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~ News from the Rare Books Department of Special Collections at the J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah

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Tag Archives: bookmaking

Boards: A-Book-Part-You-Never-Think-About-But-Is-Super-Important-Anyway

30 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by scott beadles in Uncategorized

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Antoine Augereau, barf board, Benjamin Eliot, boards, book, bookbinders, bookmaking, Boston, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Colonial America, conservators, Coptic, delaminate, Deseret News, exhibition, felts, fibers, fore-edge, Jim Croft, Jonathan Sandberg, medullary ray, Old Ways of Making Books, paper, paper mill, papermaking, Paris, pasteboard, rare book collections, Samuel Willard, scabbard, scaleboard, Scott Beadles, screen, Simon de Colines, vat, vellum, water, waterleaf, wood, wooden boards, workshop

Judge a book by it’s cover all you want. That cover just keeps on doing what it does best: protecting the book’s text. Covers allows a book to continue to convey information by taking the wear and tear of everyday use. Through the years different materials have been used to cover books.



Coptic Binding
Uncatalogued

Wood. Early books were most commonly covered with wooden boards. Rare Books has several manuscripts with Coptic bindings. These books are well-used, with uncovered wooden boards that are polished by handling, but they are often broken and then repaired with linen thread. The wood is sometimes cut similarly to modern lumber, in a straight line across the log. In the picture below you can see the curve of the tree’s growth rings. Wood is porous and expands and contracts as it takes on or loses moisture from the air. It will expand unevenly around that natural curve, warping and sometimes even cracking the board. The strongest wood boards are cut in a very different way.

Imagine you are looking down on the round end of a log. If you cut this log radially from the center as if it was a pie, two useful things happen. First, boards cut like this (called a quarter cut) resist warping because the grain of the wood is running straight up your board, instead of curving through it. Looking at the boards from the top you see little to none of the curve of the tree’s rings. This board will warp very little as humidity changes. Second, there is a structural feature in wood called the medullary ray. These rays go through the wood from the core out to the bark. They are perpendicular to the main grain of the wood, forming a remarkably durable natural plywood. Many Coptic boards break because they are made with wood that does not have prominent medullary rays.

In the above image, notice the faint curve of the grain near the middle of the left board.

In the image below, we can see the medullary rays and the tree’s grain weaving together. The lighter lines are medullary rays, the darker lines are the tree’s grain creating a strong internal structure.


Handmade book
by Jonathan Sandberg from raw materials
at Jim Croft’s “Old Ways of Making Books” workshop



He kaine diatheke
Paris: [Antoine Augereau for] Simon de Colines, [29 November or 22 December] 1534
BS1965 1534

Pasteboard. All this picky woodwork added complications to the bookmaking process. When bookmakers discovered that they could just paste together paper proofs, misprints, or offcuts to make functional boards, it became common practice to do just that. This has made for interesting discoveries as modern conservators re-bind historical books and find that their boards are made of interesting or rare texts.



Deseret News
By Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Volume 6. March 1856-March 1866
Uncatalogued

Waterleaf. Around the mid-sixteenth century, very soon after pasteboard began to be used, another technique for making boards was developed. If you are familiar with historical papermaking, or you’ve seen our recent paper exhibition, Paper is Fundamental, you know that paper was made by drawing suspended fibers out of a vat of water on a screen, which was then rolled onto a stack of felts. Paper makers found that if they took these raw, wet pieces of paper and compressed them together, it formed a variant of pasteboard that was less likely to separate between pages, or delaminate. Pictured here is a bound volume of the Deseret News from 1856. The very worn board is beginning to delaminate which gives us a great view of individual “pages.” Because the board is never printed on directly and almost always covered, papermakers could include fiber that would normally be unacceptable for papermaking. Here you see small pieces of cloth and thread. Historical bookmaker Jim Croft calls this kind of board “barf board” because of the jumble of reject fibers that go into its production.



The Peril of the Times Displayed
Samuel Willard
Boston : Printed by B Green & J Allen sold by Benjamin Eliot 1700
BX7233 W4292 P47 1700

Scaleboard. The first paper mill in Colonial America wasn’t established until 1690. Rather than using expensive, imported book boards, bookbinders often used thin scales of wood in their place. These scaleboards, originally called scabbards, were much too brittle for the task of protecting a book, but when covered in paper or leather they made perfectly usable covers. This book was printed in Boston in the year 1700. The leather is now peeling away, allowing us to look at the wood scale beneath. The end grain of the board is visible at the fore-edge and spine of the book, instead of the traditional head and tail. It may be quarter-cut, the end grain shows only a slight curve. The board is a little warped, but the book has been through a lot, and scaleboard wasn’t expected to do the same heavy structural work as early wooden book boards were.

~Contributed by Jonathan Sandberg, Rare Books Assistant, with photographs by Scott Beadles, Rare Books Specialist

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Looking Forward to Book Arts Program Workshop, “Up-cycled Stories: Books as Process”

20 Friday May 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Recommended Workshop

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Arches Text Wove, artists' books, Big Caslon, binding, blind-embossed, Book Arts Program, Book Arts Studio, bookmaking, books, Boston College, Bugra, Center for Book Arts, collage, College Book Arts Association, color, Emily Tipps, English, Granary Books, handmade, Harvard, High5 Press, ink, J. Willard Marriott Library, Julianna Christie, letterpress, literature, Marnie Powers-Torrey, New York City, photograpy, photopolymer plates, pochoir, Red Butte Press, Salt Lake City, shape, Stonehenge, storytelling, text, texture, University of Alabama, University of Colorado, University of Utah, Utah, Vandercook SP-15, Wellesley College, Wesleyan University

Rare Books is proud to support the Book Arts Program with its collections. For more information about the Book Arts Program and future workshops, visit their website or like them on Facebook.

Up-cycled Stories: Books as Process
Julianna Christie, Marnie Powers-Torrey & Emily Tipps

May 28 
Saturday, 10:00–6:00
Book Arts Studio, J. Willard Marriott Library, Level 4
Free spots are limited; please apply here. The application deadline is April 14.
Additional spots: $110, register here.
Registration is closed!

Bring a personally challenging story to retell in a new light or a daily routine to reconsider and reframe. With a focus on finding joy and beauty in the everyday, participants stamp out insecurities, recontextualize shortcomings, and re-imagine the self in book form. In this workshop, employ ink, brushes, stamps, mark-making tools, text, and re-collected common objects to produce process pages. Through a reimagining of the past, reinvent present perspective with an open heart, mind, and eyes toward gratitude and compassion. Instructors demonstrate a binding to be completed post-workshop from produced sheets. Come with a willingness to play with color, shape, narrative, and texture.
– – – – –

Julianna Christie graduated from Wellesley College and holds a BA in English Literature and Studio Art, with an emphasis in bookmaking. Upon graduating, she worked at the Center for Book Arts and Granary Books in New York City. She has been making books for over 20 years, with books held in Special Collections libraries at Wellesley College and Harvard. She incorporates collage, photography, sewing and love into her books. Julianna is also a life coach, specializing in personal growth and transformation. In her coaching, she invites clients to explore the art of storytelling, using words and imagery to examine and ultimately re-conceive a happy life.

Marnie Powers-Torrey holds an MFA in photography from the University of Utah and a BA in English and Philosophy from Boston College’s Honors Program. She is the Managing Director of the Book Arts Program and Red Butte Press, an Associate Librarian (Lecturer), and academic advisor for minor and certificate students in Book Arts. Marnie teaches letterpress printing, artists’ books, and other courses for the Book Arts Program and elsewhere. She is master printer for the Red Butte Press, harnessing the mighty printing power of a full staff of excellent printers. A founding member of the College Book Arts Association, she served as Awards Chair for three years and currently serves on the board of directors. Her work is exhibited and held in collections nationally.

N7433.4-P69-E8-2000-Front
N7433.4-P69-E8-2000-back

Evidence
Marnie Powers-Torrey
Salt Lake City, UT: M. Powers-Torrey, 2000
N7433.4 P69 E8 2000

Edition of ten copies. University of Utah copy is no. 4, signed by the author.

Emily Tipps is the Binding Instructor, Program Manager, and an Assistant Librarian (Lecturer) at the Book Arts Program at the University of Utah, as well as the proprietor of High5 Press, which publishes innovative writing in the form of handmade artists’ books. She holds a BA in English from Wesleyan University, an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado, and an MFA in Book Arts from the University of Alabama. Emily’s work is exhibited and held in collections nationally.

N7433.4-T574-O73-2007-spread
N7433.4-T574-O73-2007-spread2

Orders
Emily Tipps
Tuscaloosa, AL: High5 Press, 2007
N7433.4 T574 O73 2007

Letterpress printed from photopolymer plates on a Vandercook SP-15. Paper is Arches Text Wove and Stonehenge. Text type is Big Caslon. Pochoir illustrations. Endsheets are gray Bugra paper. Handsewn binding in black Stone Henge paper covers. Front cover blind-embossed. Edition of sixty copies. University of Utah copy is no. 42.

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DOC/UNDOC — Part 2/6, “A Mouth Full of Ink”

22 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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acotaciones, Ars Shamánica Performática, art, book, book art, bookmaking, books, Catholic, citizen, citizens, colmillo de coyote, colonial, colonized, commentary, country, culture, desert, Doc/Undoc, documentado, economy, Felicia Rice, Fluxus, Gesamtkunstwerk, Guillermo Gomez Peña, Hispanic/Latino, human rights, identities, identity, immigrants, ink, Isabel Dulfano, Jennifer González, laws, lucha libre, Luise Poulton, mask, media, monologues, Moving Parts Press, objects, obsidian, oils, Open Book, performance art, poem, poems, poetry, racist, rare books, reader, readers, reliquaries, Sam DeMonja, smells, sounds, Spanish, stereotypes, stethoscope, stones, sunglasses, symbol, tastes, undocumented, United States, videos, violence

During Fall Semester, 2015, University of Utah graduate students in SPAN6900-2 Analyzing Texts: Form and Content visited Rare Books. During the third and final session with Rare Books, the students were introduced to late 20th century/early 21st century fine press and artists’ books. The session ended with the premiere viewing of our copy of DOC/UNDOC Documentado/Undocumented Ars Shamánica Performática, purchased in September. Student response was so strong that managing curator Luise Poulton, in her typical over-enthusiastic way, exclaimed, “You should post your thoughts on Open Book!” Prof. Isabel Dulfano, in her own enthusiastic way, immediately took up the suggestion and made this a new assignment, right then and there. Bless the beleaguered grad students! Rare Books is pleased to present these responses.

From Sam DeMonja

Doc/Undoc photo courtesy of Moving Parts Press

Doc/Undoc photo courtesy of Moving Parts Press

This is a brief analysis of DOC/UNDOC Documentado/Undocumented Ars Shamánica Performática, published in 2014, by Moving Parts Press. Our class had the opportunity to explore a variety of printed works. Each book carried with it a unique style and background. Many of these books transcended the traditional concept of bookmaking to create works of art.

One such work of art our class viewed is DOC/UNDOC Documentado/Undocumented Ars Shamánica Performática produced by Guillermo Gomez Peña, Jennifer González and Felicia Rice. At first glance, this piece is nothing more than an indiscriminate collection of bric-a-brac thrust into a secondhand gun safe and pronounced “book art” by its creators and curators. This work takes a sizable step away from the paradigmatic, Eurocentric style of bookmaking. This book has obvious roots in both the Fluxus and Gesamtkunstwerk artistic styles wherein books are made to be interactive, exploratory, and incorporate a variety of media (Backstory). All books are interactive, but this piece engages the reader, or participant, through audio, tactile, visual, and olfactory components. Gomez Peña states the piece’s “interactive dimension may be its main contribution to the field of experimental book art, or rather ‘performative book art’” (DOC/UNDOC).

20151201_154828

The reader, to whom I will refer as one who interacts with this “book” from here on, may push buttons and turn knobs to hear commentary on the various items contained therein. Upon pushing these buttons, the reader hears Gomez Peña’s voice providing supplemental musings regarding each object in the box. The box contains mirrors surrounded by lights, in front of which the reader is encouraged by, Gomez Peña’s recorded utterances, to try on various wearable items such a stethoscope, sunglasses, and makeup.

The “book” is accompanied by videos of Gomez Peña’s provocative performance art. The reader sees Gomez Peña pretend to wield a loaded gun, cut his tongue and ears with scissors, place a hot iron on his chest, and make unintelligible sounds with a mouth full of ink which, according to Gomez Peña, sent him to the hospital. The piece also contains printed material with poetry arranged in a fresh format. The reader must scrupulously follow each word in each poem, as the preceding and succeeding words may be arranged in unusual, wave-like, patterns. There are a total of 15 printed monologues that are lyrical in nature and even contain acotaciones, or stage directions, to ensure each is read according to Gomez Peña’s penchant for performance art.

It is one thing to simply describe this piece, and it is quite another endeavor to try to explain what the piece means. The full title, DOC/UNDOC Documentado/Undocumented Ars Shamánica Performática, urges the reader to think about what it means to be documentado in Spanish and what is meant by the term “undocumented” in the U.S. The word “undocumented,” as it is used in the U.S., is politically charged and portrayed as inherently negative. The term is a symbol of racist stereotypes that robs immigrants of their true identity as members of the human family and is synonymous with powerlessness and a lack of human rights. In Gomez Peña’s poem, “What I chose not to do tonight,” the author states “when you cross the border it is as if your identity splits into two and one is permanently questioning the other” (What I chose not to do tonight). The text suggests that upon immigrating, one always possess two identities, an insider and an outsider, as both a documented citizen of one country and an undocumented citizen of another.

The author uses the terms colonial and colonized in his poems to explore this dichotomy of documented and undocumented identities. In one poem entitled “Flagrantly stupid acts of transgression,” the author describes giving an audience member a knife and asking her to cut his abdomen with it. The poem reads “’here… my colonized body,’ I said… and she went for it, inflicting on me my 45th scar, right her on my soul” (Flagrantly stupid acts of transgression). This speaks to the idea of being colonized by a dominant culture. The author insinuates that the U.S. harms immigrants through laws and economic dominance to maintain a distinction between the documented and undocumented.

This poem, and the entire piece, illustrates how undocumented persons are thought of as nameless, faceless, subjects of a colonial economy whose purpose is to suffer the misfortunes of supplying cheap labor to an empirical nation and not participate in it fully as citizens. Gomez Peña states that suffering, such as the suffering demonstrated in the poem, of migrants who “move from their proper place without documents is a direct consequence of a failed global project, but their suffering appears inconsequential. The fact that men, women, and children risk their lives by crossing the desert to escape violence and to make a few dollars to send back home remains insignificant” (On immigration 1). The interactive contents of this piece help to bring significance to the professedly insignificant acts of immigrants.

The objects in the case serve to give prominence to the seemingly unimportant objects that represent aspects of Hispanic/Latino life that contribute to the identity of the undocumented. There are hot sauce packets, Catholic trinkets of Virgins, a lucha libre mask, a colmillo de coyote, oils, obsidian stones, and countless other objects. Each object must carry some personal meaning to one or more person involved in the creation of the piece. These objects may have significance to a wide audience of Hispanic/Latino readers. This could serve to illustrate the fact that there are many parts of one’s life that go undocumented (Commentary). There are elements of identity and worth that are not recorded in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services department.

The packaging of this piece is important also. It’s significant that so much content, such as videos, printed poems, artwork, reliquaries, sounds, tastes, and smells, are concealed within a relatively nondescript box. The box is metallic, cold, and has sharp corners and edges. The only writing on the exterior is: “Documentado Undocumented.” A parallel could be drawn between this and the lives of undocumented persons in the U.S. Labels are powerful in that they mask one’s true identity. Superficially, all that government, or law enforcement agencies, can perceive when they view the Hispanic/Latino population is whether or not they are legal citizens. In actuality, within the cold, metallic container projected on them by stereotypes and sociocultural norms, there is much more to be discovered. Within the box, awaits a world of exploration, emotion, worth, and identity regardless of the label on the box. Guillermo Gomez Peña, Jennifer González and Felicia Rice have successfully pulled off the creation of an intimate medium of expressing these important themes of citizenship, identity, colonization, and cultural disparity through this piece.

“Backstory.” DOCUNDOC. 6 July 2014. Web. 17 Dec. 2015 <http://docundoc.com/2014/07/02/what-i-chose/>.
“Doc/Undoc | Art | UC Santa Cruz.” Doc/Undoc | Art | UC Santa Cruz. Web. 17 Dec. 2015.
“What I chose not to do tonight.” DOCUNDOC. 2 July 2014. Web. 17 Dec. 2015. <http://docundoc.com/2014/07/02/what-i-chose/>.
“On immigration 1.” DOCUNDOC. 2 July 2014. Web. 17 Dec. 2015. http://docundoc.com/2004/02/22/on-immigration-1/>.
“Commentary.” DOCUNDOC. 2 July 2014. Web. 17 Dec. 2015.http://docundoc.com/2014/06/06/commentary/>.

Coming soon: Response from Peter Tanner

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Book Arts Exhibition – Glimpse

10 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by rarebooks in Physical Exhibitions

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

A Fowl Alphabet, Alan James Robinson, Allison Milham, Allyn Hart, Becky Williams Thomas, book artists, Book Arts Program, bookbinding, bookmaking, Cheloniidae Press, Claire Taylor, collage, Crane Giamo, Easthampton, Emily Tipps, encaustics, Glenville, Illinois, intaglio printing, J. Willard Marriott Library, Japanese, Julianna Christie, Karen Hanmer, Keiji Shinohara, leather bindings, letterpress printing, Luise Poulton, Marnie Powers-Torrey, Massachusetts, Michelle Macfarlane, National Endowment for the Arts, Pamela Smith, paper decorating, papermaking, photo engraving, photography, printers, rare books, relief printing, Special Collections Gallery, Stacy Phillips, Suzanne Moore, The University of Utah, type, wood engravings

GlimpsePoster

Rare Books is pleased to support the Book Arts Program with its historic, fine press, and artists’ books collections. Glimpse features these and many other book artists represented in our collections.

DODOe

A FOWL ALPHABET
Alan James Robinson
Easthampton, MA: Cheloniidae Press, 1986

Wood engravings by author. Lettering by Suzanne Moore. Title printed in brown and black; initials and headings printed in brown and gold. Issued in cloth clamshell box. Edition of fifty copies, signed. University of Utah copy is no. 36.


AAAZZZ

AAAAAZZZZZ
Karen Hanmer
Glenville, IL: Karen Hammer, 2002
N7433.4 H357 A6 2002

Housed in box. Title on box shows the letter “A” turning into the letter “Z.” Edition of eight copies. University of Utah copy is no. 6, signed by the author.


AtoZ

THE SPECTRUM A TO Z
Karen Hanmer
Glenview, IL: K. Hanmer, 2003
N7433.4 H357 S6 2003

Accordion-style alphabet book. Edition of twenty copies. University of Utah copy is no. 4.


UV

PATRIOT ALPHABET
Karen Hanmer
Glenview, IL: K. Hanmer, 2004
N7433.4 H357 P37 2004

Karen Hanmer layers fragments of text and image, evoking personal memory within cultural context. Intimate but strong, her books are designed to be handled, their sculptural elements giving way to the physicality of reading the old-fashioned way, by turning a page.

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Two Medieval Monks Invent Writing

22 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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Associate Chair, bookmaking, Department of Languages and Literature, Mallory Ortberg, Maria Dobozy, medieval, monks, rare books, The Toast, The University of Utah, writing

Thank you to friend of Rare Books, Maria Dobozy, Associate Chair, Department of Languages & Literature, The University of Utah, for sending this glimpse into early medieval bookmaking.

Monks

MONK #2: i think youre ready to move on to something a little trickier this time
reading and writing

MONK #1: oh wow

MONK #2: the really important thing to remember about writing is that you dont use any words
ever
just blank pages in careful order

…

Get the rest of the story.

P.S. Don’t miss the tags.

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We recommend – Book Arts Program lecture

02 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by rarebooks in Recommended Lecture

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Anna Embree, Audrey Niffenegger, Baskerville, Beth Grabowski, Bonnie Thompson Norman, bookmaking, Bull's Head & Branch, By His Own Labor, Caren Heft, Catherine May, Cathleen Baker, Colleen Dwire, College Book Art Association (CBAA), Coriander Reisbord, Cuba, Dard Hunter III, David Moyer, Deborah Mae Broad, Dennis Ruud, Eileen Wallace, Elsi Vassdal Ellis, Eric Bealer, fine press, Fond du Lac, Gray Parrot, hand papermaking, handmade, Havana, Heartbreak Thursday, Helene Hanff, Izel Marino Gonzales, Jack Malloy, James Horton, Joe Sanders, John DePol, Judi Conant, Julio César Peña Peralta, Karla Elling, Katrin Braun, letterpress printing, linocuts, Luis Francisco Diaz Sanchez, Maria Vargas, Mark Hark, Marriott Library, Mary Jo Pauly, Meriden-Stinehour, Michael and Winifred Bixler, Michael Sean Fallon, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, North Carolina, Olga Broumas, Parallel Editions, Paula Maria Gourley, Penland School of Crafts, Pinkney Herbert, pochoir, Rafael Suan Lazo, Rare Books Classroom, Red Hydra Press, Red Ozier Press, Robert Bly (b.1926), Ruth Lingen, Sara Owen, Saturday Nights in Marietta, Steve Miller, T. Begley, Taller Experimental de Papel Artesanal (TEPA) de la oficina de Historiador de la Cuidad, TEPA, The Perishable Press, The University of Alabama, The University of Alabama School of Library and Infomration Studies Book Arts Program, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Timothy Geiger, Travis Becker, Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama Center for Cuba Collaboration and Scholarship, University of Utah, Uso Ilegal del Alma, Van Dijk, vellum, Walter Hamady, Wisconsin

Why Books?
Steve Miller
June 4
Thursday, 6:30–7:30
Rare Books Classroom, Marriott Library, Level 4

Steve Miller was born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin and educated at The University of Wisconsin-Madison. Having taken letterpress printing classes with Walter Hamady of The Perishable Press, he founded Red Ozier Press in 1976—a fine press devoted to publishing literary first editions in handmade limited editions.
Steve came to The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 1988. He teaches letterpress printing, hand papermaking, and coordinates the MFA in the Book Arts Program. Although his primary focus at the university is in the teaching of traditional bookmaking, he is also the proprietor of Red Hydra Press and collaborates on various limited edition publishing projects with authors and artists. Steve is a co-director of Paper and Book Intensive, a nationally-recognized annual series of summer workshops in the book arts. He is also a trustee of the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina and co-directs the University of Alabama Center for Cuba Collaboration and Scholarship. Steve was awarded the 2012 Distinguished Career Award from the College Book Art Association (CBAA)


ML422-S76-H36-1993

Heartbreak Thursday
Helene Hanff (1916-1997)
Tuscaloosa, AL: Parallel Editions, 1993
ML422 S76 H36 1993

Printed by Steve Miller and Timothy Geiger with Baskerville types. Cap calligraphy and pochoir by Paula Marie Gourley. Bound in purple cloth-covered boards, printed cover label by Paula Marie Gourley with Catherine May and Coriander Reisbord. Edition of seventy-five copies. University of Utah copy is no. 69, signed by the author. Gift of Eileen Wallace.


PS3552-E377-U64-1995-covers

unfolding the tablecloth of god
T. Begley (b. 1956) and Olga Broumas (b. 1949)
Tuscaloosa, AL: Red Hydra Press, 1995
PS3552 E377 U64 1995

Printed and bound by Steve Miller. Wrapper drawing by Pinkney Herbert. Edition of eighty-seven copies. University of Utah copy is no. 1, signed by the poets and printer. Gift of Eileen Wallace.


PS3552-L9-S28-1999-ArtistsStatement

Artist’s Statement:
“The first time I read Bly’s poem Singing Late at Night at Chuck and Phil’s Farm, I saw a thunderous tornado sweeping across the fields, and poem lines swirling from it. No matter how hard I tried to rid myself of the image, it stayed. And so I made the reduction linocut with words swirled in photopolymer types around it. The words all come from several of Bly’s poems in his book Iron John, and one of his translations of Kabir in the same book. What I saw in Singing Late at Night…unleashed a riff of Bly words for me.” – Steve Miller

Saturday Nights in Marietta
Robert Bly (b. 1926)
Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota Center for Book Arts, 1999
PS3552 L9 S28 1999

Poems by Robert Bly accompanied by visual interpretations by Bonnie Thompson Norman, Steve Miller, David Moyer, Ruth Lingen, Colleen Dwire, Jack Molloy, Karla Elling, Beth Grabowski, James Horton, Elsi Vassdal Ellis, Audrey Niffenegger, Eric Bealer, Deborah Mae Broad, Joe Sanders, and Caren Heft. Poems printed by Michael Sean Fallon on handmade paper by Mark Hark. Type is Van Dijk from The Press and Letterfoundry of Michael and Winifred Bixler. Bound by Dennis Ruud with leather spine and vellum lacing; housed in box of barn board. Designed by May Brooks Kirkpatrick under the direction of MCBA Artistic Director Mary Jo Pauly. Deluxe edition of 26 lettered copies, signed by the poet. University of Utah copy is “Z.”


TS1098-H8-B34-2000b-title-portrait

By His Own Labor
Cathleen Baker
Tuscaloosa, AL: Red Hydra Press, 2000
TS1098 H8 B34 2000b

From the colophon: “John DePol cut the Hunter portrait in wood, Michael and Winifred Bixler cast the types, Kathryn and Howard Clark and Travis Becker made the paper, Dard Hunter III made the endsheets using his grandfather’s Bull’s Head & Branch watermarked mould…designed and printed by Steve Miller and Cathleen Baker and the plate volume was printed by Meriden-Stinehour. Both the text and the plate volumes were bound at Gray Parrot; the box was made by Judi Conant.” Edition of one hundred and fifty numbered copies and twenty-six lettered copies. Numbered copies are quarter-bound in leather with printed pattern papers created from a single leaf & stem punch cut by the author. University of Utah copy is no. 45.


PQ7392-D53-U76-2006-skeletonspread

Uso Ilegal del Alma
Luis Francisco Diaz Sanchez
Tuscaloosa, AL: Parellel Editions, 2006
PQ7392 D53 U76 2006

From the colophon: “This book is a collaboration between The University of Alabama School of Library and Information Studies Book Arts Program, and our colleagues in Havana, Cuba. The collaborators from Alabama are Book Arts faculty bookbinder Anna Embree, faculty letterpress printer Steve Miller, graduate students Katrin Braun and Sara Owen, and translator Maria Vargas. The collaborators from Cuba are Luis Francisco Diaz Sanchez, artist Julio César Peña Peralta, and, from the Taller Experimental de Papel Artesanal (TEPA) de la oficina de Historiador de la Cuidad, Izel Marino Gonzales, Dra del TEPA, and Rafael Suan Lazo, Tecnico del TEPA…letterpress printed at The University of Alabama. Linocuts…printed in Havana by UA printers and the artist…Binding…done in Havana by UA binders and our Cuban friends.” Edition of fifty-five copies. University of Utah copy is no. 34, signed by author.

Rare Books is pleased to support the Book Arts Program with its fine press and artists’ books collections.

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Book of the Week – Types and Bookmaking: Containing Notes on the…

07 Monday Apr 2014

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book collector, bookmaking, bookplate, Boston, Bruce Rogers, D.B. Updike, Denmark, Estelle Doheny, Fred Anthoensen, Frederick William Anthoesen, Maine, morocco, Portland, Southworth Press, The Southworth-Anthoensen Press, type, type specimens, typographic, typographic ornaments, typography, United States

Anthoensen, Types and Bookmaking, 1943, Title Page
Anthoensen, Types and Bookmaking, 1943, Type
Anthoensen, Types and Bookmaking, 1943, Decoration

Types and Bookmaking: Containing Notes on the…
Fred Anthoensen (1892-1969)
Portland, ME: The Southworth-Anthoensen Press, 1943

Frederick William Anthoensen was born in Denmark, but came to the United States as an infant. He attended school in Portland, Maine. He became interested in printing under the influence of D.B. Updike and Bruce Rogers, both of Boston, and both heavy hitters of early US twentieth-century typography. In 1901, Anthoensen began working as a compositor for Southworth Press. Seventeen years later he became its managing director. In 1934, the name of the press changed its name to Southworth-Anthoenson Press. After 1944, it became Anthoensen Press. Anthoensen was recognized as an exemplary craftsman in his day.

Contains type specimens, typographic ornaments and flowers, and specimen pages, accompanied by a descriptive catalogue. Bound in full charcoal linen buckram with black morocco spine.  Issued in slipcase. University of Utah copy contains bookplate of book collector Estelle Doheny.

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Book of the Week – The Morning Road

04 Monday Nov 2013

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Alden Noble, Armour Institute, Blue Sky Press, bookmaking, Chicago, fine press, Fred Langworthy, handmade, Hyde Park, Thomas Wood Stevens, William Morris

Stevens, The Morning Road, 1902, Cover
Stevens, The Morning Road, 1902, Title Page
Stevens, The Morning Road, 1902, Poems

The Morning Road
Thomas Wood Stevens (1880- – 1942)
Chicago: The Blue Sky Press, 1902
PS3537 T475 M67 1902

Drawing from the great number of Chicago artists and writers of the time, three ambitious young men, Fred Langworthy, Tom Stevens, and Alden Noble – all students at the new Armour Institute – produced almost fifty books and a monthly magazine, under the name of The Blue Sky Press of Hyde Park, between 1899 and 1907.  The publications, part of the international renaissance of bookmaking led by William Morris, represent a successful press producing handmade limited editions and a significant chapter in the history of American fine press in the early twentieth century.

 

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