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.

Featuring Holly’s calligraphy, found amongst our many stored papers during the big reorganization.

This year we’ll be sending out “Season’s Greetings” cards — to be expected early in January!

For years now we have stored much of our paper under the studio stairwell, trapped behind a loaded type cabinet and two reassigned doors fastened to the stairwell, serving as wall display space. So it’s a chore to go in and find the paper, stored upright in cardboard folders or film boxes. Needless to say it’s almost easier to drive into the city to the art store than attempt to crack open the stairwell.

Fortune landed us with two map drawer cases, one large and one small, so the time came to pull all the stuff out from under the stairwell and give it a good cleaning. Our dog Sneak was delighted — perhaps he thought we were preparing a lair for him….

And here’s a taste of what the studio looked like:

And after:

Sorry Sneak.

We’re still thinking about what to do with the area above. Eventually, there will be a trap door on the landing to utilize the space under there.

Wednesday was a big recycle day.

The snow is falling again and I’m sitting here with my coffee feeling introspective. As the fifth year of Greyweathers Press draws to a close, I’m looking back and forward and puzzling over the usual questions: Why am I doing this? What am I trying to achieve? What is motivating me?

It is interesting that amongst my journals and notes from five to ten years ago, I can’t find any kind of mission statement or even an expression of intent. I had the vague notion of making beautiful books in four subject categories: classics; young, unpublished writers; my own words; and collaborations with Holly. I had thought four editions a year would suffice, although that goal was laughable considering I didn’t manage even four books in five years! And my interest has spread from those four rather broad categories to working with established writers, literary criticism, essays, other non-fiction and, surprisingly, illustration. But playing scatagories doesn’t really answer my questions.

Aside from three books, a couple of broadsides and about 50 linocuts, most of the first five years was taken up with practical problems relating to equipment: presses, rollers, cutters, blades, type, packing, etc. and how they all worked in relation to each other. Compared to what’s coming up in the future, these were all relatively simple questions with (in most cases) satisfying answers. The projects — Kubla Khan, Tenebrismo and the Vampire & the Seventh Daughter — served as practice pieces, or as I like to call them, my apprentice work, and I remain quite proud of them all, particularly Tenebrismo. There are the linocuts too — by far the most commercially successful aspect of the press, although the books have sold very well. In the end, I look at the first five years as gathering information and knowledge about printing (mostly), cutting my teeth on a few projects, and getting to know like-minded printers and artists in my area and beyond.

Now, pulling my head out of the hell-box, I have to think about the next five years, and what I’m going to do with them. And why.

I know that I get a certain thrill whenever I pull a proof, particularly a good one. I have come to think of this feeling as a kind of residual power: traces left over from the days when printers were considered powerful, even dangerous, and the press an engine of liberty, or Satan, depending of one’s point of view. It can’t be compared to clicking print for a perfect laser copy, or surfing the web or writing a blog. It may say more about me than anything else, which doesn’t make me entirely comfortable. Aside from a right to vote and a signature on a deed, I am a man virtually without power, which makes attractive even the memory of a dream of a vision of power, I suppose. In a world where monolithic interests act for their own inscrutable purposes, what is one poor man with a printing press?

This creative urge may also be fuelled by a need to ensure an ego-salving legacy, beyond the ephemeral scribbling and scratching that have already vanished into the ether, or soon will. In an article I wrote about Greyweathers Press early on, I expressed a need to create something that would endure beyond my limited time. I’m hardly a power-tripping egoist (at least, I hope I’m not) and I’m certainly not saying other printers are likewise motivated, but there it is.

So much for ‘why’. Such motivators can also lead to a spirit of competition, and this exists to some extent inside the fine press community. Mostly, I consider this a fairly healthy thing, although it can get ugly. I think if I complete enough volume of work, I can compete against myself, but it is unproductive, indeed unwise, to work entirely in a vacuum.

I’ll be posting some of my more tangible five-year goals in a later post, but a more careful study of the nuance of design will be high on my list of intangibles. I will try to open myself to fresh ideas, work like the devil and adopt conviction in my work, even to the point of prejudice. And again: work like the devil.

I’d forgotten to put up a shot of the reverse of the Lincoln block, where the artist has doodled and practiced his technique. I got rid of most of the grunge on the surface, and you can see some interesting things, like the name “Geo. H. Weagant” which corresponds to the lead block in the collection for “Weagant’s Pure Copper Amalgam”. Weagant was a Cornwall dentist.

Also note the shadowy image of a man or boy on the right side of the block.

I’ve flipped the image in Photoshop so that it reads right.

Click to see larger

The first big dump of snow this year is piling up outside and I feel very content sitting here in the studio watching it come down. I’m thankful that it didn’t happen two or three days ago, when Holly and I were whipping up and down the 401 to Toronto and back to exhibit at the Ontario College of Art & Design Book Arts Fair.

This venerable (25 years old this year!) show has certainly evolved over the years, now housed in the spacious and well-lit open hall inside the college. One of the things I like about the OCAD show, and book arts shows generally, is the number of younger artists and artisans involved. Clearly OCAD students are encouraged to sign up (table fees book arts fairs, in Ontario at least, are accessibly priced) and they bring an innovative and fresh viewpoint to how paper and text and illustration and binding can be interpreted. I wish I had taken some shots, but photography can be considered a bit inappropriate at art and craft shows sometimes.

The show was fine, but just as important to me was the opportunity to meet socially with other printers and wood cut artists. We had dinner again with George and Michelle Walker (http://www3.sympatico.ca/george.walker/) and Ian and X, who does beautiful lino prints of animals. It gave me the opportunity to show George the collection of engraved blocks and the prints I took from them, and got some feedback.

George’s work was amongst the first to inspire me to pursue printing, and then illustration. He has tapped into the power of the block, and creates strong prints with strong messages. He’s exploring the wordless novels (as opposed to the contemporary graphic novel — pictures with words) in the tradition of Frans Masereel and Lynd Ward. George’s Book of Hours featured almost 100 wood engravings silently telling the story of the early morning hours in the live of the people who perished in the twin towers on 9/11. Very powerful.

At the show I got to speak face-to-face with Wesley Bates (http://www.wesleybates.com/home.html) after interviewing him for the CBBAG newsletter by phone a couple of months ago. Wesley is an amazing illustrator and his wood engravings have a youthful vigor and energy, they’re emotive and celebrate sensuality. I would say George and Wesley are two of the three finest wood engravers in Ontario, the other being Gerard Brender-a-Brandis in Stratford, Ontario.

Enough name dropping for now. Back into the studio to plan this years Christmas card. Well, season’s greetings, since most may not get it until January!

By the end of printing all the blocks in the portfolio, I looked back at the earlier work I had done and found it wanting. Four blocks in all went for reprinting, three of which are illustrated below. In all cases, the rework involved printing the block with less ink and more detail.

First attempt left, second right

In this case, I applied several layers of makeready all around the face and the collar. My blacks aren’t as black as the first attempt, but then again, the lines of the face are more crisp, if not completely black.

Same issue again. Makeready to the face and head alone, nothing to the background, neck and body. Since the block may have been unfinished, or not well thought out, there was a large area of black under the chin, making a rather elegant Pre-Raphaelite cameo appear rather horrid. I used makeready to emphasize a chin-line which is the only time I tried to alter a block in any way from the original.

Finally, one of the last blocks I printed, then reprinted. I won’t show them both — the scanner can’t pick up on the difference but now I can’t decide if I want the slightly darker version of the one shown below. Sigh.

Next up, presentation, arrangement. Setting type for the booklet and binding up copies.

Here’s the latest effort hot off the press today. I started the make-ready for this one yesterday, finished it this morning and printed in the afternoon. It’s all very time consuming.

Is the groom included?

I’m thinking this rather robust horse might be a bit of a handful for this little old fellow. The old man, the horse trader and the horse are the darkest parts of this block. In the end, I had to allow a little bit of gray in on the old man, while trying not to fill in detail everywhere else.

I did loose a bit of detail along the bottom. I know this because while taking proofs with the press only lightly inked up, I found this in the bottom right hand corner (click on it to get an larger view):

Compare it with the print above and you will see that the details are completely filled in, concealing what I think reads: ‘S.A. Dedman 1881′ or it could be ‘Deemon’ or ‘Deamon’. They’re all a little sinister. The blown up version of this shows the challenge of trying to preserve the detail. None of the areas along the bottom 16th inch of the block had any make-ready, but it filled in anyway, and there are still areas in the interior of the block that are not as black as I wish they could be.

As a break, I took on a block that I suspected would be less of a challenge, and I was right. Samuel Smith Kilburn’s change of address block proved to be a stroll on the beach compared to, well, most of the blocks from this collection. Very little make-ready (on the lettering only) and a nice, crisp result, showing that Mr. Kilburn was an accomplished wood engraver.

We had our artist friend Laura Starkey in the studio with us yesterday working on some of the commercial projects going through the studio. while she worked, she had a view of me pulling proofs, furrowing my brow over prints, peering through a variety of different lenses of varying degrees of magnification, cutting little bits of tissue and pasting them on an overlay sheet. During a break from this atypical Type A behaviour, I chatted with Laura about what I was doing and trying to explain the dubious benefit. It’s great talking to someone who ‘get’s it”. To an untrained or indifferent eye, the nuance between the too much ink and too much impression is simply that one version a little darker. But to someone who appreciates fine printing, the attempt below, “River Road”, is not a prime example of press craftsmanship:

Too much ink, too much impression, not enough meake-ready

The most obvious clue is the black mess at along the bottom of the print, particularly at the right side. I used too much ink under too much pressure, causing the excess to squish out over raised lines and hang there for the rest of the run, filling in — just marginally — the white areas and killing the detail — and not just at the bottom, but over the entire impression. I sacrificed detail for solid blacks.  I’ve said before the reason I want to present these wood engravings to the world in a portfolio is to show off the talent of these craftsmen. Pulling prints like the one above somehow defeats that intent.

So back to work. I purloined the paper intended for the broken Book Boy and began to work more intensively on the make-ready for “River Road”.

I used a harsh task master as my guide. Some months ago, I pulled a print of this block using gloss paper, and the resulting proof was close to ideal:

Crisp print on glossy paper

The tree silhouette in the middle is solid black, while there has been little loss of detail around the bottom and top edges. Laura asked if I considered doing the entire portfolio on gloss paper, and I admit, I was tempted. After all, it shows the skill of the carvers better than any other substrate. But there is another purpose buried in this exercise: that in tackling these blocks I come away with some greater skill at printing challenging forms. Otherwise I might as well just send these blocks off to some printer who has already mastered the skills, but that doesn’t help me learn.

So with a pristine print beside me on the feedboard, I began to strive to recreate the same crisp impressing on Italian paper. I starved the press of ink, took proofs and added to the make-ready sheet interpreting the grays. Once I began to see a more evenly gray tone, I added ink to the press in micro increments, slowly building up until the darker areas at the bottom were crisp lines with no in-fill. It didn’t take long for this to happen, which meant I had a long day ahead of building the make-ready and pulling proofs.

As I worked, using a magnifying loop, I watched carefully this part of the print:

Close up, bottom right corner

When it got to this point, I felt I could no longer add any ink to the press, and with ample pressure thanks to make-ready in the dark central areas, I had gone as far as I dared with this block.

The tree isn’t the striking silhouette seen in the proof on glossy stock, but overall I think the effect is greatly improved, and this print will go in the final portfolio. The photographs don’t do much justice to the prints either. Looking at this reduced, it seems almost lighter on one left side of the crack, yet when I look at these issues under the glass, everything is fine. Optical illusion? Too bad about the crack. There is almost nothing a printer can do to rectify this. In relief printing, you can’t print what’s not there. Then again, after 150 years, I think we can excuse a few cracks.