Bateau, Issue 2.2

This is the literary journal Bateau, Issue 2.2 for which I designed and letterpress printed a two-color cover from photopolymer plates using soy ink on Insulation Pink paper (one of French Paper's new FSC certified papers in their Construction line). Copies are available for purchase from Bateau. There are many great poems inside as well as drawings from the talented Joshua Vrysen.

Time Made Visible

This is a book designed by Neil Donnelly, a recent graduate student in Yale's graphic design program. The book documents the thesis presentations of a group of graduate design degree candidates. Each photograph in the book is sized according the the length of time it was visible in an individual's presentation. 1 second = .5 square inches. The resulting foredge of the book is subtly striking and thought provoking.

Canada Type

I've been doing some research on type for an upcoming wedding invitation I'm designing and printing letterpress, and came across the stunning digital typography of Canada Type. They often revive mid twentieth century faces, which is perfect for my client's taste. What I love about many of their faces is how many alternates they create. Where a typical digital font might contain 250 or so glyphs, some typefaces from Canada Type include 650 glyphs. Each capital might have 3 or 4 variations. The effect is killer--a single word could have many different iterations, simply by swapping out a letter for one of its alternate forms. As much as we all love metal type, the flexibility of digital type and printing with photopolymer or metal plates give a letterpress printer so many options.

See the above font called Memoriam. With those thin hairlines, I think this could look great printed with the letterpress and I can't wait to try it.

Jennie Nayton

Cut paper photographs, books and installations by Australian artist Jennie Nayton. You can see more of her work on her Flickr photostream. Her artist's book pictured here Smoke Unfolding is in the collection of the State Library of Queensland which has the largest publicly accessible collection of artist's books in Australia. Photos published with permission from the artist.

Wood Veneer Books

Custom books by Shelter Bookworks. Sewn boards binding with birch veneer covers. Terrarium and cinderblock not included.

Scenografi -- Nieves Books

I ran across these images from Nieves Books on the making of their latest edition Scenografi. It is a book that consists of outtakes from a film by Annika Larsson and Samuel Nyholm. The edition was handbound using the intensely colored perfect binding method shown here. View page spreads (thank you, Nieves) at their websites and more from their Flickr photo stream. Images used with permission.

Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts

Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts (ILSSA) is an organization formed by Emily K. Larned of Red Charming and Bridget Elmer of Flatbed Splendor to promote the making of experimental or conceptual work through the use of obsolete technology. Their mission is "As many hours as it takes." ILLSA will be producing a quarterly publication (with obsolete technology), and you can get the first installment, and become a member here.

Festival of Endless Gratitude

My work is in this group show in Copenhagen. Alas, I did not have time to take a picture of the work itself, but I was very pleased with the format I came up with and will be making more work like it in the future. For the past year I have been thinking about book hybrids--the piece I sent can be displayed like a book or hung on the wall.

Matt Shlian

Matt Shlian's paper engineering is both informed by and contributes to scientific understanding. His intricately cut and folded paper works can concretely illustrate what is usually seen only at a molecular level. He has over a dozen Youtube videos of his paper and book work in action. Visit his website to check out more of his work and read about his collaborations.

Anna Hepler

After checking out the site for Gouge: The Modern Woodcut at the Hammer Museum, I started looking for contemporary artists using the woodcut. I found this work by Anna Hepler. The floor project was done with students from Bowdoin College. The group of smaller prints is Hepler's own work which takes the woodcut in a nice painterly direction.

North Drive Press

I like this solution to digital content and physical object. North Drive Press has published five collections of work by contemporary artists. They exist as boxes which contain a loose grouping of multiples and text-based works and interviews. In addition, all of the text/interviews are online and viewable as PDFs.

Shannon Ebner

Apparently the web gods are not listening to my pleas to give me some page by page shots of artist Shannon Ebner's new book The Sun As Error. Until I get to see the book, here are some images of Ebner's work which usually consists of photographs of language-based sculptures she has created.

The current issue of Artforum includes an interesting essay by Ebner about the process of making her new book.

A pdf of an article and interview from A & P Quarterly which shows more incredible images is here.

One from the archives: Ann Hamilton--Corpus

These are a collection of flickr photos I casually usurped from different folks to show how museum goers actually experienced one of the most successful art installations I have ever witnessed, Ann Hamilton's Corpus at Mass MOCA in 2003. A football field-sized room. Stacks of onionskin paper held up high, mechanically releasing one leaf at a time, drifting down. Large bullhorns shifting around the space, moving slowly up and down, speaking in a robotic voice. Figures (us!) shuffling through white crackly mounds of paper. Windows letting in pink light.

Literally 7 million 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper fell over the course of the installation.

"Gallerygoers apparently get the idea, spending around 20 minutes with ''Corpus,'' 19 minutes longer than people typically spend with one work of art"--NYTimes

Photo 1 from flickr user kellan, photo 2 from takomabibelot, photo 3 from shanevsevil, photo 4 from travisqclark, photo 5 from nogang

Noriko Ambe

There have been quite alot of artists lately who alter books through cutting. I like this series by Noriko Ambe because it not only seems to be about the look of the pieces but takes the cutting a step further into self-investigation. This altering of Ed Ruscha's book illustrates, to me, an artist who is both acknowledging the historical significance of Ed Ruscha's work in the book format as well as challenging it. You can see more of her work here.

Her work is also on view right now with other "cutters" at the Bellevue Arts Museum as part of an exhibition called The Book Borrowers: Contemporary Artists Transforming the Book.

Brian Belott

I love this work by Brian Belott. See more of his work here

All I need in life are page by page shots of artist's books on the web. That's really what does it for me.

21st Editions Plate Book Project

These are more images from the set of Plate Books I completed for 21st Editions, publishers of fine contemporary photography. I constructed 70 plate books and 20 boxes to house the books. In addition to the plate book acting as a way to house a single photogravure plate along with its print, it also acts as a display device. The owner/collector can take a single work out, display it, and then put it safely away. This is a great solution to displaying any kind of two-dimensional artwork. The plate books themselves have a few unique features that you do not see in traditional binding. First, the core board is not book board but a .040 sheet of aluminum. I will be doing a future blog post about how to use metal in this manner. Second feature is the spine material--a saturated felt spine. It is very strong and very flexible. Third interesting feature is that everything except the labels and the plates went on dry, with various drymount adhesives. I have to thank Daniel Kelm for exposing me to all of these methods! I actually worked on the prototype for this structure while working for Dan at the Wide Awake Garage. Did I mention he is a genius?