Archive for October, 2007

If you are offered a whole bunch of letterpress stuff for free, with the only condition being that you have to drive and pick it up, you take it! That is what I did this weekend.
Doug and I drove an hour and a half into the middle of nowhere VA to go through this guy’s workroom. Apparently, this guy’s dad was a printer and he left a bunch of letterpress stuff in the home. The son is selling the house and just wants everything gone. So we went through it and found some lovely treasures. Amongst the junk there was a Proof Press, a trashcan full of type, a slug cutter and some other interesting things. Of everything, I am most excited about the proof press. Doug and I are going to have to spend some time getting it into working order, but once it is it will be great fun to print on! I love new toys!
When we went through the trashcan of type we found a complete 72 point font. I am not sure what the font is, but it is HUGE! I am not sure what we are going to do with it…. Maybe we will end up selling it, maybe not. In fact, we may end up selling a bunch of the stuff we got just because we have no use for some of it.
In any case, it was great fun to get all of this stuff and I really think the new press will be wonderful to experiment on. And on Tuesday we are going to this guy’s other home to pick up more stuff. This trip is a little closer (thank goodness!) and has smaller stuff (more on that once I see what there is to see).

I finally finished the bookplates! A personal project, the image and layout of the bookplate was meant to accentuate my, and my POSSLQ Douglas’, interests and passions. And we finally got them printed. This has been a year of planning; from “cool idea” to drawings to execution.

Today I have registered a website for myself. After years of learning, making mistakes, and creating prints, I have finally decided to share some of that learning and artistic accomplishment with the world. Once it is launched, the website will contain information on the printing process, my own prints for sale, and, of course, information about myself.

My website (and incidentally my blog) shall be named Folio CIII. “Folio CIII” is the page number to the page of Hartmann Schedel’s Nuremberg Chronicle from the year 1493. While writing my undergraduate honors thesis on the Nuremberg Chronicle I fell in love with its marvelous woodcuts. My favorite is an image of a knight on his horse that appears on Folio CIII verso of the Latin version of the Chronicle. The photograph to the right shows the verso of Folio CIII. Unbelievably, this very page became available on Ebay and I was able to purchase it. My copy is unilluminated, but just as amazing. I named my website after this folio because it holds a special place in my heart. It is the first print I ever bought and it is a beautiful reminder of the first truly original research I ever completed. In addition, the images in the Chronicle have been artistically inspiring for my own printmaking.

More images from the Nuremberg Chronicle (or a better resolution photo of the above image) can be found on a website at Beloit College, where a group of students and professors have digitized all of the 1,809 images in the Chronicle and offered them on the site along with research about the history of the book, its author, and the book’s organization.

Hopefully I will have a completed website up very soon. Check back often.