books published |
ELEMENTS IN CORRELATION
Printing With the Handpress at Heavenly Monkey
|
The focus of HM publisher Rollin Milroy's Printing With the Handpress at Heavenly Monkey has developed over the past few months, as the manuscript nears completion, which in turn has affected the overall concept. The initial plan had been to include several leaves from pre-19th century books. The essay - the discussion of damp printing - moved away from those early exemplars, and focused much more on how, and why printing methods and materials changed over the past century, and how these changes are (and are not) reflected in contemporary letterpress publishing. The book will now include just one sample of early printing (a leaf from a collection of theological essays, printed in Amsterdam in 1660; enlarged detail shown at right). There will also be a leaf from a mid-19th century book that combined steelpoint illustration with (dry) letterpress on a coated "art paper" of the period; and three sample leaves from the 20th century, including one from a book printed damp under Bruce Rogers' direction at the Riverside Press, and one from the Nonesuch Press printed dry.
As previously reported, the balance of the book will consist of an introduction; a revised version of the profile of papermaker Reg Lissel that ran in Parenthesis; a concluding chapter titled "You Can't Choose Your Progeny"; a bibliography; and several pages of type samples from the HM collection. Printing With the Handpress at Heavenly Monkey will be 4to in size, approximately 48 pages, printed in various colors with the handpress on HM Text paper made by Reg specifically for this project. The edition will be 50 copies, with the first ten being signed by the contributors and including additional samples of Reg's paper. These 10 copies will also include a sample Doves Press leaf, as the modern press above all others that serves as an exemplar for printing for Heavenly Monkey (as discussed in the above-mentioned concluding chapter).
Andrea Taylor has begun work on the black-line linocut portrait of papermaker Reg Lissel (a working sketch is shown opposite), while he is turning his attention toward making the large abaca vellum paper sheets to be used for the limp binding. We hope to have the book completed to show at the Codex Book Fair in Berkeley next February, but will not kill ourselves (or ruin the book) to make that deadline. At the very least, the book as completed to that time will be on display.
Printing With the Handpress at Heavenly Monkey will be the first volume in a series of three. The second volume, tentatively titled Having Fun Printing at Heavenly Monkey, will explore various printing methods using the handpress, and combine these with other printmaking techniques. A particular focus will be intaglio techniques once common in book and illustration publishing, but now uncommonly encountered. Having Fun Printing at Heavenly Monkey should appear in 2010. The final installment in the series will be The Bibliography of Heavenly Monkey - R.I.P. It will appear some time in the future, and contain many sample leaves and confessions.
HEAVENLY MONKEY |
  |