Journal

Working with Raygun‘s Portfolio Slideshow Pro.

The Armory

The Guthrie Theater

Minnehaha Falls

St. Anthony Lock and Dam

The Pillsbury 'A' Mill

The Post Office

Norwest Center

“What is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?”
— Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

The White Rabbit and Alice at Prof. Agostino Dessi’s.

I’ve just got back from a 12 day trip to Florence, where I had the unique opportunity of working with bookbinder, restorer and artist Enrico Giannini, thanks to Cy DeCosse. Cy and Enrico met back in the 1950s when Cy was studying in Florence on a Fulbright scholarship, and the two have remained friends since.

Enrico’s the fifth generation of a family that has bound books for all the Popes, most Heads of State and royalty since his great-great-grandfather established the business opposite the Pitti Palace in the mid 1800s. His daughter Maria is the sixth generation running the shop, leaving Enrico to now concentrate on teaching and passing on his considerable wealth of knowledge to others.

The past year of working at MCBA meant I had a good grounding in the basics of bookbinding, so this trip was all about picking up tips, tricks and techniques from a master craftsman. During the two weeks we casebound a couple of books, sewing the signatures onto ribbons and finishing the covers with book cloth and marbled endpapers. We worked at marbling paper and paring leather, discussed the differences between various leathers and tanning, and covered embossing and gold tooling with both leaf and foil. We made slipcases and portfolio boxes, and bound two photo albums for a client. And, of course, there were plenty of examples of restoration that he has undertaken and those that he’s preparing to work on.

In the gaps, we ate well.

What I found most encouraging was that he isn’t necessarily committed to doing things the traditional way. If there’s a modern material or technique available that makes life easier, then he uses it. He also explained the reasons and the science behind using a particular adhesive or paper or material and, like platinum printing, most if it has to do with humidity and moisture content.

As an aside, Enrico’s studio is small, really small. He also has a wicked sense of humor. By his own admission he’s an XXL artist in an XXS studio, and when a street vendor came around peddling cheap items, which happened regularly, he countered by trying to sell her his books and boxes, much to her frustration and our amusement.

I also got to spend some amazing time with a couple of Cy’s other friends and their families. A day out in the country at painter Mario Fallani‘s villa, in the Tuscan countryside mid-way between Florence and Siena, and a memorable last evening at the home of mask maker Prof. Agostino Dessi.

Grazie mille, Enrico and Cy!

Paring leather.

Burnishing the leather on a half-bound book.

Tools.

Hand illustrated upper case letters from a book published by the Giannini family in the 1800s.

Marbling paper.

Enrico and his studio.

A pen and ink drawing dated from the 1500s, found after separating glued papers during a restoration project.

Lunch in the Tuscan countryside.

Bistecca alla Fiorentina, cooked on an open fire in the kitchen of Prof. Agostino Dessi.

White Cloud from 30,000 feet

Back from another trip to Santa Fe, this time to attend the opening of the show Do Process at Verve Gallery.

The exhibition is a showcase for eight of the gallery’s artists who use handcrafted techniques in their work – Brigitte Carnochan (hand coloured silver prints), Cy DeCosse (3-colour gum dichromate), Joy Goldkind (bromoil), Jennifer Schlesinger (albumen), Caitie Soldan (mordançage), Henrieke Strecker (photogravure), Maggie Taylor (digital manipulation) and Kamil Vojnar (multi-media).

The show runs through April 14th, 2012.

Verve Gallery of Photography,
219 East Marcy Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501.
Telephone (505) 982-5009.

Stonehenge Overview by Paul Caponigro

On the way to Santa Fe this week I stopped at the University of New Mexico Art Museum in Albuquerque to see the exhibition Reconsidering the Photographic Masterpiece. What immediately grabbed my attention was how much depth the silver prints had, especially this image by Paul Caponigro. The stones in this image glowed. The next day I visited the Andrew Smith Gallery in Santa Fe and vintage silver prints by Caponigro, Weston, Adams (Ansel and Robert), Friedlander and Lange were crammed into every conceivable space in that house. Of course I love photogravure and platinum-palladium prints, but the smoothness and luminescence of these glossy silver prints made me want to start working in silver again.

Two images from my Badlands series will be in this year’s Art on the Plains XI show at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND. What makes this extra special is that I’ll be showing alongside my son Miles, who has two images in the show also.

The opening reception is on January 28, 2012 and the exhibition runs through May 20, 2012.

Plains Art Museum, 704, First Avenue North, Fargo, ND 58102. (701) 232-3821.

Magnum Photos has announced that the photographer Eve Arnold has died at age 99.

I had the great pleasure of working with her back in 1995, in conjunction with the imminent release of her book, Eve Arnold: In Retrospect. To promote the book, there were to be two travelling exhibitions, one in the UK and one in the US, and a third set for a museum collection. Magnum, whose offices were around the corner from where I worked, didn’t have the facilities to print the large size fibre prints she wanted, so I was asked by her to make the three sets of exhibition prints, while they made those for the book.

The first time I met her I was so nervous. Here was a legend in photography and I was in her apartment, sitting at her kitchen table, eating cake and drinking coffee. Subsequently though, I always looked forward to those times I’d have to visit her. Every few days I would go to her flat in the West End to deliver the prints I’d finished and collect another batch of negatives. She had given me a set of unbound galley proofs of the book to match the prints to, and she knew exactly what she wanted in the prints, but if there were reprints to be made, she asked in a way that made you want to rush back to the studio and immediately start printing, and with enthusiasm. She was one of the most gracious photographers I have worked with.

Soon after I’d emigrated to America she contacted me again with a project in mind. Unfortunately she didn’t want to risk losing the negatives shipping them to the US, and I wasn’t in a position to move back to the UK so soon. Now, of course, digital technology and scanning makes that so easy. The project was a portfolio of 13 images of Marilyn Monroe, A Baker’s Dozen.

I’ve been fortunate to have Andy Adams select one of my images for his Flak Photo winter pictures series. More than 500 entries were submitted over a three week period, but only 20 were selected to run weekdays in January, so I’m very fortunate.

My image is scheduled to run on Monday January 16th, but until then, take a look at the other work on the nicely redesigned Flak Photo website.

It’s been an interesting year; one without too much travel, but lots of fun.

MCBA
The big thing throughout 2011 has been my MCBA/Jerome Foundation mentorship. It’s been a really satisfying opportunity and the experience of working with the other five recipients, everyone at MCBA and our three generous mentors is one I’ll treasure.

A year ago I knew nothing about letterpress printing on the Vandercook, lead typesetting, silkscreen printing, case making, multi-signature sewing, book binding, pressure printing and many other techniques. Today, I’d like to think I know a little more.

It wasn’t necessarily an easy project and I didn’t see anything of the spring, summer and autumn because I was busy working at printing the images, laying out and printing the text pages and making the case, but that’s the kind of environment I love to be in. The results of my labour can be found here on my website.

SANTA FE
A short break came in July, when I got to make an unexpected trip to Santa Fe and the Land of Many Uses for the opening of Cy DeCosse’s show at Verve Gallery.

GREECE
After the MCBA opening in early November, I flew to Greece with Beth to assist her with the images for her McKnight Fellowship. We did a lot of walking and a four day road trip; Athens – Corinth – Nafplion – Patras – Delphi – Athens. I even managed to drive through the morning and evening rush hour traffic in central Athens, eventually parking the rental car in the tiny parking space outside our hotel like a true Athenian. Read into that what you will…

I realised I had to be one of the few Britons who had never been to Greece before, but I absolutely fell in love with the people, the landscape, the food and the temperament of the country. The trip also gave me the opportunity to catch up with my old friend and photographer Martin, someone I hadn’t see in sixteen years but who I’d spent many, many days and even more evenings with in the 1980s and 1990s. Back then I was printing in London and Martin was one of those photographers who had started as a client but quickly became a close friend. We only got to see him again briefly as he was passing through Athens on his way back to the UK, but it was as if we’d only seen each other the day before. I guess wine has that effect.

Beth using her iPad as an 8″ x 10″ point-and-shoot.

As I write this it’s 7pm CST, so I guess that’s about it for 2011. Here’s wishing for a wonderful 2012.

Thanks to all who came out for the opening of the MCBA/Jerome show this past Friday – it was fun and we had a great turnout. For those who couldn’t make it, the show’s up until January 24th 2012.

In the next few days I hope to find time to copy all twenty of the photogravures and put them up on the website. I had hoped to have done this sooner, but it’s been a little chaotic recently.

UPDATE – All twenty images are now online here.

The opening reception for the MCBA/Jerome Foundation Mentorship Program is this Friday, November 4th from 6.00 pm until 8.30 pm. It’s free and open to the public.

The show is the culmination of a year’s worth of learning and hands on experience for the six recipients – Amanda Lovelee, Caroline Keefe, Rachel Perlmeter, Meryl DePasquale, Ben Lansky and myself.

Minnesota Center for Book Arts is located in the Open Book building at 1011, Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55415. 612-215-2520.

My MCBA mentorship is nearly over after a year-long series of workshops and mentoring on the book arts. Myself and the five other recipients have covered everything from what constitutes an artist book, various forms of bindings, multi-signature binding, silkscreen, lead typesetting, polymer plates for letterpress, letterpress printing, paper making, box construction and relief printing. It’s been a long, hard but utterly enjoyable ride and I’ll be sad to see it end. But it won’t of course, because the book arts is something that will stay with me. But I will miss the camaraderie of the other five recipients, Amanda, Caroline, Meryl, Rachel and Ben, although I’m sure I’ll be seeing many of them around MCBA in the future – I hope so.

Our show opens on November 4th at the MCBA gallery in Minneapolis, and as well as the finished book, I’ll have the images framed and on the wall.

DARK MATTER is published as part of the Minnesota Center for Book Arts/Jerome Foundation Mentorship Program Series III.

Deep inside an idle iron mine, below the ancient hematite rock formations of northern Minnesota, a tiny elevator rattles to a halt on Level 27. Here among dozing bats and artificial lights, people wait. And wait. This is the unlikely site of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS II) lab, where scientists are looking for the tiny burst that will indicate evidence of dark matter, a product of the big bang believed to comprise 25% of the material in the universe. Observations of visible structures in space suggest that their own gravitational forces are not strong enough to account for their formation, suggesting some kind of missing mass is responsible. This missing mass is believed to be dark matter, so called because it does not emit or scatter light like ordinary matter.

DARK MATTER is a conceptual investigation of the visual phenomenon of shadows inside the CDMS II lab and in the forest around the site. Since scientists don’t know what it is exactly, or if it even exists, these photographs imagine what this mysterious substance might look like if it were visible.

• Twenty unbound but sequenced hand-pulled polymer photogravures.
• Printed on Rives BFK with letterpress printed text pages set in Proxima Nova.
• Title page, statement, colophon and plate index.
• Single tray case in black Canapetta book cloth with hand made Cave paper.
• Designed and produced entirely by the artist.
• 14″ w x 15.5″ h.
• Edition of 10 plus artist proofs.

I’ve updated my website’s homepage and added another, detailing my project Dark Matter for the MCBA Mentorship programme. I’ll upload images as soon as I can get around to editing them.

I heard yesterday that two of my images of the Badlands have been accepted into next year’s Art on the Plains XI show at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND, and that my son Miles has two of his images in the same show also. Great news!

The show opens with a reception on January 28, 2012 and runs through May 20, 2012.

Plains Art Museum, 704, First Avenue North, Fargo, ND 58102. (701) 232-3821.

The book continues to make progress, albeit a little slower than I’d hoped, but the end is in sight with only seven weeks before we begin installing the show.

After the first critique session my project kind of spun around 180°, so I lost some time and now I’m trying to catch up. All this means that for the best part of the summer I’ve been at the studio until really late every night editing, outputting digital negatives, making plates and printing the edition, but as Richard Wentworth, our landlord in London used to say, “crisis produces results”. Although I’d really like to think it hasn’t come to that yet.

Each book in the edition of 10 will consist of an unbound suite of twenty sequenced hand-pulled photogravures, with letterpress text pages, all presented in a single-tray case. The images are 7″ x 7″ on 14″ x 15.5″ Rives BFK paper.

I’m having the letterpress polymer plates made by Boxcar Press so next week I’ll be using one of the Vandercook presses at MCBA printing the title page, colophon, a preface to the project and a small quote to run some tests I have in mind. All change again…

I’d originally thought of using a clamshell design for the case, but Regula Russelle, my fantastic mentor for this project, rightly felt that a single-tray case would be much more elegant. I’ve made a few test cases now, but I have several ideas still, one of which involves locally hand-made Cave paper. Also, local type designer Mark Simonson has a typeface that I think I might like to use, but more on that later…