Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair and other news.

26 Wednesday Feb 2020

Posted by Deep Wood Press in Breon Mitchell - Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony, Letterpress, Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair, Presentation bindings, The Hunter Gracchus, The Wind in the Willows, Vladimir Zimakov

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Next week I will make my way to Manhattan for the 6th annual Fine Press Book Fair. Though I have gone back and participated in the show two or three other years I have very fond memories of the first fair and the great fun for those of us that journeyed there for it. A highlight being a lovely gathering of fellow printers at Jean Shiff’s home organized by Chris Adamson of the Books and Vines blog. So come join me and 40 other presses from around the world and descend into the ugly basement of the school of St. Vincent Ferrer at 869 Lexington Ave at 66th St on March 7th from 10am to 5pm.

For this years show I will have some lovely presentation bindings for my newly translated edition of Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, other books from my catalog and some progress to show for the forthcoming Wind in the Willows being done with my partner James Dissette and our Mad Parrot Press imprint. Vladimir Zimakov is still working away at the illustrations we’ve commissioned for the book. Otherwise the text layout is complete and edited, just waiting to plug in the images where appropriate. It should be forthcoming this summer for all of you who keep asking! I’m also making progress on my other new translation of Kafka’s The Hunter Gracchus but progress once again is being held up by my intaglio prints that will illustrate. They are mostly complete but my big intaglio press is in “Studio B” with the Linotype machine which is kept just above freezing in the winter months and I just can’t justify heating three buildings at the moment when the average temperature here is 25° Fahrenheit.

*Some of the linocuts forthcoming from Vladimir*

I’ve come to enjoy binding books again! Everything is done “in house” here at DWP from composition of the type via Linotype or handset, illustrations, printing to binding. In recent years I had totally burned out on edition binding even with the help of apprentices and the occasional student. Now my editions have become smaller and while I still do some edition binding a growing percentage of the books are becoming “one off” presentation bindings. Making books is rife with repetition with literally dozens of steps along the way to a finished product. Enjoying any part of the process is important to keep it seeming less like work! My apologies in advance to all the librarians and archivists as I keep lousy track of these things.

I see that it’s been roughly a year since my last post about my work, welcome to 2020! I wish that I had more news for you but 2019 was sort of a null year and the old adage of “no news is good news” unfortunately falls short in this case. Some routine medical procedures with complications started out the summer and upon full recovery from that I was shortly after diagnosed with Lyme Disease! The good news is that it was caught early and I’ve made pretty much a full recovery but lost months of studio work time as a result. Regardless, I’m one of the lucky ones. I have friends and family who weren’t diagnosed in time or misdiagnosed with this terrible disease and now suffer the full effects of it. A mere couple years ago this wouldn’t have even registered with doctors in Northern Michigan as a possibility but, unfortunately, the infected tick population has made its way here and now diligence must be made with the animals and, even more importantly, the kids looking for ticks and scanning for telltale bites with rings. My heart goes out to those of you in the Northeast and other parts of the country where this has become the new “normal”.

To the press soon! The Kafka progress

13 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by Deep Wood Press in Breon Mitchell - Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony, Letterpress, Mad Parrot Press, Oak Knoll Fest, The Hunter Gracchus

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Breon Mitchell, Dellas Henke, fine press books, Franz Kafka, intaglio prints

Just moments ago I sent off the (I hope) final text edits and layout for In the Penal Colony to translator Breon Mitchell and artist Dellas Henke. Lucky for all of you we are perfectionists and because of that this new manuscript from Breon has undergone nine (I think) revisions in the past six months. I must say I’ve had too much fun doing this — for an otherwise usually grueling process it’s been fun sparring with my collaborators from anything from syntax to making calls on typographic “house style.”

Here is Dellas’s sixth etching for the book,”Entitled” to be used as the frontispiece.

All of the intaglio prints have been pulled and are awaiting another dampening for the text run. All but three more sets….

— We’ve decided to print an additional three special copies on some old Barcham Green “Windhover” stock saved by Dellas while he was working with Kim Merker and the Windhover Press during his graduate student days at the University of Iowa in the ’70s. I will contribute some lovely old stock Fabriano sheets from the ’40s for fly leaves or doublures. Some three discriminating individuals or institutions will enjoy these lovely folios of crisp sheets hand pulled by an iconic craftsman and paper mill and impressed with our impressions of this interesting little story.

UPDATE: The manuscript is finished! To the press soon!

I’ve not been idle while waiting for manuscript revisions. Progress has been made on my other Kafka project, The Hunter Gracchus, with completion of the last engraving and mezzotint intaglio work and adapting the other plates to the new size format. I’ll post some pictures of layout revisions soon.

Also, James Dissette and I have not neglected our Mad Parrot Press venture! We’ve brought Marc Castelli back on board to illustrate our new production of EM Forster ‘s The Machine Stops. Marc has worked with us in the past on our books under the Chester River Press imprint for both Heart of Darkness and The Chesapeake Voyages of Captain John Smith as well as other ephemeral projects. However, we’ve run into a snag with the Forster estate at the moment but hope to work it out to all of our benefit in the very near future. I’ll keep you posted of course as I’m always timely with my blog….

Looking toward fall:

I’ll once again be at the 16th annual Kerrytown Bookfest in Ann Arbor, Michigan peddling my books and demonstrating intaglio printing as I have for the past 16 years.

I’ll also be at Oak Knoll Fest XX in New Castle, Delaware on October 5-7th. Please join me and 40 other fine presses from around the world as we convene for this very special 20th anniversary gathering at Oak Knoll where the Fine Press Book Association was born.

All books convey a message through printed word and image. The fine press book is not just a vessel for an idea, but a message in and of itself. When the careful combination of paper, typography, printing, and binding accentuate the ideas contained within in a distinctive and artistic way, then the book as an object takes on special importance. How this evolving practice is viewed by artisans, collectors, institutions, and dealers is what Oak Knoll Fest is all about.

Looking forward towards 2018

09 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by Deep Wood Press in Authors and Translators, Books, Breon Mitchell - Franz Kafka, Education, Future Projects, In the Penal Colony, Judith Minty, Letterpress, Mad Parrot Press, The Hunter Gracchus, Workshop

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Books, Breon Mitchell, Dellas Henke, Fine Press, Franz Kafka, future projects, literature

Here we are, a new year. I’ve been remiss updating this blog but I’ve not been fully idle in my absence so allow me to update you to some of the exciting projects underway here at Deep Wood.

Franz Kafka — In the Penal Colony

I will not attempt to summarize In the Penal Colony, it’s a brilliant and important part of Kafka’s canon. But if you are curious here’s a wikipedia link.

I am pleased to present this new previously unpublished translation by the acclaimed Breon Mitchell which will be lavishly illustrated with six etchings by Dellas Henke. This very limited edition is set at 30 copies divided between Dellas, Breon and myself and will be sold in sheets primarily. I will bind my third of the edition and also produce some presentation bindings.

Dellas has been working on editioning the intaglio prints and is closing in on his end of the project while the rest of the paper lies here at the press waiting as I fuss with last minute layout adjustments.

The book is large a format 10×13 inch (25×33 cm) page size with the text being composed in Janson and printed on Somerset Book White, 175gsm. The intaglio illustrations are “bled print” to the edges. 40 pages. $1000.00 unbound. Advanced inquiries and sales may be made.

Here are some of the image proofs from Dellas, 10×13″ sheets. It should be noted that these are proofs – works in progress – and also were not printed on Somerset stock.

Breon Mitchell has translated major works by Günter Grass, Heinrich Böll, Siegfried Lenz and other leading German authors. His retranslation of Kafka’s Trial received a special commendation from the American Translators Association. His other awards include the ATA’s Ungar Prize , the ALTA Translation Prize, the Kurt and Helen Wolff Prize, the MLA’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize, and the British Society of Authors’ Schlegel-Tieck Prize. He is Director Emeritus of the Lilly Library and Professor Emeritus of Germanic Studies and Comparative Literature at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Dellas Henke learned printmaking a S.U.N.Y. Brockport from Robert Marx. It was there that he saw his first artist’s books- collaborations Marx had made with the activist priests the Barrigan brothers. Henke continued his education at the University of Iowa where he worked with printmakers Mauricio Lasansky and Keith Achepohl and had the remarkable opportunity to learn about letterpress printing from KK Merker and Kay Amert. It was in Iowa that Henke first illustrated with etchings Samuel Beckett’s, “Waiting for Godot” – an edition sanctioned and signed by Beckett. Over the next few years there were further collaborations with Merker and the Iowa Center for the Book where Henke illustrated Beckett’s “Company” and H.D.’s “ Within the Walls and eventually making an illustrated edition of Beckett’s, “Ill Seen Ill Said”. In the intervening years Henke has been the coordinator for the printmaking department at Grand Valley State University where he continues to make prints, paint, and draw. Henke has been involved in more than 200 exhibitions and has been collected by dozens of public institutions.

I would also be remiss mentioning that Dellas was my professor for printmaking in college long ago. Great to be working with him again and his visits north have been a lot of fun fishing, hiking around with his dog Lazlo and telling stories.

Further, it is a thrill to be working with Breon on this project and a fortunate stroke of serendipity with my own project though rather mind bending to be working on two Kafka manuscripts at a time.

Dellas, working on print arrangement for the book.

Additionally

My own Kafka project The Hunter Gracchus is also coming along but has been completely redesigned to a larger format. More to come soon with that progress.
I sadly note the passing of Judith Minty in November. Judith and I produced her short Killing the Bear in 2011 with wood engravings by Glenn Wolff. In her 84 years I hope I amused her for at least one of them….

Opening spread, Killing the Bear by Judith Minty

James Dissette and I have continued planning our new projects for our Mad Parrot Press (formerly Chester River Press) and plan to bring you E.M. Forster’s strange and prescient science fiction story, The Machine Stops. We are also in the planning stages for the iconic childhood rhapsody, Wind in the Willows which will be illustrated by the brilliant linoleum cuts of Vladimir Zimakov. Here’s a taste of his concept art for Badger:

Residency and Instruction

One of my distractions lately from making books has been finishing the guest house above “studio B” which is now listed on AirBnB. The space will be used to host collaborators, limited artist residencies and, of course, some additional income…

Use of the studio spaces and instruction can also be negotiated with a stay. Fully (and nicely) appointed letterpress and intaglio print spaces as well as a complete bindery. Visit my main website for much more information about the facilities here.