For the past several weeks I’ve enjoyed reading David Wolske’s blog Letterpress Daily where he documents his continually expanding type collection. It appears to be mostly wood type, and entries are like the one below — a photo of a wood block and a resulting print plus a bit about the font. See more here.
Chicago Art Magazine has an interview with book artists Mellisa Jay Craig and Brian Dettmer, by Stephanie Cristello, that starts
Does Book Art Have to Resemble a Book?
No, it’s not just you. First-time interactions with Book Arts can be a strange encounter; the first thing we ask ourselves is how on earth this can be considered a book.
The answer I’ve always gone to is: “It’s a book because the artist says it is” — But that answer seems too easy; I feel like I’m being tricked. These objects are carved, warped, twisted and turned, set on fire, you name it — some are just downright unreadable. So where do we stand when we’re faced with these things?
As an artist myself, I’ve been exposed to Artist’s Books for quite some time. This conversation, of what constitutes a book, is one that gets tossed around between artists pretty frequently. This roundup consists of two artists that work more sculpturally within the realm of Book Arts. So here are three things you need to know about the medium and its role in the third dimension.
Read more here, including the answer to “does it have to be readable.” The image above is of flying books by Melissa Jay Craig
The Heldfond Book Gallery in San Anselmo California sells these witty “Biblio Pulp” posters — 8.5″ X 11″ for $25. There are more here. To give you a taste, they read, from left to right:
Inside the ethical waste land of rare book appraisals
What Are They Worth
Bookman?
. . . .
Every Bookseller in Town had Been in her Library
Bibliobimbo
Depraved by an Unbridled Lust
for Rare Books
A Heinous Conspiracy Revealed.
They Made Me a
Book Collector
Rare Booksellers and their Fiendish Plot
to Indoctrinate the Compulsive
My world has been full of poetry this past week. First I found the American Life in Poetry project, former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s website. Then last week For Colored Girls opened — the movie adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf. A choreopoem is Shange’s term to describe a performance blending music, dance and poetry. I’ve gotten the play from the library.
I had to drive to Albuquerque the other day — 60 miles one way, much of it pretty desolate. But on either (populated) end, I noticed stands of trees in glorious shades of yellow. On arriving home, I read these poems in the NY Times, celebrating fall and marking the end of daylight saving time.
Finally, catching up on the pile of New Yorker magazine’s by my bed, I read about a poetry contest sponsored by the Miami Herald. They asked people to write 6 lines in honor of the newest member of the Miami Heat, LeBron James. They got more than 1,100 entries from 31 states and Canada! And they gave out all sorts of awards besides “best” — including “best dinosaur poem”, “audience favorite” and “best poem attempting to get a date with LeBron.” And this groaner awarded “Best use of Akron” to Skully of Akron, Ohio
I don’t want to sound too Cavalier
Once he was ours And now he’s there
But The Decision
has created A local schism
And that aint no an-AKRON-ism
Read more from the contest here or the New Yorker article here.
As part of its Learning blog, the New York Times has a weekly Poetry Pairing series, where they “collaborate with the Poetry Foundation to feature a work from its American Life in Poetry project alongside content from The Times that somehow echoes, extends or challenges the poem’s themes.”
The poem for this week is The Exam by Joyce Sutphen, about a long marriage…
I am thinking
of my parents, of the six decades they’vebeen together, of the thirty thousand
meals they’ve eaten in the kitchen,
Finding a picture for this post was a challenge — it’s from an article about pairing cheese with wine & beer in the Oregonian. It immediately resonated with me (and side tracked my blog writing for quite some time), as the article starts “I suppose I’m biased, but for me tasting cheese is one of life’s major pleasures.” (The photograph is by Mike Davis.)
After spending the last 10 months shoe-horning all our belongings into our new smaller home, I’m telling my family I don’t want any presents for Christmas — not even a book. But if I did, here’s one that sounds interesting… The Quick Brown Fox Jumps over the Lazy Dog, a typeface memory game. It “includes 25 variations of the letter ‘A’, each in a different letter type. Players attempt to find the matching A’s in the same letter type.” (First seen here on swissmiss.)