Every year we set out to produce a book; a supernumerary book, contrived to fill no long-felt need but simply to give pleasure – to ourselves in the making and to our many friends in the reading.
This sentence, so full of generosity, opens the preface to Words In Their Hands, a book privately printed at the University Printing House, Cambridge in 1964, “For Friends at Christmas.” This lovely tradition (lost in the commercial publishing world?) continues amongst so-called “private” printers and is, in a way, the mark of such enterprise: the complete freedom of a press of one’s own.
Grant’s Bookshop is closing and when I saw the sale flag whipping against the front door, I knew I was going to spend money. Years back, my father gave me some type specimen books he’d found at Grant’s; inside, receipts identified them as having belonged to John Gartner, a well-known figure in printing in Melbourne, before his death in 1998. His massive book collection was sold primarily by Kay Craddock, but odds and ends continue to trickle though the secondhand book market. Knowing a little about his interests and travels, I’m sometimes convinced I’m holding a Gartner book when I find something I think fits with what I know about him. Sometimes though, as is the case with Words In Their Hands, I don’t have to guess: his bookplate is pasted inside.
It’s a beautiful book. The photographs are by Walter Nurnberg, who specialised in industrial photography. The essay is by Beatrice Warde. The book celebrates the printing house’s move to new premises, but rather than showcase new innovations (of which there were many) the photographer has focussed on the expressive actions of skilled hands through every stage of bookmaking. Beatrice Warde, who, one must admit, can get completely swept up in her own exultant rhetoric, writes “But what the living skilled hand represents, in a printing office, what it singularly symbolises in every quick, cautious pounce or prudent grip, is that whole sense of responsibility for something fragile and precious which is the very soul of the House itself.” Reading this book now, and looking at these pictures, I can’t help but wonder about the maddening paradoxes of modern manufacturing, which are not new: they were as present in 1964 as they are now. Perhaps the only difference is that in 1964, at least one commercial operation sought to celebrate the supremacy and necessity of human skill rather than simply manage it.
Of special note: there’s no girl printer, but there is a girl gatherer, collating signatures with a rubber finger-beak.
And to end: there’s one place still available in my letterpress workshop next weekend (18 & 19 April.) Details here.
13 April 2009 craft, letterpress 2 comments
I wrote this last Friday:
My worms are dead. When I asked my neighbour if his lovely weeping alder is deciduous, he answered: it is now. I checked the newspaper online for a current temperature reading only to see that my friend’s bookshop is on fire (a suspected exploding air conditioner.) It’s the third day over 43C; today it reached 44.2C (111.6F)
***
I couldn’t continue. Too hot; my laptop burning into my sticky thighs, my brain unable to form basic, expositional sentences. I wanted to memorialise sprinklers (their typewriter-like staccato, thwack, thwack, thwack, thwackthwackthwackthwackthwack) but couldn’t. Wanted to point you to this lovely quote (”Love the winter. Do not betray it. Be loyal.”) but how could I? I was dying; the initial frisson of excitement long over. It felt apocalyptic.
Then, as I left work today, it was muggy and overcast, like a day at the coast just before a storm hits. Big leaves were flying off the trees, swirling and eddying all along Swanston Street. So now it’s autumn? Say it isn’t so.
2 February 2009 3 comments
Athletes talk about flow; about being in the zone, losing oneself in the moment, being perfectly in sync with one’s activity. I’m no athlete, that’s for sure, but I spend quite a good deal of time in yoga and meditation hoping for flow, trying to relax into it: sometimes I can, sometimes not. But I found it again this weekend making photogravures out in the bush at Baldessin Press. Something about the absorbing rhythms of testing, inking and proofing are both deeply engaging and deeply relaxing to me. And it can’t have hurt to be in such a beautiful, special place: a bluestone studio in the bush, the energy of other artists at work, insight into techniques that spark my imagination. It was such a joy to be a student again. It’s been a long time since I’ve made anything without a preconceptions about the result or pressures to be done by a certain time or to please a client. This is something I struggle with as someone who runs a creative business, albeit a part-time micro-business. How not to smother the joy in making things with my anxieties about pleasing others, paying the rent, getting the job done on time?
It made me think too about my own workshops, and whether or not I focus too much on the students completing their projects at the expense of their experimenting with the process. I’m not sure. What I do know is that it was helpful to have the experience of learning something for the first time again, an experience I’ll remember the next time I teach.
The weekend was also filled with memories: of the long, hot summer months Holly and I spent working on our book, of the formative time I spent at Yolla Bolly (where I had my first glimpses into a magical book-making life), the distinctive smell of ink and processing polymer plates. But it also brought back memories of myself when I was new to all this, how inspired I was, how motivated to follow every lead, to find out everything I could possibly could about anything print-related. I remember being mad at myself that I didn’t discover letterpress until I was twenty-five years old. All those wasted years before! This past weekend revived that person, in both the enthusiasm and the pre-emptive anxiety. Nearly thirty-eight, and I didn’t know about this? Life really is far too short.
Silvi is a wonderful teacher, and she and the rest of the Baldessin co-op (Tess, Rob and Lloyd) make the press a very welcoming place. (See lunch above.) I made and proofed six plates, all of which I was happy with, which was remarkable really. After Silvi’s Photoshop tutorial, it became patently clear that I was blessed with significantly good dumb luck, given my ham-fisted handling of my images files. I plan to test this dumb luck again in the very near future.
28 January 2009 2 comments
In 1999 (good god, ten years ago) I printed a book called 17 Reasons, which features seven polaroid transfers. The book was made in an edition of 35, which means that I made about three hundred transfers, give or take, including proofs and tests and stuff-ups. Thirty-odd boxes of 669 film later, I remember thinking I’d made one significant technical discovery, which involves the use of a hot water bottle. I’ve not printed any since. In my early panic at the news that Polaroid is discontinuing film production, I fought the urge to go out and stockpile film. It doesn’t last, and anyhow, I figured I ought to be satisfied that I’d had the chance to make my book.
But then the other day, moseying about in the camera store on my lunch break, it occurred to me to check how much film was still in stock. I was sad to see the discontinued item stickers on the boxes and a March 09 expiration date. But hey, I thought, maybe I should have one last hurrah with the DayLab Jnr. And then I thought, perhaps some others might like to join me? All of a sudden, I was thinking Goodbye Polaroid Party in my studio. Have you ever wanted to make polaroid transfers? Would you like to learn? It’s pretty easy, particularly with a hot water bottle in the mix. All you need are slides, Polaroid film and paper. Oh, and a brayer or a wooden spoon. It helps to be superstitious as well, I find.
What I’m thinking is an evening or a weekend afternoon sometime soon. You’d bring your slides and I’d get you started printing transfers. There’d be cake and champagne, of course. Let me know if this is something you’d be interested in. If there’s enough of us, I’ll get an organising committee into action.
20 January 2009 photography 7 comments
Putting on my swimsuit for the first time this summer, I realised with a shock that I need to be writing about feasting rather than doing it. But the last few months have featured many great meals, at my table and others’, and I plan many more in 2009. I feel like I’ve got my kitchen mojo back. Did you read this article in the Times last year? I used to think my ex-husband and I had a happy division of labour (me: dessert, him: everything else) and for the most part, I was happy as a beta cook. But turns out, roasting a chicken is really, really easy. Who knew?
My father’s is one kitchen in which I’m still the beta. (Just so you know, I’m not unaware of the psychoanalytic implications of all this.) Come Christmas, I’m required to submit a proposal for a dessert for Christmas Day lunch: two out of three proposals over the past three years have been turned down without recourse to appeal. In their place, I’ve prepared assigned recipes including an infamous Bomb Alaska; this year was Matt Moran’s raspberry tart. It was so good I made another two days later using blackberries, which gave it a slightly sinister, Dr. Suess-ish appeal.
Other recent meals include a paella from the Moro cookbook, a Thanksgiving spread and fish tagine at Em’s. The surprise hit at Thanksgiving was an Australian ring-in: the braised lentils from Jude Blereau’s book Coming Home to Eat. I reluctantly returned this book to the library after multiple renewals and bought my own straight away. Sarah e-mailed Jude Blereau and discovered she’s teaching sometime this year at the Essential Ingredient in Prahran. I’ve never taken a cooking class, but I might start.
All this entertaining comes on top of my usual crafternoon fare. I had the idea of compiling a recipe book for crafting friends but the vanishing days and the plummeting dollar put paid to the idea of using Blurb. Next year, I hope. Instead, I shared in Lena and Maria’s feasts vicariously, savouring their work in book form for the first time. I love it.
Next year, no, this year. Back to books for me. And photographs. I finally read the manual to my new-ish Nikon DX40: why have I been scared of this camera for so long? Someone told me many point & shoot cameras now come with a pre-programmed setting specifically for food. It occurs to me just now that he may have been pulling my leg.
Happy 2009!
1 January 2009 celebrate 1 comment
When I got to work yesterday, I found this photo on my workbench. What could it possibly mean?
Some idle research led me to search “Secretary’s Day” on Wikipedia. No light was shed on the above image, but I did learn that the day is now known as “Administrative Professionals’ Day.” It’s on the last Wednesday of April, in case you were wondering.
11 December 2008 1 comment
Googling “cucumber sandwiches“, this is what I found:
The traditional cucumber sandwich is composed of paper-thin slices of cucumber placed between two thin slices of crustless, lightly buttered white bread. As the thinness of the bread is a point of pride in the kitchen, a dense-textured white Pullman loaf is cut with a wide-bladed knife, which guides the cut; daylight should pass through the resulting fine pores. The cucumbers, if sliced thin enough, should permit a newspaper column-heading to be read through one. The peel of the cucumber is either removed or scored lengthwise with a fork before the cucumber is sliced, and the slices are dried gently with a paper towel before use. The slices of bread are carefully buttered all the way to the edges in the thinnest coating, which is only to protect the bread from becoming damp with cucumber juice, and the slices of cucumber, which have been dashed with salt and lemon juice, are placed in the sandwich just before serving in order to prevent the sandwich from becoming damp enough to moisten the eater’s fingers. The crusts of the bread are cut away cleanly and the sandwich sliced diagonally twice, creating four small triangular tea sandwiches.
The traditional cucumber sandwich is of British origin. Modern variants (largely of American origin) exist, involving cream cheese, chopped dill or spices, brown bread, salmon, and even bread with crusts left intact. One specific American variant includes benedictine, a green soft spread based on cucumbers and cream cheese. British cucumber sandwich enthusiasts conventionally frown on these variants and many would not consider the modern variants to be variants at all, but simply a different sandwich. – Wikipedia
Isn’t this brilliant? Wikipedia notes that the article doesn’t contain any references or sources, and is thus in danger of being removed. But this reads like high-level scholarship to me.
I failed the newspaper column-heading test, alas, even though I used my mandoline. My cucumber sandwiches erred toward the American variety (cream cheese, dill) but I remained strictly English in the composition of my Pimm’s Cup (ginger ale, slices of cucumber and orange, mint.) The menu was rounded out with cream and berry-topped meringues, mince pies and fresh peach jam on toast. A summer Christmas menu for crafternoon, inspired by Persephone Books, who were serving cucumber sandwiches, cake and meringues at an event on December 4. Alerted to Persephone’s existence by Jane, I pore over their catalogues and dream of a shelf lined with dove grey spines.
8 December 2008 food 2 comments
“If Roald Dahl’s BFG could capture and bottle Carolyn Fraser’s enthusiasm for letterpress printing, he would be knocking on her sixth-floor studio door.”
City Weekly, 5/11/08
I’m not sure this is a good thing?
10 November 2008 letterpress no comments
