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Chad Pastotnik, Deep Wood Press

~ Fine letterpress and intaglio printing ~ Celebrating 30 years in 2022

Chad Pastotnik, Deep Wood Press

Tag Archives: Printing

Progress on Qin Guan

15 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by Deep Wood Press in Letterpress, Moon as Bright as Water, Oak Knoll Fest

≈ 3 Comments

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Books, Fine Press, literature, Printing

Printing is coming along nicely on Moon As Bright As Water with all but a few pages of the introduction and the color runs to do.

I’d forgotten how dusty Hahnemühle Biblio is, after 3 runs of 100 sheets the press must be cleaned up completely – new ink and vacuum the whole thing down. It doesn’t help that I’m running it with one natural deckle on the fore edge of the page. Such a nice soft sheet though with a nice heft at 150gsm that takes ink and impression so well.

I should have copies ready for Oak Knoll Fest coming up the end of the month on September 30 – October 2nd in New Castle, Delaware. Jim Dissette and I will be there as usual with books on the table and enjoying the camaraderie of our fellow printers and enthusiasts from around the globe.

Previous apprentice Daniel Schneider, Bonnie Loukus and another former apprentice, Erin Murray, will be here in the studio next week to assist in the bindery as loose sheets turn into folios and are sewn into book form ready to be covered in some sage Asahi book cloth and a lovely cotton indigo Shizen batik paper with a hint of gold highlights. Stock I found at Hollander’s in Ann Arbor last weekend as I once again presented at the Kerrytown Bookfest.

There is already high demand for the unbound copies of the edition so if you are a bookbinder looking for books in sheets let me know soon as they will ship upon my return from Oak Knoll.

Looking forward to wrapping up this project and getting back to my Kafka madness.

Here is a photo of some of the piles of sheets taking up space in the bindery. The wood engraving on the left is for another project. More updates next week as things head into the bindery side of the shop.

progress

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A Return to Process and Dialogue

11 Saturday Oct 2014

Posted by Deep Wood Press in Books, Education, Equipment, Letterpress, Oak Knoll Fest, Printing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

book arts, Chad Pastotnik, Deep Wood Press, education, Letterpress, Linotype, Oak Knoll Fest, Printing

First off, having recently returned from a most encouraging showing of my books at Oak Knoll this past week, I must say thank you to many who have followed this blog and whose friendships I continue to make and cement in the “real” world. I was amazed how many mentioned reading this or the social media bits of DWP’s online presence and I feel I must apologize for this blog having turned more into a PR tool or travelogue. It was my intention from the beginning for this to be more about process and dialogue. So let’s begin again and I will attempt to stay more on track though I will still mention new work or events but direct you to other sources for more details. This will be a somewhat longer post to get things rolling.

type hand-set on a curve

type hand-set on a curve

Dialogue – what is letterpress printing?

At these events and exhibits I have the pleasure of the company of fellow printers as well as a cultivated relationship with private and institutional collectors of my books. It is with interest I have noted a recurring theme of discussion which has been raging in the fine press world for over two decades but it seems the buying public is just starting to wonder: What is letterpress printing? Allow me a couple of paragraphs to cover the general process and history, neither exhaustive or fully concise:

  By definition I suppose it is printing from a relief surface via letterpress. Letterpress is a term that has only come into existence really in the past 50 years and has morphed into both verb and noun use. Prior to this time it was the only widely used reproductive process as innovated by Gutenberg in the 15th century and it was merely “printing” and those who printed were “Printers” Today, those of us who continue the tradition, draw on this legacy for better or worse.

  Gutenberg’s legacy is that of the matrix from which type is cast in a mould. Type is something you can pick up with your fingers and compose into words, form sentences, paragraphs and pages with. It is the famous “26 soldiers of lead” which conquers ignorance and tyrants. Type remained in this form until the late 19th century when machine composition became a possibility with the technology and resources made available by the industrial revolution and manifested by Monotype composition casting equipment and the Linotype and Intertype line casting innovations. Both of these new means of putting words into page form allowed for composition to be done via a keyboard and then cast into type metal from that action to form the composed page. With this innovation and increase in production some compromise was made in typography as compared to hand composition but refinements could be used to help negate and bridge the narrow gap. This technology remained in place essentially until the 1980’s with the advent of the ease of modern desktop publishing with the dark days of film composition enjoying a thankfully brief stay in the 60’s-70’s.

So why is the question being asked now – what is letterpress printing? What is new now and not part of the 500-year-old tradition of printing is the advent of polymer plate printing. Arguably this technology is what may have saved letterpress from near death and made it accessible and popular with small presses offering wedding invitations, business identities, packaging, ephemera and – books. Printing from plates is relatively easy and they are created predominantly on computers. No knowledge of the history or the art of printing is necessary nor are many of the skills ingrained in producing printing with metal types needed.

Nearly everyone with a computer can compose text, add illustration and even make a book. True also that anyone given a box of paint and a brush can paint a picture. The quality of the product created is the sum of the individual’s understanding of the process, their artistic abilities, level of craftsmanship and, I would add, their understanding of the history of their craft and those who shaped it. There are countless programs now in higher education across the US, the UK and beyond teaching letterpress and book arts courses in degree programs and, thankfully, almost all of them start teaching students the basics of hand typography – assembling type you can pick up from cases and composing the project as has been done since Gutenberg. The polymer machine sits in the corner biding it’s time and offering sweet promise of relative ease and speedy efficiency to be utilized later.

I fully acknowledge that now, at this point in time, it is very difficult to assemble a letterpress shop. The machines, fonts of type and supporting industry revolving around letterpress ceased to exist in the 60’s for the most part. Twenty two years ago when I started printing book forms I received the bulk of my equipment for free or little money merely to make room in more progressive established print shops for more storage or that new all-in-one color laser/dye sub/inkjet thing that did 90% of what their customers wanted. What is left now of the equipment is often quite expensive to purchase and, while type still exists, it is not the sturdy foundry type of the days of old and still commands a premium prices as well. Printing from plates also has the potential of producing work of the highest quality indistinguishable from metal type except maybe for being “too perfect” – not a guarantee but full potential if used by a typographer and designer skilled in better than average desktop publishing software.

linotype and hand set composition on the press
hand set type form on press
polymer plate going on a press

WHAT IS LETTERPRESS PRINTING?

Is it merely printing from a raised surface? Or is it more?

What is it to you? To what do you give value?

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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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Tags

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.

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.

erin

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.

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Presentation binding for The Chesapeake Voyages of Captain John Smith
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Chained books at Chetham's Library in Manchester, England where I was a keynote speaker at a letterpress conference.
Chained books at Chetham’s Library in Manchester, England where I was a speaker at a letterpress conference.
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Custom bound journal, commissioned bindery work
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Ripping Oblivion
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The 6th etching for the book, “Entitled”
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Page spread from The Frogs Who Wished A King by Aesop, versified by Clara Dotty Bates.
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Killing the Bear by Judith Minty, deluxe edition binding & slipcase
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Opening spread for the Frogs Who Wished A King by Aesop, intaglio engravings by Chad Pastotnik.
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Title page from Heart of Darkness
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Some books produced at Deep Wood Press. The John Barth book “Browsing” was printed here at DWP for The Literary House Press (Washington College, MD) by James Dissette, my sometimes partner in crime in printing for Chester River Press.
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The Mad Angler’s Manifesto
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Deluxe edition prototype
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Don Etherington binding of The Intruder
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Page spread from The Frogs Who Wished A King by Aesop, versified by Clara Dotty Bates.
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the linoleum blocks for “The Path” center spread
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deluxe binding of The Intruder
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