Monday, December 24, 2012

progress on The next word


here's one view of the front covers of RED SQUARE - The next word - type is Umbra on a Ruscombe flax handmade paper - next up is sewing (intricate!) the two signatures to the cover - the slipcase making has been interrupted by this weird event they call 'christmas', so the book will be ready post out in the new year - and speaking of the new year, may all of us have a better 2013 than we had a 2012 - I know, every day is a miracle, let's be thankful & a' that - but I wouldn't mind a world in which our murderous interest in each other was not so endlessly & vividly exemplified on a daily basis - still, the turtledoves come to be fed each morning, the flowers keep blooming, the moving world keeps us floating about in its brilliant air, the sun gives warmth & floods my little printery with light from the east - and already I'm dreaming of my next book & the beautiful Greek type of Nicolas Jenson, Venice, 1472 - but here's another view of the covers, all laid out in a row -

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

CODEX 2013

besides binding right now I am preparing/gathering material for CODEX 2013, coming up in February next year at Berkeley, California - as well as having an Electio Editions table at the Book Fair, I will also be representing Codex Australia, which will be at CODEX for the first time - 

Codex Australia started up in Melbourne, Australia last April, and we now have a healthy and growing list of Sponsors, and the first of its programs are up & running - check out the website to see what's happening -

I am also privileged to be one of the Artist Speakers at the Codex Symposium, along with paper maker Timothy Barrett, and book makers Russell Maret & Veronica Schapers - the Keynote Speakers will be Sandro Berra & Mark Dimunation - 

at the Book Fair, some of the very finest books & book makers in the world will be on show (see the list on the CODEX website) and the Symposium promises to be an intellectual feast as the Book Fair promises to be an aesthetic one - 

Thursday, December 6, 2012

fresh news from Ruscombe Paper Mill


above is a fresh notice on the Ruscombe website - the paper being revived is one I have bought for the next Electio book - but the background picture is of printed pages from RED SQUARE : the next word printed partly on Ruscombe's copy of Barcham Green's India Office and partly on a small supply I still had of the original Barcham Green - and about to be issued from Electio - the slipcases are currently being done while the printer morphs into binder over the next couple of weeks

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

more on Alessandro Zanella

visited Heavenly Monkey's excellent blog, to find notice (his entry on 27.11.12) of an obituary & online exhibition of Alessandro Zanella's work at the University of Utah J Willard Marriott Library - go to HM's blog to click thru to the show. . . 

and it's funny how the familiar can almost slide out of mind or knowledge or memory but, I had to reach recently for Richard-Gabriel Rummonds's Printing on the iron handpress from my bookshelf to be reminded that the photograph on the cover is of, of course, Alessandro Zanella - a fitting, if small, memorial to a great printer