Orrery-orrey-orrey-o… it’s off to work I go!

Nice turnings!

One of the many interesting things I do to cobble together a living is writing, usually about really old things… I mean antiques. On occasion I write articles for antiques trade newspapers and magazines, sometimes interviewing collectors or dealers, but mostly covering shows and auctions. My work reads a bit like the illegitimate offspring of the sports page and the stock market report, living in sin with the Arts pages. There really ain’t nothin’ like the antiques biz.

Last weekend I was covering an auction, which is normal because if it’s Holly birthday, I am almost always hitting a deadline of one kind or another, or off in some hall somewhere in an uncomfortable seat, watching other people buy really expensive and really quite beautiful things. Hey, it’s better than most TV and almost all movies right now. But I haven’t been around for many of Holly’s birthdays. This time, however, thanks to the miracle of modern technology, I was able to cover the auction – even from a rather remote wilderness location – and still be home for cake.

The Albright auction, held by Anderson Auctions this past weekend in Elora, Ontario, had simultaneous on-line bidding, so I was able to monitor the action and get a record of all the prices realized. (Getting reliable sell prices is trickier than you might think). So, check in on the action, then head to the studio to build a slip case for a trilogy of books. Refresh the browser, then meander into the village to buy a birthday card for Holly. Back to the computer, save the web pages as PDFs, and so on. Gotta love it! Of course, that’s just the foundation. I’m in the midst of follow-up interviews, some analysis, then it will be time to sit down and write the thing.

Normally I wouldn’t pull a spoiler on any work that I do, but this is more of a teaser. The Albright Sale was a fine old Canadiana collection, from the home of long-time collectors and dealers, and folks who really seemed to know their stuff. Canadiana Eclectic, is the best way to describe it. In keeping with this idea, one very cool item in the auction was this vintage rather primitive orrery, in working order apparently, that tracks the motion of the planets as it swings about. My inner twelve-year-old thought it was the coolest thing in the sale. My outer 40-something-too-too-close-to-50 will probably examine more significant pieces in the coverage, but there you go.

The article will come out in The Upper Canadian Antiques Showcase at some point in the not-to-distant future, in a galaxy near you.

And happy birthday Holly. Glad I could be here for it!

Art, Books & Wine – Eagle Point Winery Show

Yes, it is show season here at Greyweathers Press, so the next several posts will be about shows, doing them and, yes, promoting them. Just warning you.

The next one up is a new one for me. It takes place at a winery near Mallorytown, Ontario – Eagle Point Winery on November 2 & 3, 2013. The venue is terrific, located in the scenic countryside, rolling hills, and, of course, wine. Here’s the goods:

Before the Rush – an art show at Eagle Point Winery

Eagle Point Winery in partnership with organizers; John Sorensen and Betty Matthew is proud to present an exciting new art show, “Before the Rush”.  View local and selected guest artists in the intimate and unique setting of Eagle Point Winery, Nov. 2nd and 3rd. Take a break “before the rush” of the Christmas season to enjoy the camaraderie of fellow art and wine lovers at Eagle Point Winery.

Local artists; Terry Schaub (stone sculptor), Sue Hale-Ladouceur (fabric folk artist), Ingrid Schmidt (painter, sculptor), John Shea (water colour artist),  Lea Hamblett  (wearable art jewellery), Winona Elliott-Schep (encaustic wax artist),  John Sorensen (oil painter, “found art”), Betty Matthews (water colours and acrylic painter) and special guest artists; Linda Hynes (potter, Smith’s Falls), Larry Thompson (book builder and wood block prints, Merrickville), Herman Ruhland (sculptor of found objects, North Gower), and Kirei Samuel, (glass artist, Prince Edward Cy.) combine to make a unique event in a special setting at our local Eagle Point Winery.

WHEN:    November 2nd and 3rd, 2013 from 11 am to 6 pm
WHERE:    Eagle Point Winery, 337 Escott/Rockport Road

Family History – Part Nine

Restored Family History complete with clamshell box.

[READ PART EIGHT]

Part Nine

At the time of transcription, the original copy the Family History was in a state of some distress. Acidic paper and cover material caused yellowing pages, crumbling spine and severe deterioration of the binding; this is normal for paper matter from the 19th and 20th centuries. The original book has been restored and stabilized by Natasha Herman of the Redbone Bindery (Amsterdam), with the ultimate intent to deposit it with the Lennox & Addington Museum and Archives of Napanee, Ontario where it will be stored safely in suitable conditions, close to the Thompson family’s point of origin in Canada.

Part One |Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine

Family History – Part Eight

Hard bound 21st century printed edition of the Family History.

[READ PART SEVEN]

For the 21st century edition of Joshua’s Family History, we decided to do a limited run off a high speed laser printer, and primarily in black and white, given the extreme cost of full colour digital printing.

The text was spooled into Adobe InDesign, composed in Garamond BE with titles in Centaur. I chose Garamond BE because it was quite readable, and came complete with old style figures and small capitals and titling figures. Designing a book is like building a house:you start at the foundation and work your way up to the roof. Likewise in a book, you begin with the style of the type, amending typographic issues, factoring in footnotes and superscript figures etc. In many cases special fonts, italics and old style figures can be fixed using mass Find/Replace. Before any work begins, style sheets are created so that if a style change is made in one part of the book, it will automatically change in all the other parts, saving a massive amount of work. Photos and illustrations were scanned at a high resolution, then edited in Photoshop for clarity, sharpness and to correct lightness and darkness issues that happen in the scanning process. The end goal is to have a book that possesses the qualities one expects from a professionally designed book, and I’m satisfied with the result, although, as always, I would do some things differently had I the chance.

The printed edition is $45 plus gst & shipping.

It was printed at Impression Printing in Smiths Falls, Ontario.

Bound at Smiths Falls Bookbinding.

Page spread: body text in 12 pt Garamond BE, titles in Centaur with appropriate leading and generous margins.

Part One |Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine

Family History – Part Seven

The Family History – typeset, printed and bound.

[READ PART SIX]

Part Seven

As mentioned earlier, Joshua’s Family History has been transcribed, printed and bound into a new edition, with a limited run of 20 copies.

I should emphasize that this effort was strictly a transcription of Joshua’s work, as opposed to a revision, rewritten or heavily edited version, done with as few editorial intrusions as possible, with changes made only for blatant errors that, presumably, Joshua would have been grateful to see eliminated. Regrettably, in the process of typesetting and laying out the text, other typographical errors have come into being. Most historical spelling and usage has been preserved. In many cases, large blocks of text have been broken into paragraphs to make it easier to read. I have also corrected some archaic misspellings and usage and very occasionally rearranged somewhat arbitrary headings and sub-headings into a more consistent and coherent order.

Part One |Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine

Family History – Part Six

Family portrait of Dr. Charles Walden Thompson, Joshua’s son.

[READ PART FIVE]

Part Six

Joshua confesses some of his own faults – his quick temper, for example, apparently a family trait; others can be deduced through his writings – pride perhaps. Still, his tone is reflective and contemplative – that of a man looking back on his own and his family’s life in the hope of creating a legacy. His zealous pen cannot conceal the deeply felt grief for parents, siblings and children long dead, or his obvious pride in his surviving children and grandchildren. In undertaking this great task, Joshua’s motivation must have been love; indeed, he loved his family so much that he dedicated years of his life revisiting a great deal of loss and sorrow by creating a written record to preserve their legacy for them, and for their descendants. Some brief updates and notes appear in the manuscript, made by Joshua, and later by his son Dr. C. W. Thompson. They end around 1920.

Part One |Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine

Family History – Part Five

Long exposures in early photography made it nigh on impossible to pull off group portraits, so sitters were shot individually and a then grouped as a composite.

[READ PART FOUR]

Part Five

Joshua enriched his work with rare photos of his family. As with many vintage photographs, these have an eerie sense of time long past and yet preserve the dignity of the sitters. Best of all, these faces have a name and a story, unlike so many vintage photographs of anonymous faces found in abundance at flea markets and auctions.

Occasionally, Joshua will make an allusion to some past dispute or scandal in the Thompson family, but as a rule he is averse to gossip. This leaves some intriguing silences in the text:  tantalizing hints of untold stories. Conversely, he is often quite courageous in recording events that might daunt other chroniclers: the devastating mental illness of his father, for example, or the final moments of his brother’s gruesome death from tuberculosis. Having lived long and suffered much, Joshua found it easy to dwell on darker subject matters. That, and Joshua’s strict moral rectitude hardly makes the Family History a vehicle for wanton humour – at least, not humour intended deliberately.

No contemporary reader can overlook Joshua’s own strong religious bias. The entire work is steeped in fundamentalist Methodism and a fiery sense of Christian righteousness, complete with the intolerance one might expect from this kind of fervor. Readers are treated to regular spasms of zealous outburst, usually sparked by some emotional event, ending with biblical quotations, allusions and sermons. He records that the Family History is not his first writing project of substance. Apparently, a hefty manuscript of religious writing and opinion had earlier been sent off to the authorities in the Methodist Church (these were included in the copy of the Family History given to daughter Gertrude). Without doubt, Joshua had a heart inclined toward the pulpit. His feverish digressions may distract the reader, but they also hint at the rigorous faith and emotion behind his need to record facets of his life and those of his family.

Part One |Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine

Family History – Part Four

Photo of Joshua placed near the end of the History.

[READ PART THREE]

Part Four

Joshua progresses very methodically though his family’s history, beginning with his own scant knowledge of his grandparents, stepping through parents, brothers and sisters, his own autobiography, children from two marriages and finishing with several addenda concerning his grandchildren. He writes sections based on the length of the blank journal page, beginning with a heading and subheading followed by a single page of text, whereupon he breaks the narrative flow and begins a new page with a new heading.

Joshua tells the story of an Old World working class Anglo-Irish family beginning anew in North America. He never fully explains why the Thompson family decided to make the arduous trek in 1819 from Mountrath, a village near Dublin, across a great ocean and vast tracts of wilderness to arrive, finally, in a farming community a few miles west of Kingston, Ontario. They hoped “to make a home and a fortune for their family,” Joshua writes, as he tells the remarkable tale of the challenges endured and chances taken by these settlers in the New World.

In his own words:

MY FATHER ONE YEAR AT KINGSTON
Ice In St. Lawrence Brakes Up – A Disappointment
Purchased a Farm

My Father did not find Canada as inviting a place for a home as he expected and consulted with my mother and they both concluded it was best to return to the states. I think he was at Mr. Baker’s two weeks. So he engaged two other teams to take them back to Cambridge [NY]. When they reached Kingston, a distance of thirty miles, they heard that the ice in the river St. Lawrence had broken up and it could not be crossed with teams so they did not proceed any further. He soon got a house for the family and unloaded the sleighs, settled with the teamsters and got the house arranged for the family.

He then searched and got employment in a shoeshop in town conducted by a man the name of William Carroll. My Father worked for him about a year and cleared some more than his expenses and began to think he could make a home for himself and his family in Upper Canada. He kept inquiring of those customers who got work done in the shop for a suitable place for his business and a home for the family and himself. He heard of fifty acres of land that could be bought cheap with a frame house and log barn on it and in a good neighborhood that needed a shoemaker. This place was twenty four miles north-west of Kingston and ten miles from John Baker’s in Richmond. My Father at once went to see it and the owner who lived in the same neighborhood. His name was Thomas Empey, Esquire, called “Squire Empey.” They soon made a bargain for the land. I think the price was $250, and my Father soon left Kingston and moved to his farm and new home in Ernestown in the spring of 1823. This was a good purchase (five dollars per acre) and was a good Christian society, but a poor farm to till. JT

Part One |Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine

Brag Post – Alcuin Awards Ceremony, Toronto

The quote on the right reads: “Book design is one of the excellencies by which a civilization can be measured.” – Munroe Wheeler

Holly and I made the journey to Toronto early this week to attend the Eastern Canadian presentation of the Alcuin awards for excellence in book design. Alcuin is Vancouver-based, so the west coast version took place the week prior in Vancouver. In Toronto, it was held at the storied Arts and Letters Club, where notable artists and writers, designers and architects and creative types have been hobnobbing since the early 20th century.

I’m enthusiastic about the Group of Seven, a cabal of Canadian artists who painted the wilderness in a very impressionistic manner. (I’m particularly fascinated by Tom Thomson, who died in mysterious circumstances in Canada’s north country before the Group formed, but he had an immense influence on the other members. Toronto wood engraver George Walker has printed an amazing wordless novel about the life of Tom Thomson – check it out HERE). The only existing photograph of all seven artists together was taken in the room where Alcuin (east) met for dinner and a speech on Carl Dair’s Cartier typeface by type designer Rod McDonald.

From the Arts and Letters Club great hall: the massive hearth, gothic window and fanciful coats of arms representing the founders of the club.

I could go on and on, but I was equally in awe of the surroundings, and of the many sketches and paintings of Canadian artists on the walls, and in the talent in the room that evening. We sat with the above mentioned George Walker and his wife Michelle, and artist, wood engraver (and club member) Alan Stein. Andrew Steeves from Gaspereau Press came from Nova Scotia to collect several citations for his peerless book designs.

A bit about the Alcuin Awards: they are the only awards in Canada (that I know of) that celebrates how a book appears, how it’s construction and how it feels. It covers all books from all publishers, big and small with categories like pictorial, prose fiction and non-fiction, poetry, etc. The awards are normally first, second, third and an honourable mention, although these are at the discretion of the jury, which changes every year. A jury could (and has) rejected all books in a given category, or conversely award ties for first or second, or more than one honourable mentions.

Our Tintern Abbey picked up an honourable mention citation in the limited edition category for 2012. I say ‘our’ because the book was very much a collaborative effort by three people. The judges made a special note about Holly’s calligraphy in the book, and also my wood engravings. I know it would not have made it so far without Redbone Bindery‘s (Natasha Herman) elegant binding design for the regular edition, which incorporates Holly’s painted papers.

The title page spread.

Perhaps my only regret about the evening was that I went up alone to claim the prize. Being the second award called, we weren’t aware that groups could go up, as others did thereafter. As you can see from the photo above in the calligraphy on the title page and the colour of the ink, Holly bears a lot of the  responsibility for the success of the book, and I am always grateful to have such a talent in my camp.

I don’t have a book for Alcuin for 2013; this has been a year of promoting and organizing and showing and selling. But I will hopefully have two in contention for the 2014 awards.

Family History – Part Three

[READ PART TWO]

Part Three

Here’s a sample of Joshua’s writing, taken from his Preface:

About seven years ago, I started to write sketches of my Father’s family history (including my brothers and sisters) and short biographies of each of his children. As I was the only surviving child of a large family of eleven children, it seemed to me that God had lengthened out my life and health for a purpose and had given me a family to train up in the way they should go, both by example and precept, and the six children who are living might prize a work of this kind from the brain and pen of their aged Father as one of his last acts of kindness that would remain with his children when his body is laid to rest in the silent grave.

I have to write under some disadvantages as some of the events I shall narrate took place many years before I was born and I got the facts orally from my Parents more than sixty years ago and stored them in my memory. My parents are dead over fifty years. As to the age of my grandparents, I had to suppose or guess their ages. I had my parents’ age in a family record and that of all their children. I left my first family home at the age of twenty-nine years. My parents had died and I left in the year 1852 [leaving] three brothers and four sisters all in good health and in 1882 the last one died leaving me the only living child in my Father’s family. It is wonderful how well the memory retains what it gained in childhood or youth. I cannot trace our Family history in the past further back than Grandfather.

As a strong inducement for me to undertake such a task now in my old age, my children have given me tangible proof of their sincerity in supplying me with blank books for me to write a copy for each of them (providing the task was not too much for my strength) as they would preserve it carefully as a lasting souvenir of my many acts of paternal kindness to my family. I make no promises as the future is all hid from me. My life and times are in the hands of my Heavenly Father. I have four blank books to fill; not a bad year’s work for me to do. “I may die in the harness” and some of my children may complete the task. I feel better to be employed at something that may benefit those I shall leave behind. If I have blank pages to spare, I will give a short sketch of my mother’s family (the Langfords) and the mothers of my children (the Walden and the Stewart families). They well deserve a page in this book of chronicles.

If these biographies and narratives and reviews give my children or grandchildren or reader of these pages the pleasure they have given the writer, I will be amply rewarded. I pray that God may preserve me in health to finish this volume which I will cheerfully present to my son Dr. C. W. Thompson of Clinton and his family to improve on a new edition.

I have written this introduction on Saturday the Sixth day of May, 1905. May Almighty God bless this last effort of your aged Father and Grandfather! Amen!

Joshua Thompson
St. Marys
[Updated September 10, 1910]

Part One |Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine