I will be in Manhattan next Saturday across from the NY Antiquarian Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory. Our Fine Press Book Association (FPBA) Shadow Fair venue is the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, 869 Lexington Ave at 66th Street. Saturday April 29, from 10 AM to 5 PM.
Come see all the beautiful books and people from around the world!
There will be 40 presses showing this year, here is a link to the list. I remember the first fair in 2014 and all the wonderful experiences associated with the event, the city, art and food along the way. Each time finding new inspiration and ideas – looking forward to another visit.
No new book for the table this year, I’ve been busy binding deluxe and presentation copies of books since the completion of The Wind in the Willows. These books are already sold and most of this type of work I do is commissioned from my current and previous titles so it will be nice to show a few examples of some of my presentation bindings before they disappear into private libraries.
Only another six or so bindings to go before I’m caught up and get to be a printer again! Some really delicious poetry coming soon from James Bernard Gross via the charming volume The Liquorstore pomes (not a typo) and we continue to refine The Machine Stops for the Mad Parrot Press imprint.
Spring is finally near here in the Deep Wood. A few crocus and daffodils making the appearance along with wild leek, trout lilies and fern poking through in the woods. Spring peepers and wood frogs came out earlier in the week, turtles crawl out of the muck to sun themselves on logs and geese honk all night long in their efforts to perpetuate the species. These clear cold spring nights are good for some things beyond our sphere as well.
Last week I visited Les Baux-de-Provence and finally made face to face contact with the Fondation Louis Jou along with the Bibliothèque nationale de France to begin a relationship with both organizations for when I will eventually live here on a part time basis with my partner Madeleine Hill Vedel at her home in Avignon just 40 minutes away. Covid had delayed the trip a couple years but now we are back on track. The initial visit was wonderful giving me a chance to assess the current condition of the three hand presses on location and to visit with Atelier du Livre François and Marie Vinourd – book and paper conservators, across the lane.
This weekend and through next week I’ve been invited to stay with Jean-Louis Estève at his home and workshop in the Les Gorges du Verdon region and then we will make our way back to Les Baux where a wood engraving workshop will be given (hopefully I will be doing intaglio if a spare plate is to be found) where we will stay on premise and, with luck, do some initial basic repairs that are needed on the large Stanhope press that Louis Jou printed a majority of his wondrous books on until 1967.
I’m currently moving about Provence until November 7th. I still receive email but my phone is non-functional here until my return and I neglected to update my voicemail before leaving. Apologies to anyone who has tried to contact me for any urgent matter.
Upon my return to the comparably frigid Northern Michigan I will be right back at finishing the backlog of deluxe and presentation bindings that are lingering on the bench, continue layouts for The Machine Stops with James and interviewing a couple of potential apprentices for the 2022-23 season. Thank you to those who have been patiently waiting for your books, it was not my intention to leave you in expectation for so long.
It is possible that the book is the last refuge of the free man. If the man turns decidedly to the automaton; if it happens to no longer think that according to the ready-made images of a screen, this termite will end up not reading any more. All sorts of machines will make up for it: he will allow his mind to be manipulated by a system of speaking visions; the color, the rhythm, the relief, a thousand ways to replace effort and dead attention, to fill the void or the laziness of the search for the particular imagination: everything will be there, minus the spirit. This law is that of the herd. The book will always have followers, the last men who will not be mass-produced by the social machine. A beautiful book, this temple of the individual, is the acropolis where thought entrenches itself against the plebs.
Excerpt from L’Art du livre by André Suarès, written in 1920, printed by Louis Jou in 1922
Since the completion of the standard edition of The Wind in the Willows I’ve been busy in the bindery working on the 10 deluxe copies of the book. There are an additional 9 books queued up for presentation bindings to fill orders placed in the past few months for my past books including The Intruder, In the Penal Colony, and The Mad Angler Poems so those will make reappearances here in the future in their new clothing as well. I seem to be more a binder than a printer these days….
I am usually loathe to share images of unfinished work and only a couple of these are even close to completion so apologies for the less than stellar images taken with my phone on the bench with plenty of glare. Quite a bit of leather onlay and underlay work, tooling, bits of foil and great fun refining binding structures. I stocked a fair amount of new leathers for this endeavor in both goat and calf as well as a few fair skins that I’ve dyed to suit my needs. These will all be in solander boxes when completed and accompanied by a suite of the 12 full size illustrations from the book.
Cambridge style binding with title inlay. Still working on Toad.Full goat, leather onlays, tooling and title in copper foil. More leather bits coming.Half binding in calf with sculpted leather onlays. Another tree to come on the right.Full goat over a split board binding with inlay of title with goat onlays. Much more tooling to come.Full goat over leather cords. More tooling to come.Quarter binding in goat with lots of leather bits and lots more to come.Waiting for leather. The lower two books are split board bindings, raised cords on the top two and sewn headbands on all of them..Click on any image to enter a slideshow.
CODEX
This Friday I’m off to CODEX in Berkeley, CA for yet another gathering of fine press makers and book artists from around the globe. I’m excited to see everyone again and have volunteered to help Peter and Susan with all the gory details of show set-up, shopping and general flunky. That’s what friends do!
Visit me at Table 56 to see the new work and catch up.
New York
Upon returning from California I’ve a few days to repack for the Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair on Saturday, April 23rd from 10am – 5pm. The last “in-person” fair I did was Manhattan 2 years ago just as Covid was hitting the USA. I managed to escape back to Michigan unscathed (though quite a few friends were not so lucky) where I have been practicing social distancing and isolation for 30 years now here at DWP.
Winter was lacking in many ways here on the Michigan 45th parallel, bitter cold prevailed but not the kind of snowfall we have historically enjoyed, so cross country skijoring with the dog was a limited activity which is one of the things that keeps me sane during our long winters. Life was interrupted by a power outage during the holidays, I was out for 5 days but the worst part was when power was restored it dumped high voltage through all the buildings and AirBnB rental taking out the furnace controller, refrigerator, ceiling fans, gfci outlets, audio gear and all kinds of other little things that sometimes take weeks to discover. Needless to say, this took priority for a while along with all the fun of dealing with insurance, ordering and installing replacement items.
There is still snow outside as I type this though spring is around the corner. There are geese and ducks on the river verbally making themselves known to potential mates. Coyotes, fox and bobcats are on the prowl and the otters and beavers are enjoying their icy slides. On a sunny day last week I say my first turtle that had emerged from the winter muck to sun himself on a log. A few early hatches that the trout have ignored and when I return from New York trout season opener will have already happened here in Michigan on the 24th. Don’t worry, I’ll keep focusing in the bindery. Mostly. You know I’m looking forward to printing The Machine Stops this fall and the drawings we’re getting from Marc Castelli will blow your minds.
Chad Pastotnik, Deep Wood Press 