Hurry up and wait

I ordered paper yesterday for Graven Images. It’ll take three weeks to get here. Soooo, I’ve stopped setting type, and have turned my attention to two smaller projects, but still needing attention. One, a promotional spread for a group show I’ll be taking part in, and two, my Grimsby Wayzgoose anthology contribution. Oh yeah, business cards for the press too. Given the delay, I’m not certain if Graven Images will be finished for the Wayzgoose, but I’ll try.

On top of this, Holly and I been asked by a prof at the Carleton University School of Architecture to do an hour with students on the subject of ‘The Book as Art’. The students tasked to create an art book as a preface to ultimate goal: a theoretical design for a Centre for the Book in Ottawa (like the one in New York City). Sigh. They’re playing with my dreams. It’ll be great to visit Carleton again, and we’ll be invited back to see an exhibition of their efforts at some point down the road. I should note while I’m the one who’ll be prattling on, mostly, it’ll be Holly who’ll shine with her work there.

Magnesium plates from Owosso

As I have mentioned before, digital images can be rendered to magnesium, copper and photopolymer plates for letterpress purposes. For the Graven Images project, I went with magnesium plates from Owosso Graphics.

mag plates mounted type-high on wood

As soon as I got my hands on these, I inked up the press and proofed all of them on a number of different types of stock. Overall, the cost for these blocks was not a lot, but I had my doubts if they would be up to the job. Far more accomplished printers than I have tried and rejected digitally rendered metal plates (sometimes referred to as ‘zincs’), so I wondered how Owosso would fare with a wood engraving with fine lines, and halftones.

‘The Reader’ is a block that broke on the press. Here is an original proof  of ‘The Reader’, and below it, a proof of the mag plate:

The Reader, print from original block

Print from mag plate

The new mag plate of 'The Reader', inked up on the press

Sorry about the difference in scale. the lower one is actual size, but you can still see how well the image came out. I tip my hat to Owosso.

I had good results with the halftones as well.

Here’s the reverse of the Lincoln block, with the Geo. W. Weagant reference and repeated dates ‘1881′. For this plate, Owosso neglected to trim the block, so all that crap in the bottom left is the ‘low’ part of the plate picking up noise from the rollers. I’ll have to ground it down myself.

Here’s a halftone proof of the uncut block with the illustration of a schooner in rough seas. It worked out very well.

The largest block was this halftone of the collection of wood engraved blocks as discovered. Because of its size, I will run into challenges printing it on the stock for the job.

I used the press inked up to proof the last plate, the one for the title page and the text I’ve just finished setting, really just the first paragraph of the Preface or Forword, this time on the Canson paper:

Once again, the drop cap ‘W’ is a placeholder. I’m expecting a larger one from Swamp Press within a couple of weeks.

Now, order paper and start cranking!

My Dear Hodgson

Lord Byron ranks high in the long list of poets on Greyweathers’ printing wish-list. I shy away a bit because I don’t really know him that well. It’s been a long time since I read his stuff, and he is more famous, to me at least, for his life and association with the origins of the gothic renaissance we are experiencing today. Mary Shelley got her start with Frankenstein thanks in part to Byron, and the same weekend produced Dr. Polidori’s Vampyr, and in every vampire ever since, I think there is a little bit of Byron.

It’s nice to know a poet still has some punch. Ian McKay reports in his Letter from London in the Maine Antiques Digest (Jan. edition) that part of a collection of letters from Lord Byron to Francis Hodgson sold at Sotheby’s from US$455,466. Some came from Byron’s European Grand Tour, which for him was the equivalent of today’s Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale In one letter he writes from Newstead Abbey in 1811: “the partridges are pleantiful… pheasants not quite so good, & the girls on the manor just coming into season….”

Oh, Byron.

Still, a half mil. I think he’d be pleased.

Setting type on Graven Images

Work has begun on setting the text of Graven Images. Sometimes when I set my own words in type, it makes me cringe. Anyway, it’s has to be done. In retrospect, I could have prevailed upon some of the wood engravers I know to write the foreword, but it is outside of the budget. I’d rather commission a contemporary wood engraving to go beneath the Foreword or beneath the colophon, but same budgetary problems. Anyway, production is under way again.

With the prints finished, and the pages designed digitally, the next step is converting the bits and bytes from the electronic ether into cold, hard metal. So the press, with its custom table top, is converted into a typesetting station:

Press transformed into typesetting station. (Too low though...)

California job tray in the foreground holds the type (12 pt Italian Oldstyle) and right behind it is a plastic drawer case holding copper, brasses, thins, and some of the smaller lead spacers that are essential to typesetting by hand. Just to the left is a plastic bead tray full of larger word and letter spacers, the copy, a composing stick and a flat, steel galley tray to hold the lines in form after I finish them in the composing stick.

Next, I print out and review my copy, and use the software’s ‘find’ feature to search out conjoined letters, i.e ligatures (ff, ffi, fi, fl, ffl) and dipthongs (st, oe, ae, ct).

No mistakes. Not yet. Copy highlighted up to show ligatures and dipthongs.

Then set some type and take a quick hand pulled proof, ‘cuz I’m not sure if 12 pt will work fully justified in this narrow a column. Work well, that is.

Hand proof of first take on text. The drop 'W' is a placeholder.

Word spacing not as bad as I feared. I finished the paragraph (a long one – 22 lines) only to realize that I used ‘19th’ century up in the third line when proper usage requires ‘nineteenth’. Because the form is in full justification, it requires a reset. In the process I discover a couple of other minor errors, so it is worth the effort. This is why I keep the bible beside me when I set type:

The Bringhurst Bible

And at last, the first paragraph complete. Hopefully it is readable — WordPress seems to crunch all my images down quite small. Click to see larger version:

The first paragraph, flipped in PS to read right.

I’m waiting for a type order including Italian Oldstyle in 30 and 36 point, which will pave the way for the drop cap. If it doesn’t come on time, well, I’ll have to substitute from another font, or talk a certain calligrapher into doing it by hand. ‘;->

Owosso Graphic shipped the halftones and line work that had to be rendered digitally yesterday. They cleared customs today, so I might have them tomorrow.

A litte bit of press maintenance

January is blistering by and there is some progress on the wood engraving portfolio. Holly finished her design for the title page and interior, and it called for halftone plates as opposed to tipped in illustrations, which means several hundred more passes on the press before this job is finished. It will be interesting to see the quality of the plate done for the wood block that broke on the press. I made a high resolution (1200 dpi) scan of a crisp proof I took long before the block began to decay, then spent an entire day cleaning up the image on Photoshop at tremendous magnification, especially tedious on the lined background. In the end, I saved some work by scanning a slightly darker proof and used a patch help an area that was too light. While I was at it, I eliminated some old scratches and cracks. Since what I’m printing is a digital rendering of the original, I’m not so fussed about its ‘integrity’. If the collection proves popular, original proofs of ‘The Reader’ will be something of a prize, since I only managed to print a dozen or so before the block cracked.
Meanwhile, I’ve been looking at my press and acknowledging that it is high time for a thorough cleaning, which means a partial dismantling. Definitely after the Portfolio…. Definitely!

2010 Manifesto

There’s a reason why a great deal of good work comes out of pain and suffering. In the documentary It Could Get Loud, guitarist Jack White suggested that the wellspring of creativity has its source in a dialectic — a struggle or conflict. And if there’s no pain, you must create your own. If the end product comes easy, with no sweat, then it’s probably not very good.

White’s comments reminded me why I print with Luddite equipment: It’s not easy. It slows me down in my frantic need to get to the finish line. The combination of time and old tech produces a result unattainable by toner or pixels, at the moment anyway. It’s hard work, and demanding, and there are a lot of people out there now doing simply mind-blowing work, and that’s inspiring.

I enter Year Six of Greyweathers Press with hopes and dreams, just like all the other years. The theme for the next five is ‘Getting Serious’. I’ve spent the first five doing serious things too. Finding out where to get rollers recast, how to order type, why things won’t register and how additives work with ink. Not to mention getting a press into working order. But I’m past that now.

I’ve said before that I consider most of the work in the first five years as part of my apprenticeship, to hark back to the early days of printing as a trade. Now it is time to step up the pace and intensity. So here goes:

1) ten books in five years;
2) step up production value;
3) marketing: on-line presence, adverts, launches, more shows, book sellers;
4) intensify illustration: my own, but working with other artists as well;
5) form working alliances with writers, illustrators, printers, bookbinders; and
6) further my studies in book design and typography.

And here’s the big list of ideas that may float to the surface over the next five years.

Upcoming from Greyweathers Press

1) Graven Images – this will be the title of the wood engraving portfolio. I begin setting type for this project this week.

2) Broadsides – I haven’t done many of these posters. I have a few ideas in mind.

3) Type sampler – I did one right after I got my press working, and found working copies in the re-org in December. Probably as a broadside.

4) Signature for Wayzgoose – something special this time

5) Collaboration with Holly – still in progress [BOOK]

6) The Highwayman – possibly working with another artist [BOOK]

7) ABCdery – for the grandson [PORTFOLIO]

8)Christmas card

9) something Gothic, something dead [BOOK or BROADSIDE]

10) Thompson Family History – almost ready to go to print

11) Tenebrismo regular edition – so close to done I can taste it

12) Business cards – marketing! marketing!

13) Lino/wood engravings series (self portrait)

14) New Year’s card (Jan 2010)

15) Shakespeare’s soliloquies – a book still at the envisioning stage [BOOK]

16) Eliot – Prufrock [BOOK]

17)  FIVE – a portfolio celebrating the first five years of Greyweathers Press. [PORTFOLIO]

18) Fantastic Journeys — The Untold Detours and Lost Maps of the Great Explorers. [FOLIO]

19) Selections from Idylls of the King by Tennyson (or In Memorium) [BOOK]

20) Tintern Abbey – Wordsworth [BOOK]

As a footnote, I look back to when I started this blog, and more or less, for right or wrong and through good and bad, it served mostly as a press log, and as a place to throw down the odd random thoughts on printing. In the new year and beyond, I may grow it beyond this rather self-interested goal and cover other presses, books and publications that inspire me and push me forward.

Looking Back – 2009 and before

Something Holly said about 2009 hasn’t left me. She said she felt like she was sitting on top of a mountain, after a very difficult climb, looking down at all the obstacles, and taking in the breathtaking view all around her.

Than pretty much sums it up. 2009 has been a hard slog (and stressful? Oh, yeah!) but it ends on a high note. Holly and I have spent most of December rallying and we’re ready to launch ourselves on a new year, with climbing gear this time.

In more morose moods, I tend to look at 2009 as a failure for the press. No  meaningful work to speak of, low production, no time blah blah blah. In fact, there were a number of achievements in spite of mitigating circumstances. These include:

1) Finishing the printing on the 19th century wood engravings that will make up Graven Images, the now-titled portfolio project

2) Two small projects, one for CBBAG and the other for the Grimsby Wayzgoose, and

3) The one I always forget to mention, taking the point on organizing the vendor part of the Ottawa Book Arts Show and Sale. Geez, that was a lot of work!

Next, the future!

Closing out the year at Greyweathers Press

Yesterday I spent a few hours creating a demo binding for the never-ending portfolio project. This is the first trial at how the book will look, once it is an actual book, as opposed to a hair-brained idea. And here is the result (click to enlarge all):

Portfolio version 1.0

The boards are covered in Canson paper, light brown outside, red inside and bound in the Coptic manner.

Here’s a close-up of the stiching:

Book, face down to show stitching

And some spreads to show our solution in presenting the prints:

I like it, but I don’t love it. Because of the direction of the paper grain, I end up with a lot of waste from the covers, as opposed to using hand-made paper, more expensive, but no grain so I’d be able to make it extend twice as far…. and nicer than Canson? Oh, yeah.

I’m satisfied with Holly’s solution to displaying the prints, and the cream Canson is fine for that. I may use Arches or Fabriano for the cover page and introduction etc.

I like the binding, but it takes a hell of a long time. It worries me that the heavy back cover is literally only attached to the last signature, which in this case is a single sheet of paper. Hmmmm.

It all seems a bit lacking in unity.

Whatever. Setting of type begins in January.

Happy new year to all.

New Year’s Reading

While recently browsing in a Chapter’s, I noticed that, at some point over the past 25 years, the ‘fantasy’ section had dwarfed the shelves dedicated solely to Science Fiction. I remember in my early teens how grateful I was that the most book sellers (that would be WHSmith & Classics) tucked in a small spur shelf for fantasy in the SF section. How times have changed, thanks, I suppose, to Harry Potter, Twilight and Peter Jackson amongst many other factors. However, wandering through aisle after aisle of cases labeled ‘Fantasy’, I came to realize that at some point over the years there had been something of an unholy union between fantasy and gothic fiction (once a spur off the horror genre!). And what a productive marriage that has been. Gothic fantasy really should be in a section all its own, a bit like what they did with the Dragonlance titles.

Amidst all the love-lorn vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demons and gorgeous femme detectives who go bump and grind in the night, I spotted some familiar names who are clearly still in the game, but whom I haven’t read for over 20 years:

Gene Wolfe – who’s writing is so rich and nuanced that he really could be considered ‘literary’ like Magic Realism. I read his Torturer series, good stuff.

Guy Gavriel Kay – who’s writing is so rich and nuanced that he is now found in the ‘lieterary’ department. I read ‘The Summer Tree’ a long time ago, didn’t like it and never went further. Must have been something I ate that day, ‘cuz I was in a minority of one with my opinion.

Lawrence Watt-Evans – read his first book ‘The Lure of the Basilisk’ in 1980, enjoyed it but never followed him up. Now I have over 20 titles to choose from.

Janny Wurts – purely out of curiosity. She was Artist Guest of honour at the very first SF convention I went to, oh, must have been around 1982. (I seem to recall hearing that that she had to endure being hit upon  by a certain writer guest of honour who shall remain nameless). I remember her saying that she was working on a novel, and sure enough, now she has twenty or so to her credit.

So I’ll be off in the new year haunting the used book stores (Rick, you’ve been warned!) for these old-timers, and a few other nostalgic romps.

Dissed at Christmas

The holidays have proven an ideal time to catch up on chores around the studio, including dissing (or redistributing) a great deal of type back into the type cabinets. As for most chores, I work on top of my press, which is not an ideal height for dissing, but I can sit on a stool which drops me down a bit.

Set up on the press for dissing type.

As I write, near three days of dissing is almost complete, with almost every bit of type I own properly put away. It’s not a job I love, but it has its satisfactions, and I try to find the zen in it.

One of my favourite books on printing is ‘Printing Poetry – A Workbook in Typographic Reification’ (Scarab Press, 1980). Calling it a workbook makes it sound like an old shop manual: that could not be further from the truth. Burke has the true soul of a poet, and he brings that sensibility to his discussion of printing… but many invaluable shop tips along with the profound insights.

On dissing type, he writes:

“The key to type distribution is your mental state. As long as it’s seen as unpleasant, distributing forms gets put off until it is no longer an integral part of making one book but a hindrance and a burden to the creative process of making the next. [...] I’m not expecting that you’ll actually welcome the task, but if you can learn to see it as a kind of capping off of the work, as a release from the intense concentration on the vision of the growing book, you may come as I did  to see distribution as a calm time between books.”

I keep these words in mind, while I mind my p’s & q’s.