Tag Archives: Letterpress

New special bindings and the Manhattan book fair

25 Tuesday Apr 2023

Posted by in Book Bindings, In the Penal Colony, Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair, Presentation bindings, The Wind in the Willows

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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.

Future projects and printing in France

18 Tuesday Oct 2022

Posted by in Education, France, Letterpress, Louis Jou

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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