Ready for ArtPrize 2011

Miller Road - 49080 is installed at Bethlehem Lutheran Church. (http://www.bethlehemchurchgr.org/) I've added a slideshow below of the images and text of the book. The images are also available at my Artist's Profile on the ArtPrize website, http://www.artprize.org/.

Friendly Confines of Graphic Chemical Company

We went to Chicago last week and stopped by my favorite ivy-covered place there, Graphic Chemical Supply!I just needed paper, but they have everything a printmaker needs. It is a fascinating environment; every space on the wall is covered with prints, presumably made by customers. Here is the link: http://www.graphicchemical.com/.

The website also has a blog with printmaking advice and discussion.

Yes, we went to Wrigley Field, too. Go Cubs!

Next Project

The Miller Road plates are done, so I will just be printing and binding those for a while. I'm also thinking about my next project; a series of etchings depicting images of the Keeler Brass Company, the old Godfrey plant. I have a lot of loose sketches I made while working there, of people and places in the factory. I'll be using these images, and some from old company photographs, to make etchings on old brass backplates.

The one shown above is my first experiment, to see if the backplates would etch in ferric chloride. (They're solid brass.) The image is from an old company photo of Hetzer Hartsock, who retired from modelmaking before I started there. He died about a decade ago.

The next one will be of modelmaker Marlin Signor, from a sketch I made of him in the design room. Marlin was retired and died last fall; it's still hard to think about that when I work on the etching.

In any case I intend this to be like a miniature visual history of Keeler, etched into brass plates.

I have this idea of deconstructing an old Keeler catalogue and rebinding the etchings into it.

Last plate for Miller Road book

Finished the last plate for Miller Road. This is a quick proof with too much plate tone. I actually saw this scene; the heifer and horse wondering why the cat was taking over their barnyard, sitting there like he owned the place. It amused me.

First Multiple Signature Project

I've finished binding Prufrock. These pictures are not the best; I used a different camera than I'm used to. What made the binding challenging was the thick paper I used for the collage illustrations; hopefully a lighter paper like the Somerset Book Lightweight I'm using for Miller Road will be easier to work with. The title page is digital text, I used Somerset Book Lightweight for it and the endpapers. The distressed looking red and black paper on the covers is a decorative scrapbooking paper I happened to have on hand. The homemade bookcloth worked very well; no air bubbles or problems, but I made a measuring mistake and couldn't cover the whole book with what I had as a result. It was my intent for the whole book to be cloth-covered, but I had to use the cloth and paper combo instead. The whole project was really an exercise in multiple signature binding and I'm satisfied with the result.

Progress on Book Projects

Here's a "before " picture of J. Alfred Prufrock; just a bunch of loose signatures. Now they're all sewn together and waiting to be bound, once I decide on endpapers. I'm just going to go through all the paper I have and choose what I think is most appropriate; I'm trying to keep this a low cost project.

The last page of text for Miller Road is printed also. I need to print all the pages of etchings now. I started last Saturday to do this when I had a large block of time, and opened a new can of ink, Graphic Chemical Bone Black. What is with this stuff? It seems to have no viscosity whatsoever. It's almost like a can of black Crisco, for lack of a better comparison. I bought a whiole pound of it, too-- I wish I hadn't. From now on, if I'm trying a new ink, I'll buy the smallest amount available.

In any case, my ink troubles set me way back on what I wanted to accomplish Saturday, but maybe it was a good reminder not to try and rush a project.

More Letterpress Activity

I returned to the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center today to print the second page (text) of Miller Road. What I learned: use the same composing stick throughout a project! I had to spend the better part of an hour filling in tiny gaps with brass and copper pieces in the last third of the page of text; those lines were slightly shorter than the rest.

But once I started printing I was pleased I could do it all on my own. It took some trial and error before I could print the second page of text directly behind the first, but it worked out.

I've been reading some stuff online about printing type on an etching press. Maybe I'll have the equipment to do this some day.