Category Archives: Letterpress

How we go about producing our books.

“If” by Rudyard Kipling ~ A new broadside

30 Thursday May 2013

Posted by in Broadsides, If by Rudyard Kipling, Letterpress, Printing

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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…

If full

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.

Wood engraving by Chad Pastotnik, detail of Garamond type.

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

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

“The Path” now completed

09 Thursday May 2013

Posted by in Books, Letterpress, PR and Media releases, The Path

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Center Spread

Center Spread

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

The Path
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