slow down. After thirty minutes of messing around, Gaylord showed me how to shorten the gravers to the correct length, packed up a selection of his homemade wood blocks for me to practice on, and began getting the boat ready. The lessons I will be taking on this trip will be concise sessions that I will follow up in correspondence. Since returning to New York I have begun engraving a block and as I progress I will proof it and send prints to Gaylord for comment.
Next we set out for Lake Pepin for an expedition on the boat. Since Gaylord began work on The River I have been hearing certain names recur—Lake of Tears, Point au Sable, and Point No Point—names that seem more likely to pepper the notebooks of Meriwether Lewis than the blog of a friend of mine. Point No Point has been a particular curiosity to me. It is such a graceless name that I cringe every time I hear it, making me want to see it all the more. True to form, it was fascinating, the only true geological tropme l'oeil I have ever seen. Motoring north up the lake after a brief mussel hunting excursion on Point au Sable, Point No Point came into view and remained, without ever changing shape, as we progressed up river. The point never came to a point but always looked like one. Until, suddenly, we crossed the perspectival barrier that revealed the point for the gentle bend that it is. Crossing the lake to the Wisconsin shore, Gaylord set me up with rod and reel and nearly fell off the boat with disbelief when I actually caught a fish: an enormous white bass that is sure to be a record breaker.
The next day it was time for the hunt. Brenda had made fresh morels for dinner on both nights of our visit thus far and the stocks were getting low. I have never met a serious book person who does not also love food and there are few more appropriate activities for printers to engage in (when not printing, of course) than to hunt for food. In fact, for many printers it seems that printing is what one does to fill in time between eating. After tooling around the shop all morning, Gaylord, Brenda, Annie, the two dogs, and I packed off to hunt the elusive mushrooms.
To cap our visit off, Terry Belanger, Director Emeritus of Rare Book School, and Dan DeSimone, Rosenwald Curator at Library of Congress, just happen to be visiting the bookseller (and Gaylord Schanilec bibliographer) Rob Rulon-Miller in St. Paul. They drove down for a studio visit and to join us for dinner at Pepin, Wisconsin's world famous Harbor View Restaurant. After a sizable and delicious serving of food, Annie and I turned in to bed for our last night in Stockholm.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Midwest Craft Pilgrimage, Iowa City to Decorah
Leaving Iowa City on Wednesday, we took an hour's drive due west to
Grinnell to have breakfast with Bruce Whiteman and Kelly Maynard. When
we arrived, Bruce was in full cooking mode, tending a pan of herby
thirty-minute scrambled eggs that, when served, blew our collective
minds. (Farm fresh eggs have become a competing sub-pursuit of this
trip. Each new freely-laid egg that we consume is accompanied by tales
of the One-That-Has-No-White, the egg that is little more than a
tumescent orange-yellow yolk. To experience this much-remarked Ideal Egg
has lodged in my mind as one of life's lofty goals.) After sopping
up the last of our breakfast we looked at books for an hour before
heading back on the road, winding our way north east through the Iowa
countryside to Decorah. I have never been to Iowa before this week and
prior to arriving I had a hard time conjuring an image of what we would
find. At every turn the towns, the landscape, the food, and the people
have primed our visit with delighted surprise. In conversations with
other visitors the most frequently mentioned feature of the Iowa
countryside is "CORN!" but in mid April the fields are just being
planted, meaning there are no corn rows to obscure the view. Driving
through Iowa at this time of year is to be enveloped in a variegated
pastiche of brown, chamois, and a thousand different greens, punctuated
with red barns and blue or silver silos, light-gray grain elevators,
green and yellow tractors, brown black and white livestock, gamboling
deer and red wing blackbirds, all arrayed against a plan of man-made
vertices, softened by the gently rolling fields. Iowa is a beautiful
place, with or without the eggs.
Annie and I on the road in Iowa.
Chamois, green, brown.
The goal of the day was to visit David Esslemont and his family in Decorah. David is an artist, letterpress printer, book binder, and contract farmer who has been making a series of calligraphic paintings, or calligrams, in recent years. I first met David in San Francisco in October 1990 when, at Joyce Wilson's behest, I picked him up from the airport. David was visiting from Wales and was scheduled to address the Colophon Club as part of an extended stateside tour. I was barely nineteen years old at the time and I took an instant shine to David—he was passionate and fun and he referred to his Heidelberg cylinder press as the "Rolls-Royce of presses," rolling his "R"s a little too long for emphasis. At the time he was in charge of the historic press, Gwasg Greynog, and his tales of the Welsh countryside filled me with romantic visions. After a few days as his informal San Francisco tour guide I did not see him again until 2007 when, at the CODEX Book Fair, I heard the same rolling "R" when he asked over my shoulder "Is that young Russell?" Since I had last seen him, David had left Gwasg Gregynog and moved to Decorah. As we corresponded after our reunion, the stories and pictures of David's new home conjured similar bucolic images as the stories he told me of Wales nearly twenty years earlier. Few stories attracted me as much as those of the wood-burning pizza oven he and his son Tom had built from the mud of his fields.
Immediately upon arrival in Decorah we set to "work." Through a lazy afternoon we stoked the pizza oven, played a little soccer, took a walk around the property, looked at books, drank wine, and eventually sat down to eat trout pate on home made bread, David's award-winning chili, beautiful lettuce greens, and fresh pizzas.
The next morning we gathered some eggs from the hen house, ate breakfast, and hit the road for Stockholm, Wisconsin.
The goal of the day was to visit David Esslemont and his family in Decorah. David is an artist, letterpress printer, book binder, and contract farmer who has been making a series of calligraphic paintings, or calligrams, in recent years. I first met David in San Francisco in October 1990 when, at Joyce Wilson's behest, I picked him up from the airport. David was visiting from Wales and was scheduled to address the Colophon Club as part of an extended stateside tour. I was barely nineteen years old at the time and I took an instant shine to David—he was passionate and fun and he referred to his Heidelberg cylinder press as the "Rolls-Royce of presses," rolling his "R"s a little too long for emphasis. At the time he was in charge of the historic press, Gwasg Greynog, and his tales of the Welsh countryside filled me with romantic visions. After a few days as his informal San Francisco tour guide I did not see him again until 2007 when, at the CODEX Book Fair, I heard the same rolling "R" when he asked over my shoulder "Is that young Russell?" Since I had last seen him, David had left Gwasg Gregynog and moved to Decorah. As we corresponded after our reunion, the stories and pictures of David's new home conjured similar bucolic images as the stories he told me of Wales nearly twenty years earlier. Few stories attracted me as much as those of the wood-burning pizza oven he and his son Tom had built from the mud of his fields.
Immediately upon arrival in Decorah we set to "work." Through a lazy afternoon we stoked the pizza oven, played a little soccer, took a walk around the property, looked at books, drank wine, and eventually sat down to eat trout pate on home made bread, David's award-winning chili, beautiful lettuce greens, and fresh pizzas.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Midwest Craft Pilgrimage, Day 2
We began the day with home made bread, jam, and local farm eggs at
the Brown Street Inn before being picked up by Tim Barrrett to visit the
University of Iowa's Oakdale paper research facility; a component of
the UI Center for the Book. Although the primary reason for my visit to
Iowa City was to enroll the Book Arts students in the Fine Press Book
Association, I have been eager to meet Tim and get his insights into
some of my handmade paper issues. During the making of Specimens of Diverse Characters,
which I printed on Velke Losiny's beautiful cotton paper, a number of
unforeseen problems arose due to the variety of processes I put the
paper through. I have used handmade paper on a number of books in the
past but I had never asked so much of a single paper as I did in Specimens.
The principal issues I encountered dealt with the amount of surface
sizing on the virgin sheets and, after successive dampening, the lack of
remaining sizing. Before dampening, the sized paper received large
areas of ink coverage surprisingly well but fine lines, particularly in
smaller sizes of type printed from photo-polymer plates, looked slurry
and experienced an unacceptable level of ink gain. The gelatin sizing
also, as was apparent after dampening, imparts a somewhat plasticine
surface to the virgin sheet that is less attractive and tactile than the
surface that appears after dampening. After dampening, the paper,
however beautiful in texture and touch, lost a good deal of the "rattle"
(typified by an inner density and a pleasant snapping sound when
flicked between the fingers) that is helpful for ink transfer and
reminiscent of the older, classic handmade papers that I love.
Before meeting with Tim I assumed that the issue was one of too much surface sizing over fibers that were too short, like those found in short cotton linters, or fibers that were not beaten for a long enough period of time. Tim's researches, though, have revealed that a significant amount of classic handmade paper's hardness and snap derives from the use of gelatin sizing and that the sizing also contributes to the paper's durability and stability over time. Of particular interest in his recent research was the discovery that there was considerably more sizing in 15th century papers than there was in paper in subsequent centuries. Gary Frost informed Tim of Szirmai’s assertion, backed up by historical references, in his The Archeology of Medieval Bookbinding, that many 16th century printers were ordering un-sized waterleaf sheets and that the sizing was added after the printing. The post-press addition of sizing would make the papers more durable for binding and more resistant to ink-bleed when people wrote in the margins. This is interesting to me because it relates to my experience of the Losiny: I needed the lack of sizing for the paper to print the way I wanted but afterward I would have liked some (not all) of the physical attributes that the sizing imparts to the finished sheet. When Annie and I return to New York I am going to send Tim some of the rejected sheets from Specimens to experiment with re-applying gelatin sizing.
After visiting Oakdale, Tim brought us back to the campus to meet up with Sara Sauers for a tour of the Center for the Book. Sara teaches letterpress printing at Iowa, has her own press (check out her new book for the Folger Shakespeare Library, Shakespeare's Sisters), and was the person with whom I arranged the visit. The Center for the Book facilities are built into the North Hall, a former secondary school that has been cleverly re-purposed, most notably the former men's locker room which is now the wet floor of the student papermaking studio. We took a look around, met and re-met up with other instructors at the Center—Emily Martin, Sara Langworthy, Gary Frost, Lauren Faulkenberry, and Julie Leonard—and then got together with the students to show some books and talk about the FPBA. As has been my experience at the other university programs I've visited so far, the Iowa students are engaged and serious. Before I began visiting MFA Book Arts students last fall I was worried that the proliferation of academic book arts was going to be a passing fad. Instead, with each one I visit I am more hopeful for the future of the handmade book. The remainder of the day was divided between various dining experiences with Sara, Sara, and Tim.
Tim and I looking at a stack of dried sheets at the Oakdale facility.
Before meeting with Tim I assumed that the issue was one of too much surface sizing over fibers that were too short, like those found in short cotton linters, or fibers that were not beaten for a long enough period of time. Tim's researches, though, have revealed that a significant amount of classic handmade paper's hardness and snap derives from the use of gelatin sizing and that the sizing also contributes to the paper's durability and stability over time. Of particular interest in his recent research was the discovery that there was considerably more sizing in 15th century papers than there was in paper in subsequent centuries. Gary Frost informed Tim of Szirmai’s assertion, backed up by historical references, in his The Archeology of Medieval Bookbinding, that many 16th century printers were ordering un-sized waterleaf sheets and that the sizing was added after the printing. The post-press addition of sizing would make the papers more durable for binding and more resistant to ink-bleed when people wrote in the margins. This is interesting to me because it relates to my experience of the Losiny: I needed the lack of sizing for the paper to print the way I wanted but afterward I would have liked some (not all) of the physical attributes that the sizing imparts to the finished sheet. When Annie and I return to New York I am going to send Tim some of the rejected sheets from Specimens to experiment with re-applying gelatin sizing.
The loft drying system (above) and fiber cook pots (below) at Oakdale.
After visiting Oakdale, Tim brought us back to the campus to meet up with Sara Sauers for a tour of the Center for the Book. Sara teaches letterpress printing at Iowa, has her own press (check out her new book for the Folger Shakespeare Library, Shakespeare's Sisters), and was the person with whom I arranged the visit. The Center for the Book facilities are built into the North Hall, a former secondary school that has been cleverly re-purposed, most notably the former men's locker room which is now the wet floor of the student papermaking studio. We took a look around, met and re-met up with other instructors at the Center—Emily Martin, Sara Langworthy, Gary Frost, Lauren Faulkenberry, and Julie Leonard—and then got together with the students to show some books and talk about the FPBA. As has been my experience at the other university programs I've visited so far, the Iowa students are engaged and serious. Before I began visiting MFA Book Arts students last fall I was worried that the proliferation of academic book arts was going to be a passing fad. Instead, with each one I visit I am more hopeful for the future of the handmade book. The remainder of the day was divided between various dining experiences with Sara, Sara, and Tim.
Sara Sauers and I at the student printshop at North Hall.
Showing books to students in the student papermaking studio at North Hall.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Midwest Craft Pilgrimage, Day 1
Today we head off on the first leg of our Midwest Craft tour, flying first to Cedar Rapids, Iowa and heading on to Chicago via Iowa City; Decorah, Iowa; and Stockholm, Wisconsin. Along the way Annie and I will visit with the MFA Book Arts students at both the University of Iowa and Columbia College, Chicago; drop in for breakfast with poet Bruce Whiteman; spend an evening with artist, printer, and farmer David Esslemont; take a wood engraving lesson and go fishing with Gaylord Schanilec; visit Paul Gehl at the Newberry Library; and dine with a group of Chicago book people at Robert McCammant’s house. At the end of May we will finish the tour with a drive from New York City to Chicago, visiting Mina Takahashi and Marco Breuer in Oxford, New York; Walter Bachinsky and Janis Butler in Shanty Bay, Ontario; Bob and Freddy Baris in Carrollton, Ohio; and ending up back at the Newberry Library for a weekend of events surrounding the American Printing History Association’s Lieberman Lecture.
The purpose of the road trip is to learn from craftspeople who are proficient in a technique in which I have little or no practical experience: wood engraving, pochoir, papermaking, and hand press operation. I am not setting out to try to master any of these crafts but to understand them better, in the hope of broadening what is possible in my own craft. As with any niche community, private press printers are spread out over a large geographic area and, more often than not, tend to live in rural settings. For a New Yorker it is not easy to connect for long periods with other printers. To study with them and to see how they integrate their craft with their lives, you have to visit them in their natural habitat.
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| On the plane wearing the optivisor. |
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| Clouds |
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| Annie with bears at the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport. |
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Midwest Craft Pilgrimage
On Monday, Annie & I set out on the first leg of our self-styled, midwestern craft pilgrimage. Arriving in Cedar Rapids on Monday afternoon we will proceed directly to Iowa City for an informal gathering at printer Sara Sauer's house. The next morning, papermaker Timothy Barret will pick us up and give us a tour of his state of the art hand papermaking facility. From there we will tour the University of Iowa's Center for the Book & meet with students in the MFA Book Arts program.
On Wednesday we will drive up to Decorah, Iowa where we will spend the evening with artist, printer, and prize-winning chili cooker David Esslemont and his family. Last year, David and his son made an outdoor adobe pizza oven & one of our objectives (perhaps our primary objective?) is to obtain plans and advice on how to build one for ourselves.
Thursday morning we will head on to Stockholm, Wisconsin for three days with Gaylord and Brenda Schanilec. While there, Gaylord will give us a two day lesson in multi-chromatic wood engraving and, weather permitting, we will spend the third day on his floating observational platform (ie. boat) in Lake Pepin.
Next stop is Chicago for a few days with Paul Gehl and Rob Carlson, a visit with Inge Bruggeman and the students at the Columbia College Center for Book and Paper Arts. A final dinner with Bob McCammant of Sherwin Beach Press ends leg one of the tour.
On Wednesday we will drive up to Decorah, Iowa where we will spend the evening with artist, printer, and prize-winning chili cooker David Esslemont and his family. Last year, David and his son made an outdoor adobe pizza oven & one of our objectives (perhaps our primary objective?) is to obtain plans and advice on how to build one for ourselves.
Thursday morning we will head on to Stockholm, Wisconsin for three days with Gaylord and Brenda Schanilec. While there, Gaylord will give us a two day lesson in multi-chromatic wood engraving and, weather permitting, we will spend the third day on his floating observational platform (ie. boat) in Lake Pepin.
Next stop is Chicago for a few days with Paul Gehl and Rob Carlson, a visit with Inge Bruggeman and the students at the Columbia College Center for Book and Paper Arts. A final dinner with Bob McCammant of Sherwin Beach Press ends leg one of the tour.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Swan & Hoop 3: A Meditation in Rome
As the fundraising campaign to make Gremolata and Cancellaresca Milanese into new foundry type winds down, I have received the first few copies of Swan & Hoop 3: A Meditation in Rome by Paul F. Gehl. Comprising the script from which Paul Gehl read his address, How Can Type History Be Good History? to the plenary session of ATypI Roma on Friday, September 20, 2002, A Meditation in Rome is an insightful exploration of historical honesty in typographic revivalism. The book is illustrated with historical imagery, typographic comparisons, and a large, fold-out photograph of the Pantheon by Annie Schlechter. Set in the digital versions of Gremolata and Cancellaresca Milanese, the book is printed on Hahnemühle Biblio paper and features a cover paper that is printed from a new metal type ornament that I designed specifically for the book.
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