New Blog: Gaspereau Press

Gaspereau Press has set up a blog:

http://gaspereaupress.blogspot.com/

From the press release:

We open our printshop doors for our annual Wayzgoose each October, now it’s your chance to see what happens here all year long. Stop peering through our windows and step right in. Catch our books when they’re least expecting it – sneak a peek at the galleys on the editor’s desk, browse at the binder, get a glimpse of the covers rolling off the letterpress – they don’t mind.

Check in regularly for updates and photos of our printshop activites and publishing adventures. That way, when you buy Gaspereau titles at your local bookshop, you can tell everyone you knew these books back when they were just manuscripts.

book art object

The Codex Foundation is publishing a catalogue/commemorative volume of the First Codex Foundation Book Fair and Symposium. book art object, edited by David Jury with transcripts from the speakers as well as five additional essays from book artists from around the world, is expected to be published in November. Keep an eye on the publication website for further details (though Parenthesis 15 has an article by David Jury that notes that 1500 copies have been [will be?] printed, with the books retailing for US $75 and a prepublication price, including postage, of US $65).

Readers will also want to keep in mind that the Second Codex Foundation Book Fair and Symposium will be held February 8-11, 2009 in Berkeley, California. Tickets are $225 and registration for both the book fair and the symposium now appear to be open. See the Codex 2009 web page for more information.

Call for Entries: Pressing South

Pressing South: A Juried Exhibition of Letterpress Printing from the Southeastern United States is looking for participants. All letterpress printers/artists in the Southeast are eligible and encouraged to submit an entry form before October 7, 2008. All of the details are available at http://www.uncw.edu/art/pressing_south.html.

Advertising in the Next Issue of Parenthesis

From the good folks at Fine Press Books Association:

There is still time to place an ad in the upcoming Parenthesis 15 — publication of the Fine Press Book Association. Get the word out to publishers and letterpress devotees worldwide. Contact Michael Barnes for layout, placement, and rates: mjbarnes@telus.net or 604-833-0612.

FPBA Announcements

Bob McCamant sent along this notice from the most recent FPBA E-Newsletter:

Fall is the active season for book fairs, and 2007 was no exception.

Oak Knoll Fest, October 6 and 7, included Johanna Drucker speaking on her history with letterpress printing, and then a panel about education in the fine press field chaired by Tim Murray, Head of Special Collections at the University of Delaware, and including Kathy Walkup, Ashley Pigford, David Comberg, and Katherine McCanless Ruffin. More than 40 presses (including several academic ones) participated in the book fair. We also held our annual meeting, and I assumed the chair of the North American branch, and Jim Beall and Mark McMurray joined the board.

November 3 and 4, 2007 brought the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair in Oxford, England, cosponsored by the UK Branch of FPBA along with the Provincial Booksellers Association there. More than 60 presses participated, and speakers included Walter Bachinski, Rigby Graham, Dave Farey, Carolyn Trant, and Nigel Bents.

Parenthesis 13 has now been distributed in North America (UK to follow shortly) and Parenthesis 14 is expected in early winter. Odd-numbered journals are edited by Paul Razell (inferno_press@mac.com) and published by the North American branch. Even-numbered journals are edited by Sebastian Carter (sebastianc@waitrose.com) and published by UK branch.

If you are a press (and a member) we can include a short note about your new books in this e-newsletter. Just fill in the online registration form. The form also allows you to request an entry in the next issue of Parenthesis, and in the Private Libraries Association’s periodical Private Press Books.

You might like to offer a copy for review in Parenthesis. The online registration form also allows you to make the offer. A member of the Parenthesis team will contact you to arrange it. If necessary, we can also arrange the book’s return after review.
Tell your friends interested in membership from North America that they should contact Morva Gowans (FPBA_Morva@shaw.ca) and those from elsewhere in the world Maggie Walker (margaretjudithwalker@btinternet.com).

Our common web site is about to physically move from the UK to North America, but it’s address will remain www.fpba.com. Only minor changes are expected with the change. However, a totally new web site is now in the works. Martyn Ould has located a college class which will undertake a complete redesign of the site, following guidelines gleaned from board members and others on both sides of the Atlantic. If all goes according to schedule, the new web site should appear in June.

Greyweathers Press: New Book and Book Launch (Ottawa)

I guess today is my day to steal info from other blogs – here’s an announcement from Bytown Bookshop:

Our friends Larry and Holly and their Greyweathers Press are proud to announce the completion of their second letterpress book, TENEBRISMO, featuring ten poems by Kera Willis.

The limited edition (75 copies) poetry book will come in two variant bindings, a regular edition bound in black Mayfair cover paper printed in black ($75+gst) and a deluxe edition in full black leather with black foil stamped cover. ($155 +gst).

The book launched will take place here at the Bytown Bookshop 21 Arlington Ave. [Ottawa, Canada] on Saturday, July 14th at 6:00pm. There will be plenty of food, fun and of course the chance to dip yourself into the world of letterpress and fine books. I have given Larry the use of my press for the evening, so there may be the odd demonstration or crash course taking place as well. Hope to see everyone here on Saturday.

Upcoming Lectures in Vancouver, BC

From Rollin Millroy via the Alcuin Society Blog:

The very cool Barbara Hodgson will be giving a talk this Thursday 12 July at Emily Carr (north building, room 245, 7:30 pm) as part of the summer book arts program. She will be talking, with lots of slides, about her upcoming limited edition book, The Temperamental Rose. This is a book about color wheels. With her collaborator, the binder Claudia Cohen, the book reproduces versions of color studies from the past five centuries, and offers new and fanciful ways of seeing color. An introductory essay briefly explains the history of color, and each of the color charts is accompanied by explanatory text.

The text and color wheel outlines were printed letterpress from polymer plates by David Clifford. He completed work at the end of June, and Barbara is now immersed in all the hand coloring, embroidering and pop-up construction for the wheels. The edition of 30 copies will be uniformly bound in a profusion of color and issued in a matching box, created by Claudia for this project, along with a set of six dry artists’ pigments in small glass vials. It will be published this fall by Heavenly Monkey Editions, and has been fully subscribed for some time already. Barbara’s talk will be a unique opportunity to get a personal tour through the book, and gain insights to her process for designing what will be her most ambitious book construction yet. She’s an excellent speaker, and I urge you to attend. Afterwards we’ll all retire to Ann Vicente’s studio on the Island for drinx.

On Tues 17 July Paul Mazzucca, a typography instructor at EC, will be giving a talk. I don’t know much about his work, but I believe he recently issued a letterpress book, and I saw a very cool digital color collage ‘zine of his at Magpie Books on Commercial.

As a mark of how desperate they are this year, I will be sweeping up after Barbara & Paul at the same place, same time the following week (July 19). I will be talking about Iskandariya, the HM collaboration with EC alumna Briony Morrow-Cribbs and poet Brigit Pegeen Kelly. This “little” project has threatened to overtake all our lives, but we seem to have gained control in recent weeks, and through poor planning the the book probably will appear at about the same time as Barbara’s. (Look for both at this fall’s Alcuin Wayzgoose, Nov 17.) The talk will be about the very convoluted design process, over 18 months, that we all endured. With lots of slides, it will cover issues of design, construction, combining printing techniques and papers, and binding. It will also offer some insight to how a publisher/printer, artist, author, and binder – each in a different city – collaborate on a publication like this. (This talk will be based on the pamphlet being issued exclusively with the 15 deluxe Artist’s Issue copies of the book.) You can see some details Iskandariya and Barbara’s project here. I realize it’s summer, and hopefully you’re all busy with your own book projects, but FYI Briony did ask me to note down the names of those she knows who do not show up, so fair warning.

I suspect that it’s fair to say that more information can be had from Mr. Millroy (scroll down to the bottom for contact info).

William Peterson & Barry Moser Lecture on Fine Printing (NYC)

[Notice from Mark Samuels Lasner posted to SHARP-L]

Forum at the Bard Graduate Center, New York
Co-sponsored by the William Morris Society in the United States

“Tradition and Innovation in Fine Printing”

Monday, March 26
6:00–7:15 p.m.
reception to follow

$20 general
$15 seniors and students and members of the William Morris Society

Bard Graduate Center, 38 West 86th Street, New York, NY www.bgc.bard.edu

Book production in the 19th-century was revolutionized by technological change, yet toward the end of the century, a counter-movement emerged to recover techniques and styles of earlier printing. Today fine printing still displays these apparently conflicting impulses. In this forum, noted scholar William S. Peterson will explore 19th-century bookmaking techniques through the
lens of the Kelmscott Press. He will consider how, although William Morris (1834–1896) has a reputation as a craftsman who sought to recover medieval bookmaking methods, he was also responsive to the artistic innovations of his time. Along with a close examination of Morris’s own typefaces, and wood engravings of the Kelmscott Press, he will show that Morris made extensive, pioneering use of photography as an instrument of design. Joining the conversation,
renowned artist and bookmaker Barry Moser, whose masterful works continue to enrich the tradition of fine bookmaking, will discuss how he draws inspiration from both historic and contemporary techniques.

Barry Moser is a renowned author, painter, printer, and printmaker who has designed over 300 books, including an edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (winner of the National Book Award), Jump, Again! The Further Adventures of Brer Rabbit (named one of the ten best illustrated children’s books by the New York Times), Appalachia, the Voices of Sleeping Birds, and the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible. He is the proprietor of Pennyroyal Press.

William S. Peterson is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Maryland. He is author of numerous essays, reviews, articles, and books including The Kelmscott Press: A History of William Morris’s Typographical Adventure and John Betjeman: A Bibliography. The recipient of many prestigious grants and fellowships, he is editor of Printing History.

This program is a complement to the conference, Birth of the Bestseller: The 19th-Century Book in Britain, France, and Beyond from March 29 through March 31, 2007, organized by the Bibliographical Society of America and being held at the Grolier Club, the Morgan Library & Museum, and the Fales Library, New York University. For more information go to:www.bibsocamer.org.

Postal Address for Fine Press News/Me

From time to time, printers are kind enough to send me prospectuses of their upcoming work and I, in turn, post about their work on this blog.  If you are going to mail me anything, please make sure that you have an address for me in East Point, GA.  If not (or if you don’t have an address for me at all), please e-mail me (aeoluspress *at* yahoo *dot* com).  Thanks!

Papermaker Tatiana Ginsberg to Lecture at Wells College

The Wells College Book Arts Center is pleased to announce that Tatiana Ginsberg will present the 24th Susan Garretson Swartzburg ‘60 Memorial Book Arts Lecture.

Ms. Ginsberg’s presentation, entitled ‘Forbidden Colors: Secrets of Japanese Naturally Dyed Papers,’ will address the traditional process of papermaking in Japan, and the extraction and preparation of colors from plants and other natural materials. In Japan, the arts of papermaking and dyeing with plants have been linked for over a millennium. Paper was introduced along with Buddhism, and papers made in Japan were dyed for sutra copying and collections of poetry. The range of colors, from subtle to vibrant, offers a rich, environmentally friendly spectrum little used by Western papermakers and artists.

Tatiana Ginsberg had always loved paper and books. After working in book publishing for seven years–five of them at the Metropolitan Museum of Art–she yielded to the itch to go west and study eastern papermaking. She spent two years at the University of Iowa Center for the Book, studying papermaking and book arts, after which she received a Fulbright research grant to investigate naturally dyed Japanese papers in Japan. She continues to work with the papermaking and dyeing techniques she learned in Japan while pursuing an MFA at UC Santa Barbara.

The event is free and open to the public. A reception at the Book Arts Center in Morgan Hall will follow the lecture, offering attendees the opportunity to meet the speaker. For more information about this event, please contact the Wells Book Arts Center by phone at 315-364-3420 or by email at bookartscenter@wells.edu, or visit us on the world-wide web at http://www.wells.edu/bookarts.