Tag Archives: Chad Pastotnik

PBS feature, new special bindings and being on the road.

14 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by in Book Bindings, Letterpress, PR and Media releases, The Intruder, The Mad Angler Poems, The Path

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Again it seems like time flies and no updates to the blog. Fear not! I’m merely busy and not slacking much aside from the occasional foray on the river.

legacyvimeo

The opening sequence for A Craftsman’s Legacy. Look for me at around 38 seconds at the intaglio press with host Eric Gorges.

The biggest news would have to be that the television show, A Craftsmans’s Legacy, has started showing across the country. I will be the subject of episode 11 “The Bookmaker” so check your local or regional PBS television network listings as each affiliate creates their own programing schedule. The show is still being picked up across the country for the new fall season and if you happen to be near Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France next month APT Worldwide, the international sales arm of distributor American Public Television, will feature the series at the upcoming MIPCOM so there’s a chance it could be picked up for international viewing.

I’m happy to report that most all of the binding projects are finishing up – all of the edition binding work for The Mad Angler Poems and The Intruder are complete and many of the quite late presentation bindings and deluxe copies of the books are done. All this in preparation for Oak Knoll Bookfest coming up in less than a month on October 3rd-5th in Newcastle, DE as well as CODEX International Book Fair & Symposium coming up next February 8th-11th in Berkeley, CA. I’ve just returned from a long weekend in Ann Arbor, MI for the 12th annual Kerrytown BookFest which was lovely as usual. A special treat was being on a speaking panel with Ken Mikolowski who founded the Alternative Press in Detroit in the 1960s.

Some of the fine bindings recently completed

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This was a lot of hand work that I couldn’t have accomplished without my excellent assistant this past summer, Erin Murray, who is flying off to the UK tomorrow to start her MFA program in book conservation at University of the Arts London, Camberwell. Erin will be missed around here I assure you, she was my apprentice 2 years ago and came back to work for me this past summer to help out, learn some more and prepare for her future studies. Have a look at her website here to get an idea of the sort of creative talent she has.

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I’m currently waiting for a new translation for the Kafka piece, finishing a couple commissioned works and getting prints ediitioned for the upcoming series of shows. Hopefully I’ll have a prototype of the Kafka for Oak Knoll.

Diana Gabaldon keepsake completed

06 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by in Broadsides, ephemera, Letterpress, Traverse City National Writers Series Authors

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Finished the Diana Gabaldon broadside. 13×10″ sheet size, 2 colors. Additional bit of a tag line and credits tastefully printed on the back side. I had to print 200 of them as the event has been sold out. I wish I would have had more lead time on this and could have acquired type or had a plate made to composed the main display font in a more historically accurate font like Caslon but some beat up Americana will have to do, only off by about 200 years…

 

Diana Gabaldon keepsake

The Diana Gabaldon keepsake for the NWS event in Traverse City, July 7, 2014.

Post Event thoughts

A little update after last nights event. I don’t always like meeting authors or listening to them speak in public about their work but this was an exception. Diana is a genuine and real human being that, despite her amazing and deserved success, came off with wit and honesty about her process and was very engaging to the audience. She also liked the broadsides and was pleased with the additional copies I made for here on the nicer paper stock. It was a capacity sold out crowd at the Traverse City Opera House. I arrived late (of course) and was stunned to see the line for the door wrap around the block – that doesn’t happen in Northern Michigan very often. We got in, delivered the broadsides and settled for balcony seats which was pretty much all that was left. I always feel a little bad about the extra printed items I make for these events as then it is just one more thing that the author might be expected to sign but Diana was very gracious and stuck it out until the end of the line.

My wife and I got out early with still a long line behind us and went for dinner nearby. As serendipity and as luck would have it Diana, Doug Stanton and a few other people ended up at the same restaurant and asked us to join them, very nice end to the evening though already late. Ouch, how much do you pay your baby sitters? Not the best of pics here from the phone camera: