Tag Archives: John Voelker

Something Fishy

08 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by in Future Projects, Trout

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Off to Voelker country. Well, actually quite aways north of there but in the same spirit anyways….

I’m bugging out for a week tomorrow. Gone Sunday through next Saturday with my friend Dave off to the Upper Peninsula of MI to an unnamed collection of remote inland lakes in the Huron Mountains. Kayaking in with a weeks worth of dry food, whiskey and shelter hoping to fill the gap with the catch of the day.

I’m waiting to get the signed prints and books back from Jim Westergard and all existing studio orders and jobs are caught up. Dave and I have been trying to get away for years and now we have the opportunity and we’re taking it.

heaven

I hate to write this when so many of you are experiencing extreme heat but it is paradise here at home at the moment. The river outside my doors is spring fed and warms to a lovely 56 degrees with the solar gain from upstream beaver ponds. Instant cooling power with multiple dips all day long (and night) and 10 degrees cooler than the village outside our valley. This is what we wait for in February when it’s been 20 below for a few days and the stove just seems to eat wood. So it’s with some little hesitation that I leave it now and head a days north into the thick of legendary black fly swarms and securing food against black bears and dodging moose. Now, with kids and a busy press schedule, I don’t get away like I used to and it’s been years since I’ve gone into the real backcountry. This time I’ve conceded to taking along  a really nice sleeping pad, comfort has snuck into weight, space and efficiency somehow.

Food for the soul and much needed nourishment for my own art, I’m taking a small sketchbook I made up and some pencils, charcoal and such. All the better to get back to “the work at hand” upon my return.

Working on the deluxe edition

22 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by in Book Bindings, Books, Letterpress, The Intruder

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Had a lovely talk with Jim Westergard this morning. My emails have been bouncing back a lot lately so sometimes you just can’t beat paying prime phone rates to Canada to get things ironed out. Aside from an all around great exchange of information, ideas and enthusiasm we hammered out what the bonuses of the special edition will include. I’ll be printing an additional folio of each of the five big wood engraving in the next couple days and then send them off to Jim along with the 20 already sewn books (but not cased into covers yet) copies designated for the deluxe edition for Jim to sign. I should point out that Jim has his own small edition of the prints from this book available for purchase as well. You can find them here.

Needless to say this will delay availability of these copies by at least a couple weeks. Hopefully they’ll make it through Homeland Security ok. When Jim sent me the engraved blocks (end grain maple) last December it must have looked scary to someone as the box had been slashed open and examined and in the process of doing so cut the surface of one of the blocks. The increased humidity of a Michigan summer and some heavy handed ink application made this cut negligible in the book edition.

My postmaster informed me that they didn’t know if there was any sort of recourse in dealing with packages searched at the border and I (or Jim) didn’t pursue it. Maybe the culprit will just be relegated to that special place in hell where there are no books or art.

So the deluxe edition will contain the five loose prints enclosed in a paper folio along with the book – all of which will be signed by Jim. And this will all be housed in a nice drop spine box covered in a matching cloth to the covers. Below is a picture of one of the first binding prototypes, it has evolved now to a less severe bevel on the cover boards and there will be surface decoration on them beyond what is shown. The vellum spine will be less revealed and different type used for the title but from here you’ll get a general idea of where I’m going with this.

prototype for deluxe edition of "The Intruder"