Well the fishing trip was a great success and by success I mean we were able to live off fish and berries for the last 2 months. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it. Actually I had a much more elaborate story made up that entailed finding a USAF food and munitions supply drop to augment our diet of raw fish but that started getting ridiculous as I developed it and finally decided to write a trashy novel replacing Dave with a found feral wolf-girl (for a love interest) out of the idea and release it as an e-book under the pseudonym Burt Grufflty.

The truth is we did catch fish but upon returning home I’d firmly settled into that pattern of waking, coffee, a smoke and then sitting in the kayak all day till I was hungry. Paddle back to camp, eat, have a smoke and go back out and fish till after dark, paddle back, have a snack and then busting out the whiskey – repeat… We didn’t see anyone else for 5 of the days we were out there. I got home and just couldn’t readjust to studio life so I didn’t. Just enjoyed time with the family and tried to get some more trout to fall for my song and dance.

Well, I’m back now. Feet planted firmly in the studio and there’s some wonderful stuff coming up.

• A new apprentice begins work here shortly, Dani Davis will begin her formal training in the black arts.
• The Michigan Trout Stamp book is back underway – cleaning up the old images.
• A lead on an award winning translator of Kafka to give me clear rights to the upcoming “The Hunter Graccchus”.
• I’ll shortly be acquiring 500 fonts of matrices for the Linotype (this is actually a huge deal)
• Several commissioned works are in progress for various universities, institutions and private individuals.

So I’ve been busy – just not overly physically productive – but will acknowledge that I spent a fair amount of time enjoying the summer, my family and the river.

This weekend I’m off to the Kerrytown Bookfest in Ann Arbor, MI. I’ll be teaching a intaglio class at the Hollander’s School (still a couple spaces available) and will be hitting several university special collections while I’m in that part of the state visiting and selling some inventory. I’ll be giving a talk on Sunday at noon during Bookfest at Hollander’s about my 20 years of operating Deep Wood Press which is free to the public.

Last week I was in the middle of the state and made visits to special collections at Calvin College, Grand Valley State University, Michigan State University, the Library of Michigan and the State Archives. Great visits, great people and I got to handle some very nice books produced by printers past like Johannes Hamman, Anton Koberger and Nicholas Jenson.

More to come, lots of new things to update you about – but now – BACK TO WORK!