Press News: December 2001

Our last update of news at the press was at the end of May, and as might be imagined, a good deal has happened since then. At the forefront of our thoughts these last weeks and months, as of so many people’s, have been the horrific events of September 11, with the aftermath of fear, disillusionment, belligerence and despair which has occasionally seemed to blow over our days like a dank and bitter wind. As a consequence of the international situation, Crispin went alone to the Oak Knoll Book Fest; Jan stayed at home. Moreover, he made the trip by bus rather than by air, travelling by Greyhound from Vancouver, B.C. to Wilmington, Delaware and back, a trip taking three days and nights each way. He found it interesting to compare this trip with the same one he made two years ago by bus: this time he found the feeling rather different. In a letter written later, he characterized it this way: “The mood of the country in general is pretty healthy, I think. However, the people who ride buses long distance are a distinct segment of society, usually at the low end of the economic scale, often uneducated, and frequently down and out in their personal or their working lives. There is a touching mix of exaltation without substance and grief without understanding which I find sad, but while there is sometimes crudity, aggression, vulgarity and bigotry, there is far more often kindness and regard and curiosity. It is very good, I think, for those of us who live in a world where PhDs and a comfortable and cultured life are normal to spend time in that other, conterminous, country which these people call home. In that country, interwoven with ours, the mood today is querulous, anxious, defensive and belligerent, and gives one a vivid reminder of the terrible price of ignorance.”

It has been suggested by some people that the world is no longer a safe place, that we must all raise our cynicism and suspicion and proportionally lower our trust in life and our faith in humanity. Often at times like this the utility-grade cynics among us suggest that the arts are unnecessary and self-indulgent, providing empty comfort and distraction from the evils of the world which should be our constant concern. We categorically disagree. So far from believing our lives and our work to have been compromised by these events, or made to seem unnecessary or whimsical, we hold that our work – and the work of writers, illustrators, typographers and others in the crafts and the arts – has become even more important, and our responsibilities to that work more profound and telling. The arts have always been a specific against tyranny. Wilfred Owen said in 1916 that “All a poet can do today is warn”. It seems clear to us that the media have now taken that task somewhat irresponsibly upon themselves; substantive consolation and informed understanding are equally important, and the arts can and should provide them. We certainly intend to continue our work at the press in the spirit of that belief.

Workshop

On a happier subject, our annual workshop, An Introduction to Letterpress Design and Printing, was held June 4 through 9. As always, we were refreshed by the mix of people attending, and stimulated by the interest of people whose experiences were so varied. The next workshop will be held June 3rd through 8th, 2002 – a fact we would not mention so early, were it not that two of the six places are already reserved, and we have recently had another enquiry. Verbum sat sapienti: if you might be thinking of coming to visit and work for a week, it may not be too early to say so. You can make enquiries through us, or directly to the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild (CBBAG) through their link in the Links section of this website.

Apprenticeship

In our May update of Press News, we mentioned that Nancy Campbell would be arriving from England to apprentice with us for three months, beginning in June. She duly arrived, and the relationship was so successful that she extended her stay until November, for a total of five months. Nancy was an invaluable help to us, working in almost every area of the press from typesetting to printing, folding, collating, sewing pamphlets, and helping Abigail Rorer to hand colour the two coloured blocks in Endgrain Editions Two: Abigail Rorer, published this month. She also turned her hand to cutting some linoblocks for one of the broadsheets in Founts & Circumstance (of which more later), three Greek inscriptions in boustrophedon, an ancient Greek style of inscriptional writing in which the lines of text read alternately from left to right and from right to left, “as the ox ploughs”, which is what boustrophedon means.

In addition to this, she produced the customary “apprentice piece” in the form of An Edifying Essay upon Slugs, with a text by herself, and five wood engravings by Abigail Rorer. While this may appear to be an odd subject for a book (and we should point out that this is not a printerly pun on Linotype slugs, but really is concerned with the little slimy snails-without-shells which are so plentiful here in the Pacific Northwest) it is also an individual one, and the little chapbook is quite charming, from the expansive text of its 18th century style title page to its little block of two slugs caught in flagrante delicto. Published under her chosen imprint of Devil’s Advocate Press in an edition of 50 copies to be split between the two protagonists, the book is printed on Silurian paper in Kennerley with Hadriano for display, and will be bound in boards.

We wish Nancy every good fortune in her future work, which seems inevitably to consist in the procuring of presses and type and setting up as a private press. We also look forward to her return sometime next year for another somewhat briefer working visit.

Annual W.E.N. Conference & Oak Knoll Book Fest VIII

In July the annual conference of the Wood Engraver’s Network was held in Seattle, and Jan was asked to give a lecture on printing engravings. The talk was well attended by an audience whose interest was both finely honed and well informed. It is often the case that engravers who print their own blocks as individual prints, often by rubbing them down with a burin rather than on a press, don’t understand the particular problems of editioning blocks on a press or printing them in a book. Hand-inking and rubbing down a block can accommodate any variation in cutting and avoid the problems of varying height in the block or shallow clearing of areas not intended to print, both of which become serious issues when the block is put into a press. Jan has become widely known as a printer of engravings: in the process of printing Endgrain (1995), which included blocks by 120 engravers, she encountered blocks in every condition, and cutting ranging from the rank amateur to the elegantly accomplished. Her discussion of printing blocks in various types of presses, illustrated with slides and with some make-readies which she had brought along to show, was received with considerable enthusiasm.

On the same evening we were able to announce that we plan to devote a later volume in the Endgrain Editions series to presenting a cross-section of engravers who have emerged since Endgrain: Contemporary Wood Engraving in North America was published in 1995. In the last six or seven years we have often encountered the name of an engraver new to us, and have seen a good deal of work which has impressed us very much. In consequence we plan to issue an addendum in 2005, ten years after the original volume, including up to fifty engravers whose work was not included in the earlier book, most having emerged since then. We will draw principally from the membership of W.E.N., and probably extend the brief to include some engravers from outside North America.

During the same visit we were able to meet Richard Wagener, who was included in Endgrain and whose work we deeply admire, and to reach an agreement with him for a subsequent volume of Endgrain Editions, scheduled for 2006 or 2007.

Oak Knoll Book Fest VIII was held on the weekend of October 13th in New Castle, Delaware. Despite the prevailing worries about air travel, attendance was high and the spirit of the weekend excellent. Bob Fleck and his staff deserve thanks and congratulations for their persistence and confidence. Crispin was the scheduled speaker on the Saturday morning, and presented a brief history, with slides, of Barbarian Press and an account of the books we have published. Working in isolation, and seeing the books we are printing and have printed every day, we sometimes need to be persuaded that others might really be interested in the picaresque adventures of an enterprise like ours, but the generous response from the audience was very heartening. The fair itself was also successful, and two publications – Endgrain Editions One: Gerard Brender à Brandis and Founts & Circumstance – went out of print there.

Founts & Circumstance: The Continuing Story

We recall a friend many years ago saying, after the birth of her first baby, “I never knew there would be so many of it.” We feel rather the same way about Founts & Circumstance. The project is a fascinating one, and it is going very well, but we made the mistake of assuming that because it was not a book, but a portfolio, and because it would be printed on another press than the one we use for Endgrain Editions, we could have both projects in the press simultaneously. While it is true that both are being worked on at the same time, it is not the case that both are proceeding neck and neck – neck and heel would be nearer the mark. However, Endgrain Editions Two: Abigail Rorer, is now back from the binders, and is being sent out to those who have already ordered it. This will allow us, finally, to devote all our energies to Founts & Circumstance, and we hope to have it completed for sending out in mid to late February. We apologize to all of you who are crouching despondently by the letterbox every day, but we can only say that we never knew there would be “so many of it.”

Here is a brief progress report: three of the twelve broadsheets are printed; the title sheet is printed and the kalligraphs completed, signed, and tipped in place; the boxes made by Natasha Herman are completed, and look majestic (although they are so large that sixty of them are making the bindery and the studio more obstacle courses than work spaces); the remaining broadsides are designed and some are set in type; and the notes, to be printed in a folio 12-page sewn pamphlet, are written. Now all that remains is to produce the rest of the piece. We have amassed a wonderful selection of papers for the broadsheets, having been able, through the munificent generosity of two of our patrons, John Ellison and Lesley Link, to acquire a lode of Barcham Green papers which we discovered a local merchant had stocked and forgotten. Although the piece will be completed much later than we had thought (a circumstance which is now hallowed by tradition not only at our press but at many others world-wide) we know it will be received with great pleasure by those who have had the prescience to reserve a copy. When Crispin took the box with the title sheet and three completed broadsheets to show at Oak Knoll – the first time anyone outside the press had seen any of it -- the remaining two unreserved copies were snapped up within an hour. We think that bodes well for its reception.

Endgrain Editions Two: Abigail Rorer

The ultimate pleasure of the WEN conference we spoke of earlier was our meeting Abigail Rorer, who used the conference as an excuse to come out west from Massachusetts and to visit us for a fortnight. This was a means of solving the logistical problem of having two blocks in the book which were to be hand-coloured, since we didn’t relish the idea of sending over four hundred printed sheets back and forth across the continent. Jan had printed the two engravings in question before Abbie’s arrival, and Abbie and our apprentice, Nancy Campbell, sat for two weeks in the bindery hand-colouring the two images, one with nine colours, the other with seven. The work was arduous and exacting, but was carried out in an atmosphere of good cheer approaching the lunatic. Abbie’s attempts to introduce us to The Dixie Chicks were rebutted by blasts of Verdi, Elgar, Janacek, and blues and jazz. We have rarely laughed so hard. Nancy’s apprentice piece, An Edifying Essay upon Slugs, was conceived by Nancy and Abbie during this time, as a consequence of their having to leap with dramatic squeals over mobs of thrashing slugs gnashing their teeth at them as they made their way from the house to the pressroom – at least, to hear them tell it. (The one I saw I simply picked up and moved out of harm’s way, but let it pass ...) The resulting book, Endgrain Editions Two: Abigail Rorer, is a treasure, and Abbie’s work is revealed as even more splendid, and far more varied, than we had realized.

As has been the case for many years now, the regular copies of the book will be bound by Holger and Kim Rasmussen at their Rasmussen Bindery in North Vancouver, B.C. It continues to be a delight to deal with Holger and Kim, especially when they exhibit such kindly patience with our sometimes odd demands, and with our elastic timetables. It is a pleasure to thank them publicly.

The final preparation of this book for the binders was greatly helped, and cheered, by a visit from our dear friend Hélène Francœur, who is herself a superlative binder. Hélène created the design bindings for Inishbream, as well as organizing the binding of the regular and deluxe editions of the same book here at our bindery in 1999; she also collaborates with Crispin on design bindings for the press. In her ten days here in October of this year she helped to print some of the final pages, dissed type, folded and collated a number of gatherings, made the envelopes for the extra prints in the deluxe copies, and gold-stamped the leather labels for them. This is to say nothing of planning two further bindings with Crispin, and cooking several magnificent meals. (It sometimes seems that we must one day print a cookbook.)

The deluxe copies will be bound for us by a new binder in our acquaintance, Simone Mijnen, who studied with Louise Genest in Montréal. Simone was recommended to us by Natasha Herman, who apprenticed with us for several months in 1998, assisted Hélène Francœur in binding Inishbream, and has bound several books for us now as well as having made the boxes for Founts & Circumstance and the deluxe issue of Twenty-one Small Songs. The trial bindings Simone has made are exemplary in every way, and we look forward to a happy association with her. At the same time we are sad to say goodbye to Natasha, who has moved to Amsterdam – that quintessential book city – to marry and to set up her bindery there. We wish her and Adrian every happiness and success, and we are by no means ruling out the possibility of future collaborations. In the meantime, people in the Netherlands, or within striking distance, who might be looking for an excellent binder and restorer, can contact her in Amsterdam at:

Natasha Herman
Dusartstraat 32-2
1072 HS Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Her e.mail address is <natasha@binder.org>. Her telephone number is 020 675 67 42.

The Oxford Fine Press Book Fair

The Oxford Fair, co-sponsored by the Fine Press Book Association and the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association, was held the weekend of November 10 & 11 at Oxford Brookes University. 54 presses, 22 dealers and thirteen trade suppliers and societies exhibited, and the turnout from the public was excellent. It is always a pleasure to get to England, and the more so because it gives us the opportunity to meet some of our English and European clients whom otherwise we encounter only in e.mails and letters. As it happened, Crispin went alone this year, and had the disconcerting experience of flying on Canada 3000, an airline which went bankrupt while he was somewhere over Iceland. Fortunately the aircraft continued on to London in spite of this economic embarrassment, but the week in England was somewhat fraught with uncertainty as to just how he was to return home. In the end a friend who works for Air Canada managed to get a special ticket couriered to London, and the trip was only prolonged by a day.

In the interim, Crispin visited Whittington Press for a fine day with an assortment of the printers who had attended the fair, spent two wonderful days with Nicholas and Mary Parry at the Tern Press in Market Drayton, Shropshire, which culminated in a drive through Housman country – Wenlock Edge, Clun, Knighton etc. – to David and Esta Esslemont’s new farm in Wales, where he was able to help David and Gaylord Schanilec shift a large Wharfedale cylinder press and an even larger Columbian handpress into David’s new workshop. The site of the press is a hilltop surrounded by dingles and cwms straight out of a Graham Clark etching, studded with sheep and rich with the hooting of owls. The pressroom, where Crispin slept very comfortably (the pressroom is centrally heated; the house is not) was further graced with a little winter wren who on both mornings, having found his way in through some as-yet-undiscovered crack, acted as a rather importunate natural alarm clock demanding freedom: when the door was held open, he (or she) obligingly flew out.

2002: The 25th Anniversary Year

January 1, 2002, is in fact the 25th birthday of Barbarian Press, and we expect to hear the international clinking of glasses on that date – all of which we will attribute to enthusiasm about the press rather than to the new year. It will come as no surprise that we are planning some publications to celebrate this anniversary, the first of which, a broadsheet to be entitled A Sloth of Bears, will be issued early in the New Year. It will gather more than a dozen versions of our pressmark of a bear (usually with a press) by Wesley Bates, Gerard Brender à Brandis, Simon Brett, John DePol, Edwina Ellis, Peter Lazarov, Barry Moser, Colin Paynton, Abigail Rorer, and Ted Staunton, all printed from the wood and surrounding the original pressmark from a drawing by Louis Turpin. It will be printed in two colours on an as yet undisclosed paper and signed by us, and will be given as a gift to patrons and subscribers, with the rest of the edition for sale. Further news of the edition size and price will be announced here in January.

In the autumn of 2002 we will be publishing our 25th anniversary bibliography, HOI BARBAROI: A Quarter Century at Barbarian Press. Our first bibliography, Utile Dulci: The First Decade at Barbarian Press 1977-87, disappeared rapidly and without trace. Of all our books except Endgrain (1995), it is the hardest to find, and the most requested. Much has happened in the intervening fifteen years, and it is natural enough to issue a second bibliography in this silver anniversary year. We hope to launch the book officially at the opening of a retrospective exhibition of the press’s work to be held at Simon Fraser University Library, Burnaby, B.C., in November, 2002. For further details of the book, please look at its entry.

Other publications for 2002 will include Endgrain Editions Three: Peter Lazarov, and we will be beginning work on New World Suite, a poem for three voices by Robert Bringhurst, our first multi-media production which will include a CD of a performance of the poem.

Finally, please note that Endgrain Editions One: Gerard Brender à Brandis and Founts & Circumstance are now out of print. A very few copies of A Christmas Carol, or, The Miser’s Warning remain unsold.

A Greeting For The Season

So often at this time of year one reads (or tries oneself to find) sentiments to do with kindness and consideration for others, and of course this is entirely laudable. But somehow it seems this year that each of us needs to look within and see how one might be better from the source, from oneself. Re-reading Marianne Moore’s essays recently, we came upon this:

Example is needed, not counsel; but let me submit here these four precepts:
Feed imagination food which invigorates.
Whatever it is, do it with all your might.
Never do to another what you would not wish done to yourself.
Say to yourself: “I will be responsible.”
Put these principles to the test, and you will be inconvenienced by being overtrusted, overbefriended, overconsulted, half adopted, and have no leisure. Face that when you come to it.

In rather a similar vein, someone said of Crispin’s father, long after his death: “He was always doing things for others which seemed absolutely right, but which no one else ever thought of.” That, too, seems a good thing to strive for.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a blessed and peaceful holiday, and a joyous New Year, whatever your creed, whatever your country, whatever your condition. Thank you for your interest, your friendship, and your humanity. However compromised such a condition may sometimes seem, at its best it is still remarkable.

Warmest best wishes from all of us,
Crispin, Jan, Jude & Polly Elsted