Serena Smith. Serena Smith, 8a The Oval, Oadby, Leicester LE2 5JB, UK. Tel: +447986839363. Website: http://www.serenasmith.org/.
Serena Smith. Heteroglossia. 2023. 43 pages. 570 x 470 mm. Times New Roman on Simili Japon 225 gsm, nine hand-coloured stone lithographs by Smith. Printed with direct transfer lithography press and hand offset lithography press (Hunter Penrose ‘Imperial’). Edition of 7 + 3 APs. Case bound by Smith in hand-washed cotton book cloth with letterpress text. POA. Alongside quotations from technical printing handbooks, this lithographic glossary contains a miscellany of information from other fields of knowledge. Its material aesthetics are inspired by the 19th century anatomical volumes of surgeon-anatomists Robert Carswell and Joseph Maclise, and its written content makes subtle allusion to the lives and bodies embedded in stone lithography’s materials, process, and printed ephemera. Online images available at https://www.flickr.com/photos/91351315@N03/albums/72177720311364383.
E-publication at https://issuu.com/serenajanesmith/docs/glossary_text_for_issuu.
Marcona Press. Virginia McClure, 887 McMeekin Place, Lexington, KY 40502, USA. Tel: +18599829744. Website: https://www.marconapress.com/.
Carolyn Reading Hammer. Woman with a Book In Her Hand. 2021. 25 pages. 254 x 165 mm.
Emerson on Hahnemühle Biblio. Printed on Vandercook and iron hand press. 40 copies bound by Virginia McClure in a double pamphlet with a soft cover and wrapper of St. Armand Canal card stock, with title printed on the wrapper. Price: $75.
Titan & Weald. Isak Applin, 3457 82nd St. #6C, Jackson Heights, NY 11372, USA. Tel: +1773 456 8801. Website: https://titanandweald.com/home.html.
Isak Applin. Oh, the Wind and Rain. 2022. 29 pages. 255 x 170 mm. Monotype Bembo on dampened white Zerkall Book, 10 wood engravings by Applin. Printed on Albion iron handpress. 30 copies: 22 bound in-house at Titan & Weald, quarter-bound in black cloth and Evergreen Bugra papers with design printed in black, label on spine, price: $575; 8 sets of the engravings printed on loose sheets and encased in portfolios, including title page, contents page, epigraph and colophon (total of 14 sheets printed recto, 265 x 185 mm), and enclosed in drop-spine boxes (290 x 200 x 20 mm) covered in black cloth and Evergreen Bugra papers and made by Campbell-Logan Bindery, price: $575.
The ten wood engravings were feverishly drawn during the early months of the Covid pandemic, while the constant wail of ambulances surrounded the artist’s home and studio in Queens. The prints attempt to record the trauma of the moment and recall a world that suddenly vanished.
The Prototype Press. Mark Sarigianis, 3835 Tranquility Place, Indian Head, MD 20640, USA. Tel: +17036154868. Website: https://www.theprototypepress.com.
Rudyard Kipling. Rikki-tikki-tavi. 2023. 29 pages. 380 x 250 mm. Handset 18pt Italian Old Style on handmade paper from Papeterie St. Armand, Montreal, 5 photopolymer illustrations by Chuck Jones. Printed on Vandercook 32-28. 28 copies half-bound in black goat leather with handmade yellow paper, spine title gold stamped, and housed in a slipcase covered in handmade paper with a gold flash-drive containing the 1975 animated cartoon by Chuck Jones. Price: $1,500.
Starshaped Press. Jen Farrell, 4636 N. Ravenswood #103, Chicago, IL 60640, USA. Tel: +17737286359. Website: https://www.starshaped.com.
Jennifer Farrell, with contributions from the community-at-large. Tummy Ache. 2023. 1 page (poster). 14 x 20 in. Various typefaces on Fabriano Tiziano and French paper. Printed on Vandercook SP15. 50 copies: 25 folded to fit within hardboard, French paper wrapped covers that are also printed, the poster portion being printed on both sides for this edition only, price: $250; 25 without binding, poster only, price: $85.
For the second in a series of poster books addressing an uncomfortable connection with the American healthcare system, I reached out to the public to share comments they received from the medical establishment in regards to intense GI issues. The interior features comments made by medical professionals. The cover shows comments made by family/friends/strangers who don’t understand the complexities of GI issues. All of it is set with a selection of metal type from the Starshaped Press collection.
Peter and Donna Thomas. Peter Thomas, 260 15th Avenue, Santa Cruz, CA 95062, USA. Tel: +18315152757.
Peter Thomas, Donna Thomas and Guy Van Cleve. Goodbye Bonita Lagoon, A Papermaker’s Elegy. 2023. 80 pages. 300 x 225 mm. Neuland and wood type on cotton rag paper handmade by Peter Thomas, 10 linocut illustrations by Donna Thomas, 8 folios variously handmade using pampas grass, Kahili ginger, New Zealand flax, wild radish, century plant, bird of paradise, tule, blackberry, and a single sheet made from lawn clippings, each folio with a single cotton-rag insert. Printed on Vandercook Universal 1, Pearl Golding, Ganes Brother Gooseneck hot stamp press. 30 copies bound by Peter and Donna Thomas in a tri-fold binding with 2 leather spines and sewn accordion binding structure, cloth over boards, light green linen cloth letterpress printed with three color linocut print on front cover, and title blind stamped on spine in brown foil. Price: $975.
In each of the 8 plant-paper folios, the single sheet insert has a linocut of the plant, and name of the corresponding plant printed in various sizes and styles with wood type. The binding design both protects the fore edge and accommodates its being thinner than the spine. An inside cover board gives the viewer a substantial page to hold as the accordion is extended, as a flag book, for reading the text or viewing all the plant papers at once. The binding is an original design by Peter and Donna Thomas, based on the case bound fold-out accordion and accordion pleat spine structures described in their More Making Books by Hand (Quarry Books, 2004).
Fox Ash Press. David Jury, 73 Hungerdown Lane, Lawford,, Essex Manningtree, UK. Tel: +447944809024. Website: https://www.davidjury.com.
Peter Kennedy. P D Kennedy is From Brunlea. 2022. 48 pages. 450mm x 380 mm. Monotype Grot 216 on Zerkal 145gsm, smooth, illustrations by Kennedy. Printed on Vandercook proofing press. 25 copies: bound by Patrick Auer (Flyleaf Book Binding), 48 leaves tabbed, glued, and concertina-folded and held within paper-covered boards with a cloth spine and then boxed. Price: £2,250.
Letterpress printed with 48 tipped-in photographs. When the concertina-folded sheets are fully open the text forms a chimney stack that is 33 feet tall. Kennedy’s father was a renowned steeplejack, and on the frontispiece Kennedy is seen with his father on a chimney exactly three times taller than the text of this book. The text concerns Kennedy’s great escape from Brunlea in 1971 and the following three years at college discovering girls, alcohol, art, and books – in that order.
Plain Wrapper Press Redux. Mark Fischer, 1008 Clinton Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107, USA. Tel: +12672506000. Website: https://www.plainwrapperpress.com.
Lisa Tetrault. Declaration of Sentiments. 2023. 24 pages. 290 x 200 mm. Diotima on Velke Losiny Prague, 2 letterpress-printed images by Susan Lowdermilk from original wood engravings and from polymer plates of printed wooden type. Printed on 219 Vandercook. 100 copies bound by Jace Graf at Cloverleaf Studio, quarter-bound in Medium Blue Harmatan Goatskin and blue Hahnemühle Bugra paste papers designed and produced by Sandy Tilcock, spine stamped in gold with the book title, hardboard slipcase covered in Cobalt Blue Colorplan paper and dry-stamped with the Plain Wrapper Press pressmark. Price: $390.
Old Fan Press. Frank Hamrick, 1302 E. Mississippi Avenue, Ruston, LA 71270, USA. Tel: +14787879932. Website: http://frankhamrick.com/home/.
Frank Hamrick. When the light becomes eternal. 2023. 16 pages. 8.625 x 8.5 in. Craw Modern on Double sided matte Red River Paper, 14 photographs by Frank Hamrick. Printed on Vandercook Universal. 59 copies: 9 proof; 50 pamphlet bound with handmade cotton rag covers and end sheet paper, sewn through cover, end sheet and text block with 18/3 Irish linen thread. Price: $100.
The title “When the light becomes eternal” is based on a toy drone’s poorly translated instructions. The book includes 14 prints from tintype photographs altered by moving subjects, shifting light, failing equipment, recycled materials, as well as contaminated, homemade, and exhausted chemistry conveying something more than had originally been intended.
Mnemonic Press. Harriet Bart, Studio #308, 250 Third Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN 55401, USA. Tel: +16123751598. Website: http://www.harrietbart.com/i-saw-it
Ilya Selvinsky, translated by Dr. Maxim D. Shrayer. I Saw It. 2023. 38 pages. 10 in x 6.5 in. Preissig Roman on Rives BFK 180 gsm, 7 cut paper illustrations, cut from black Strathmore text by Harriet Bart, printed from polymer plates by Philip Gallo. Printed on a Vandercook No. 4 by Philip Gallo at Hermetic Press. 37 copies: 35 and 2AP, bound by Sherelyn Ogden, fitted into Graphite-toned Plike Wrappers and enclosed in clamshell box fabricated by Cambell-Logan Bindery and covered in matte black Japanese book cloth, with the image of the “falling figure,” taken from the book, foil-stamped in black on the cover of the box. Price: $1200.
The book presents the poem of the same title written by the Jewish-Russian constructivist poet Ilya Selvinsky (1899-1968). In January 1942, while serving as a military journalist, Selvinsky witnessed the immediate aftermath of the massacre of thousands of Jews outside the Crimean city of Kerch and published this poem about it.
