Mornings at Jack Pine first debuted earlier this spring at the Manhattan show and since my return to the frigid north I have been working to get this new version out. I am pleased to present the first book in my Midwest Author Series in a paper cover edition. As promised back in April, the type went back to work on my ATF Little Giant #6 cylinder press to create an extended edition with hopes it will reach a broader audience.
This moving body of work by Jerry Dennis is accompanied by 10 wood engravings by Glenn Wolff. Jerry turns his keen naturalist’s eye inward as well as outward, finding in the landscape of northern Michigan a mirror for grief, love, mortality, and the fierce pleasures of being alive. Graced with Glenn Wolff’s exquisite illustrations, Mornings at Jack Pine is a small book with large ambitions — funny, tender, elegiac, and shot through with the kind of hard-won wonder that only comes from paying close attention to the world for a very long time.
This is, essentially, the same book but re-imposed to be printed in 4 sections instead of 5 to facilitate the sewing of so many books and it is printed on domestic paper stocks. It is printed in 2 colors instead of 3 and I printed the wood engravings from reproductions on photopolymer because the original blocks were very temperamental. Because of difficulties getting the paper in the weight I started with the edition is limited to 125 copies instead of the 250 noted in the colophon.
Composed in Baskerville and Eusebius type it is printed on Mohawk Superfine 70lb text enclosed in French Paper Dur-O-Tone 100lb cover stock printed in black and copper inks. It is a sewn binding glued into the cover wrap.
The deluxe copies are sold out but this version and the lettered copies are available on my newly updated website here for $70.00
More details about the book can be found here on an earlier blog post. The bindery monkeys will be here this week to get as many sewn as possible for the forthcoming release party in Traverse City, Michigan.
Printing the book pages on the Little Giant and a good look at the pressroom here at DWP.
Now this is funny – WordPress is now offering an AI generated video feature which I allowed to try and surmise this post. This is the abomination that it came up with. Trust me, this is inaccurate in every possible way ensuring Luddites like me to continue working without the AI overlords ever threatening to take real work from my hands!
A year ago I presented a first draft of this project and I’m pleased with the progress of my 360 degree wrap around pop-up structure depicting a curated history of typographic luminaries. From Johannes Gutenberg to Linn Boyd Benton this is an attempt to create a loose family tree tracing innovations in type design, type cutting and type founding from the 14th to early 20th century.
Going through my old copper plates I noted the symmetry of the tree on this 12 ¾ x 15 ½” (31.5x39cm) image and after I found my old proofs I immediately started cutting and folding them up into this kinetic structure. This is one of my intaglio prints that had long languished in an unfinished state when I frustrated myself with the addition of some figurative work. The first layer on the copper plate was a shallow etching but then fully worked over with mezzotint, stipple and hand engraving. The seventy names composed in Garamond and foil stamped in copper start with Gutenberg at the roots and the names chronologically ascend up the trunk and branches in some semblance of order and influence. Each quarter when fully opened includes the full list for viewing at any angle. The type is either hand set or cast on my Linotype machine for 14pt and under, the copper foil catches light nicely against the impossibly deep blacks of the mezzotint. The book requires six copies of the print for each edition, another labor of love with umber/black coarse hand made intaglio ink.
The book is covered in Asahi linen book cloth with a grey French Split goat skin on the spine. The book cover title is foiled in copper on black goat skin. It is housed in a solander box covered in Twinrocker Rustler paper with a black pebble grained goat spine foiled in copper which has a title on the cover that is, again, foiled in copper with another one of my small intaglio prints of a leaf and framed within a black goat border. The sidewalls and cover element are covered in Cockerell marbled paper I’ve been hoarding since Heart of Darkness. The box is 7 ¼ x 16 ¾ x 1 ½” (18.5×42.5x4cm)
I consider this the final Beta. The next version will have additional intaglio work on the main plate with new plate “wings” extending the width of the book as I prefer the dimensions of my previous prototype. I also have some more names I’d like to add as there are some mid to late 20th century individuals I feel need representation. There will also be structural improvements, I embedded magnets in the cover boards to hold it fully open but not enough of them to be successful!
This book will debut along with my new Mornings at Jack Pine at the Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair coming up very soon on May 2nd. I’m committed to making 5 additional copies and will start taking deposits for those on my return from New York.
$8000.00
Those of you who know me know my views on the contemporary “fine press” book scene. Conceptual ideas in small editions run rampant but often at the expense of craft and frequent ephemeral topics. I was making things like this 35 years ago when it was inconceivable to solicit such things to institutions while at the same time trying to achieve what I considered the pinnacle of fine press – books with words, lots of them and in proper bindings. A Printers Family Tree is my offering to the book arts gods incorporating traditional intaglio, letterpress, type casting and book binding as a tribute to the great individuals who came before who have influenced, informed and made possible my means of existence.
Some early attempts at folding and pop-up structures from 1994-2000 and last years prototype.
I’m pleased to present the newest book from Deep Wood Press, Mornings at Jack Pine by Jerry Dennis with ten wood engravings from Glenn Wolff. This is also the first book to kick off my Midwest Author Series, more on that below. Jerry turns his keen naturalist’s eye inward as well as outward, finding in the landscape of northern Michigan a mirror for grief, love, mortality, and the fierce pleasures of being alive. Graced with Glenn Wolff’s exquisite illustrations, Mornings at Jack Pine is a small book with large ambitions — funny, tender, elegiac, and shot through with the kind of hard-won wonder that only comes from paying close attention to the world for a very long time.
Set against the rivers, jack pine barrens, and lake country of the upper Midwest, the poems in Mornings at Jack Pine move between precise observation and lyric meditation. The first section is rooted in closely observed rhythms of the natural world — trout rising in tailouts, deer standing in morning mist, a barred owl calling through spruce trees at dawn — and shadowed throughout by the recent death of the poet’s father. The second section unfolds as an extended self-portrait of a man at sixty-nine: a writer, husband, river-watcher, and devoted caregiver to his wife, who is battling dementia. Together, the two sections form a meditation on time, impermanence, and what it means to remain loyal to a place, a person, a life.
The three of us have worked on books, broadsides and fishing fantasies for nearly 20 years now and it is always a pleasure to once again craft a thing of beauty that embraces our creative efforts in such a personal way.
The standard lettered copies are quarter bound in a cool green/black smooth goat with dark green Asahi book cloth over boards. Copper foil stamped spine, inset panel with printed title and a small pine tree I carved out of a chunk of lead and blind stamped onto the leather. The book is printed in 3 colors, 6.5×10″ (16.5×24.8cm), 51 pages and includes a slip case. $600.00
26 lettered copies on Somerset Book
5 deluxe on my bespoke Saint Armand paper leftover fromtheWind in the Willows edition.
15 copies for the Guild of Bookworkers Midwest Chapter for the forthcoming “Open Set” exhibit on Hahnemühle Biblio.
250 copies in a paper binding on Mohawk Superfine printed in 2 colors.
Note the Guild of Bookworkers edition – this means that, hopefully, within a year 15 copies of this book will have an exhibition by 15 individual bookbinders creating all kinds of fun, interpretative and high class bindings. Looking forward to it!
As I was waiting for delayed shipments of book cloth and marbled end papers I had time to bind one of the deluxe copies. This copy is bound onto cords, sewn headbands, full smooth goat leather binding that has blind tooling around the bands, title foil stamped in copper and a leather onlay inspired by one of Glenn’s prints. Housed in a drop spine box (sidewalls match endpapers) with title on spine and cover. $1000.00
This is the first offering from my Midwest Author Series which will continue to showcase incredible writers and artists in future editions. I have a talented editor/writer liaison onboard, Helen Raica-Klotz, who moved to my part of the world a few years ago and started a brilliant visiting author readings/workshops event, Antrim Writers Series, for which I create little broadsides for the readings four times a year. After I return from the Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair I will be printing the edition of 250 on my automated ATF Little Giant cylinder press which will be released later this summer. In recent years, though I very much appreciate my fine press collectors, I have noted my books are being snagged by investors instead of collectors/collections and the prices are often out of reach for many people I would like to own my books. This is an effort to reach a larger, poorer and yet appreciative audience. The planned price for these copies is $75.00. The list of future writers and artists is humbling to me, there are so many talented individuals I want to pair together into beautifully presented books. This formula will continue with small editions in fine press and an extended run (perhaps larger) where the contributing creators can also benefit from larger exposure in my quaint little world of global book stuffs.
Recently there have been several print releases that feature me and my Deep Wood Press:
CODEX Papers: Volume 5 – I was honored to be asked to contribute to this volume and it turned into a 15 page photo exposé emphasizing the craft of making fine press books at DWP. This showcases the various studio spaces and disciplines including type casting, engraving, printing and binding. $35.00
Assembling: The Art of Translation – My second appearance in a CODEX Foundation Assembly/Exchange portfolio and I am once again honored by inclusion. This is a grouping of 25 contemporary prints by well-known and well-collected artists, printers, and publishers of artists’ books associated with The CODEX Foundation from around the globe. Presented in a beautiful drop spine box. $3200.00
Why Make Books by Hand? – Published by No Reply Press, 15 book makers respond with short essays to the question “Why make books by hand” in an edition of 150ish. $135.00 (sold out)
Some images from the creation process of the book.
As I mentioned above, I will once again be attending the Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair on May 2nd. Come find me at table C4, I have a few VIP passes to gift, there’s still time to send you one! Join me and 30 other fine press publishers from around the world for an overwhelming day of books – the 66th Annual ABAA New York International Antiquarian Book Fair is just across the street at the historic Park Avenue Armory. One day only, 9am-5pm, 869 Lexington Avenue, New York NY
On one final note — I will be teaching a linoleum cutting and typesetting workshop once again in Les Baux de Provence, France this fall at the Foundation Louis Jou, on October 9-11. The preceding weekend I will be the studio technician and printer for a wood engraving class taught by Joanne Price AND Rebecca Gilbert! This is an incredible opportunity to work in Jou’s former studio (1881-1968) equipped with 3 Stanhope iron hand presses and his own proprietary family of harmonious type. Even better, participants get to stay in the studios in Les Baux as part of the workshop price. As a board member for the foundation I organized this workshop series with Joanne 3 years ago and it was a tremendous success and way too much fun. More on all of this in a future blog post.
As we move towards the holidays I’ve a couple extra special stocking stuffers for those whose bookshelves find themselves in need of filling. For years I have extended my book editions by 5-10 unbound copies, making them available to other book binders to play with and it’s always a treat to see what they come up with.
Jon Buller is an old friend and very accomplished binder. His Bessenberg Bindery in the Kerrytown neighborhood of Ann Arbor, MI produced countless bound doctoral thesis papers but also plenty of beautiful one of a kind and editioned volumes – Jon and his team bound our edition of The Heart of Darkness way back in 2007! His nephew has resurrected the bindery as Bohemio in a new location but in the 2000’s the proximity to Hollander’s (who hosted summer intensives from the American Academy of Bookbinding with Don Etherington and Monique Lallier) and the thriving Kerrytown Bookfest made the cozy neighborhood bindery a destination and haven for many of us other instructors. Jon is now mostly retired but taught at the Campbell Folk School in North Carolina this past year. Here is Jon’s version of our Wind in the Willows which he says is meant to reflect the 18th/19th century binding styles one finds in English manor homes of the time. Bound in a beautiful green Sokoto goat skin, sewn headbands, beautiful gold tooling and an inlaid border of tan goat and housed in a beautiful slipcase with a curved matching leather opening.
This one of a kind binding can be yours for $3200 by clicking here.
The standard edition is still available for direct purchase on my website for $2000 but probably not for long. I have not marketed this book to my institutional collectors as yet but I plan to finally send out notice this week.
Another book which has its origins in Ann Arbor from around the same time period is a special rare edition featuring my old friend Jim Horton. Jim established the Wood Engravers Network in 1994 which continues to thrive 30 years later with an international presence and ever growing membership. In 1998 Jim partnered with Schuyler Shipley and Rebecca Shaffer to produce this edition of Jabberwocky with a remarkable wood engraved reduction block of the Jabberwock in 7 iterations. Reduction printing means carving the block, printing it, carving some more, printing it some more which, by its very nature, limits the whole edition quantity to the first press run – the block is destroyed in its journey to become the final product. I was not involved in the printing of this book but always admired the artwork – and often wished I had. So when I was gifted an unbound set of sheets from Karen Hanmer I decided to contribute to the project these many years later. The text is hand composed in Tell Text No. 5 and Virile Open and is printed on thick Twinrocker Feather Deckle which I trimmed to keep some of the massive “feather deckle” on the fore edge. The binding is an interesting amalgamation of styles, sewn onto leather straps creating true raised bands and covered in full blue Sokoto goat merging into a sprinkled Cambridge panel binding with cloth hinges. Gold titling, blind tooling with inlays of black and orange goat for the eyes and spine title. The book is 8×10 ⅜”, 22 pages, with a slipcase.
SOLD!
Work is progressing on Mornings at Jackpine, a collaboration with poet/essayist Jerry Dennis and artist Glen Wolff, with whom I’ve collaborated on projects in the past. The book is going on the press after Thanksgiving and, if all goes well, a few fine edition copies should be available for Christmas. The Printers’ Family Tree project is also progressing and I will be showing completed bindings at the Manhattan Rare Book and Fine Press Fair next May.
OTHER NEWS:
I spent a good part of this past summer (and fall) working on my house. It was 15 years ago when a few friends and I built the timber frame and fieldstone structure I designed, replacing the old shack I purchased 33 years ago here on the Cedar River. I skimped on a few things trying to get occupancy before my son was born (we made it by a week!) and unfortunately the old septic connection to the house and downstairs bathroom finally gave up in the most spectacular fashion (as such things always do). In the thick of busting out cast iron pipes in 4″ of concrete the anniversary of Deep Wood Press quietly came and went in late October. Here’s hoping year 34 will be a productive one in bookish ways! I also didn’t make it to France this fall as I now have custody of the son whose impending birth drove the frantic house construction pace back then. Some exciting changes have happened at the Louis Jou Foundation though, and I’m anxious to return to France soon and work with our new president and board members as we become more active beyond Provence (and even France) in exciting new directions. This month a locally based national arts organization (Crosshatch Center for Art and Ecology) decided to purchase a building in my village and start an art center and I helped them move a former student’s printing equipment into the space. It looks like I will start teaching letterpress and other printmaking processes again – and within easy driving distance of my home! I have kept a very low profile where I live but am intrigued to see where this might lead.
I’d like to note the passing of some important people (to me) in the fine press book world. Bob Baris (Press on Scroll Road) passed away in late October. He and his wife Freddie were regulars at the Oak Knoll Book Festival where we enjoyed much camaraderie with other printers along with a fun exhibit with the Rowfant Club they helped organize in Cleveland. Jean-Francois Vilain left us earlier this month as well. He and his partner Roger have for many years been outstanding participants as customers, judges, observant intellectuals and most importantly, as a friend. Eventually their extensive collection will fill a new vault at the University of Pennsylvania libraries. I know this is just normal, we lose more people as we get older, but I’m discontented with only just memories of too many friends in recent years.
I will most likely bother you again in the near future when Mornings at Jackpine starts becoming photogenic – it is always a cherished moment to take a freshly finished copy of a book and place it on my backdrop, light it, and capture the details of its construction and finished presentation. I’ll get a few pictures of Jerry and Glenn as they work alongside me in the studio as well.
And one last temptation if I may. My partner Madeleine Vedel happens to be a French trained chocolatier and is beginning sales of this years very limited holiday seasonal selections. Earlier this week she was in the studio hand setting the new menu in Garamond and printing on the Vandercook. Find out more at on her website: Cuisine Provencale, peruse some of her French tour offerings and come say hello to us at the table next spring at the Manhattan Book Fair.
First off, the website has recently been updated and is now fully functional again after over a year in cyber limbo!
I will be in New York in just a week on April 5th to once again be part of the Manhattan Fine Press Fair. Our usual location at The Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, 869 Lexington Avenue. Just across the street the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America is hosting the largest antiquarian book fair in the world at the Park Avenue Armory. Join me and many other private presses, book artists, makers and takers from around the world. And good news, after 11 years the church/school is letting us use the gymnasium which purportedly has windows! Please let me know if you hope to attend, I can add you to my will-call list.
I’m excited to bring along a new project which has been boiling away in the back of my brain for over a decade as I worked on the logistics – A Printers Family Tree– from Gutenberg to Zaph with some paper engineering! Thirty years ago I did all kinds of this sort of thing as individual projects but I’m committed to edition at least 10 of this new piece. I’m still working out paper weights for different pieces but all the elements will be created from intaglio prints – both new mono prints and culling from my vast collection of too many plate proofs and states from my earlier engravings and mezzotints. The names are foil stamped from brass type in this prototype but I will create slugs on my Linotype machine in Garamond for the final impressions. I’ve worked out the binding structure but the boards will remain relatively plain in paper and cloth for flexibility and because they won’t be visible when displayed. The book will be housed in a case as it still won’t sit like a proper book when closed.
The spread that is just penciled in with names will have pop-up elements as well but I’ve left this “editable” as I’m hoping I’ll have plenty of feedback on my choice of whom to include in my list of prominent type designers. Though I have a laser cutter/engraver all these are/will be hand cut to follow the inevitable irregularities the intaglio prints and mono prints have to offer in the trunks and foliage and to allow flexibility foiling the names on each panel with the jig I’ve created for my foil stamping machine.
Looking over exhibitors at our “fine press” book fairs – a majority are now book arts. Two different things in my mind and kind of a dilution of the real work. I do miss the old days of the FPBA before the flailing organization opened up it’s definitions of fine press. If you can’t beat them, join them. What do you think of these evolving definitions?
Other current projects are a new book with essayist/poet Jerry Dennis and our mutual friend and frequent collaborator, Glenn Wolff, is once again illustrating with wood engravings. Jerry, Glenn and I have done multiple projects together over the past couple of decades and it’s always fun to work out a new project – Mornings at Jackpine is a collection of verse and an essay contemplating the turning of seasons in our physical world and the cycle that is our existence. Jerry’s essays, poems, and short fiction have appeared in more than 100 publications, including The New York Times, Smithsonian, Audubon, American Way, Gray’s Sporting Journal, PANK and Michigan Quarterly Review. His books are widely acclaimed, have won numerous awards, and have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, German, Portuguese, Czech, and Korean.
Some of Glenn’s engravings for the project:
Another recent collaboration with Jerry and Glenn is a series of broadsides to benefit Michigan libraries that are facing defunding, book banning or reduced services and hours. The first print is available now via the Peter White Public Library in Marquette, MI. “A Passion for Books” is printed on 300-gram Somerset textured cotton paper, measuring 15 x 11 inches. The text is composed in Garamond and printed letterpress on a Vandercook 219 OS.
We are working with the Library of Michigan and other entities to see how we can bring this and the 3 additional prints we plan to add to the series to more libraries across the state. I’ll happily crank my Vandercook for a day or two to do what I can to support our libraries.
Two editions are available:
· Special Roman-Numbered Edition: Limited to 20 pieces, hand-colored by Glenn Wolff, and signed by Jerry Dennis, Glenn Wolff, and Chad Pastotnik. Available for tax-deductible contributions of $500 or more.
· Open Edition: A signed two-color print available for tax-deductible contributions of $100 or more.
Order by clicking the “Donate” button at https://pwpl.info/giving/ and in the payment processing page scroll down to the broadside option of your choice. Payments can be made via debit card, credit card, or PayPal. If you would rather use check or credit card over the phone, contact Heather Steltenphol, Development Director at Peter White Public Library, at 906-226-4305 or via email at heather@pwpl.info.
Another recent philanthropic project is a broadside completed for The CODEX Foundation’s 5th Assembly/Exchange Portfolio – The Art of Translation. Further announcements and details forthcoming from CODEX for this 2025 release but I will share these images of my contribution during production with hopes some of you will be interested in acquiring it with the rest of the portfolio upon its release in a beautiful box along with probably 20-40 of my contemporary peers from around the globe. I was happily paired with David James Duncan to produce his piece “One River” for the first Assembly/Exchange in 2019.
Another project in its infancy is large in scope but has begun to form up is my series of Midwest author books which Mornings at Jackpine will kick off. In addition to the fine editions I produce, a second state will be offered on Mohawk paper and a simple binding structure which I will print on my Little Giant press allowing me production speed unheard of with my hand cranked cylinder proof press and I’ll pass the time and cost savings along to those of you who love the books but can’t justify the expense (I get it, I really do.) I’ve worked out everything but the marketing but that’s never stopped me before! I’ve also created a new partnership to edit this series of books but this will all be gone into in depth in a future blog post. This is another aspect of Deep Wood Press I’ve been wanting to explore more and have given a lot of thought to in the past decade. I will continue to issue fine editions of great books from the past that have touched and inspired me but my heart is in new writings, upcoming authors and translations and that’s the direction I see things moving forward with the greatest energy.
Ok, that’s a lot for one blog post. I’ll let it digest and get back to you in the next 6 months.
One last note. The stupid AI on WordPress tells me my words and sentences are too complex for most readers and that some of the words I use don’t even exist. If you’ve made it this far – welcome to the minority!
