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

14 Sunday Sep 2014

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

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A Craftsman's Legacy, American Public Television, Chad Pastotnik, commissioned work, Deep Wood Press, deluxe bindings, Letterpress, PBS television network, Presentation bindings, Printing

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.

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.

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.

“If” by Rudyard Kipling ~ A new broadside

30 Thursday May 2013

Posted by Deep Wood Press in Broadsides, If by Rudyard Kipling, Letterpress, Printing

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arts, Broadside, commissioned work, Letterpress, Rudyard Kipling, Wood Engraving, wood engravings

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…

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.

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

Term-cards for Oxford

01 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by Deep Wood Press in Letterpress, Printing

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commissioned work, University of Oxford

I recently finished a little commission from the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles. Timing was off getting information to me and it needed to be done before I leave for Oak Knoll tomorrow so this little offering is what I had time for but it serves it’s purpose.

I tried to keep it in a proper English vein, the main body of type is Linotype Monticello which was originally offered by the Philadelphia type founders Binny & Ronaldson in 1796 as their Roman No. 1 but then re-released, curiously enough, in 1892 as Oxford before finally being reworked and released by Linotype in 1946. Baskerville is the type for display size and the front is two ATF offerings – Morris Romanized Black (Chaucer) with Freehand.