Gaylord Schanilec’s Sylvae

I realized this morning that I never posted about Sylvae, Gaylord Schanilec’s latest effort which came out more than a few months ago. Working with Ben Verhoeven, Gaylord has created a fascinating history of his farm as seen through the trees on the property. Here are the details:

Standard Edition
8 x 12 inches. 192 pp. 120 numbered copies.
Text and images printed on Zerkall book laid.
Quarter leather bare wooden board lapped case binding. In a slipcase.
Copies will be available December 2007 / January 2008.
Retail: $1200

Large Paper Edition
10 x 15 inches. 192 pp. 26 lettered copies.
Text pages printed on handmade paper. Images printed on a special making of Zerkall no. 7625.
Quarter leather Medieval style laced wooden board binding. Contained in an
enclosure along with a separate box of 25 specimens (one for each species represented.)
Copies will be available 2008.
Retail: $7500

Even if you can’t buy a copy, try to find an opportunity to see this book – it’s one of my favorites. You can see a number of images from the book online: http://www.midnightpapersales.com/sylva/index.html .

New Title in Schanilec’s Little Book Series

The latest offering in the little book series from Midnight Paper Sales is Old Swayback by Jim Heynen. This 26-page book includes a fold-out engraving of an old barn in winter printed on Japanese paper. The rest of the book is printed on Zerkall and set in Italian Old Style.  It also looks like you can order books from Midnight Paper Sales online by clicking on the “Add to Cart” button (it’s very small) to the right of the title page image.  Gaylord’s gone all e-commerce on us.

Schanilec Wins Hertzog Award

Carl Hertzog Award Winner and Runners-up

Mr. Gaylord Schanilec of Stockholm, Wisconsin, will be presented with the tenth Carl Hertzog Award for Excellence in Book Design and Mr. J. P. Bryan, Chairman and CEO of Torch Energy Advisors Inc. in Houston, will deliver the twelfth Carl Hertzog lecture at ceremonies on Saturday, February 4, 2006, at the University of Texas at El Paso. The national competition and lecture are part of Carl Hertzog Day sponsored by the Friends of the University Library.

In addition to a cash award of $1,000, Mr. Schanilec received a specially struck bronze medallion, and a framed certificate for his design of the book Mayflies of the Driftless Region, written by Clarke Garry and printed by Midnight Paper Sales, 2005. This year’s judges selected Mayflies of the Driftless Region from other entries, which represented a diverse range of style, creativity and production techniques. The judges commended Mayflies of the Driftless Region for its complexity of material and its consistency of presentation, and said that it was surprisingly beautiful for a scientific book. The judges also noted that Mr. Shanilec also produced an elegant binding that was very appropriate for the subject.

A team of three judges reviewed the 79 books submitted for this year's competition. The books represented 47 designers (or teams including authors, editors, and others) and 32 publishers. The judges this year were: Enid Mark, Ninth Carl Hertzog Book Design Award Winner, Book Artist, and proprietor of The ELM Press; Tom Moore, Retired Cartoonist of “Archie Comics” fame, freelancer, and teacher of Computerized Graphic Art, and Robert A. Seal, Hertzog Competition Founder, past Hertzog judge, and Dean of Libraries at Loyola University Chicago.

This year the judges selected three honorable mentions, in no particular order:

1. The China I Knew by Rose Covarrubias.
Designer: Terry Horrigan. Printed by: Protean Press, 2005.
2. The Old in Their Knowing by Robert Bringhurst.
Designer: Peter Koch. Printed by: Editions Koch, 2005.
3. Naming by Philip Levine.
Designer: Chad Oness. Printed by: Sutton Hoo Press, 2004.

Mayflies of the Driftless Region

Midnight Paper Sales announces the publication of Mayflies of the Driftless Region, an artistic study of mayflies accompanied by descriptions by Prof. Clarke Garry, entomologist at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. The edition is limited to 400 copies: 50 specials bound in full calf “contained in a custom enclosure incorporating a selection of hand-tied flies” and also including a portfolio of extra prints and a set of progressive proofs of one image, with the images printed on Gampi Torinoko; the 300 limiteds will be quarter bound in goat with slipcase; 50 copies will remain in sheets for custom binding. For pre-publication orders received before December 1, 2005, the specials will be $960 and the limited $400 and $320 for the sheets; following the December publication date, prices will become $1250, $500, and $400, respectively. To order or to make other inquiries, contact Gaylord Schanilec at Midnight Paper Sales, Stockholm, WI, 54769-5513, e-mail:gschan@hbci.com.

Ampersand Club 75th Anniversary Book

To mark their 75th anniversary, the Ampersand Club of Minneapolis and Saint Paul is publishing On Book Collecting by Arne Kjelsberg, “a home-bound collector and lover of books” [Kjelsberg is the pseudonym of Elmer Andersen, former Governor of Minnesota, book collector and benefactor of the University of Minnesota libraries]. The book was printed by Gaylord Schanilec and includes a bookplate he designed for Gov. Andersen that hadn’t been printed until now. The special edition, quarter-leather binding w/ slipcase and an extra insert, is available for $295 pre-publication; the limited edition, full cloth binding, is priced at $150 pre-publication; there will also be a trade edition for $19.95.

For further information, the Ampersand Club can be reached at:

The Ampersand Club
212 Second Street North
Minneapolis, MN 55401
612-332-1313

New from Midnight Paper Sales

The latest book from the hands of Gaylord Schanilec is Turkish Pears in August: Twenty Ramages by Robert Bly. The colophon reads: “150 copies printed by Gaylord Schanilec on Zerkal paper in the spring of 2005. The cover paper was made for the edition by Bridget O’Malley. The Italian Old Style type and Monument titling were cast by Scott King & came to this volume in pure & vestal modesty.” Copies are $140 each and available from the printer (gschan@hbci.com).

BookFest: A Book Arts Exposition

The 2005 BookFest in New York City is coming up on April 8 & 9, with workshops offered from April 10-17. Among the numerous book arts luminaries attending will be Gaylord Schanilec (who is offering a wood engraving master class on April 10) and Peter & Donna Thomas (Peter will be busy with two miniature book workshops).