All posts by Emily

New Work

The Tragedy of King Lear

I began reading King Lear again after the 2016 presidential election. If Hillary Clinton had been elected maybe I would have gravitated to Macbeth. As I read and reread the play I tried to focus only on the themes of the tragedy. There are many differences between this play and current events but there are also some similarities. The vanity and folly of an aging man is a family tragedy. When that man is also the leader of a nation it becomes a tragedy for the whole country. Many thanks to Laura Martin for introducing me to Man Ray’s painting Hamlet at the Cleveland Museum of Art. This in turn led me to the book Man Ray Human Equations {a journey from mathematics to Shakespeare},  published by Hatje Cantz Verlag, Germany 2015. Printed letterpress on Text Wove paper using hand set type, polymer plates from Boxcar Press, pressure printing, collage, and paper engineering. Bound with covers of Grey Rives BFK Heavyweight using a packed single needle link stitch and linen thread. Encased in a cloth covered clam shell box. Begun in 2016 and fully completed in early 2019. Edition of 25 copies and a few artist’s proofs.

The book will soon be seen in the collections of the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, UK; University of Iowa, University of Pennsylvania, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Washington University, University of Missouri, Columbia University, The Library of Congress, Indiana University, Wesleyan University, University of Denver, National Gallery Of Art Library, Folger Shakespeare Library.

Events

Codex VII 2019, Table 86

February 3, 2019toFebruary 6, 2019

  

I will once again be presenting my books at the Codex Book Fair in Richmond, CA at the Craneway Pavilion, February 3-6, 2019. I will have three new books: The Tragedy of King Lear, Order of Appearance, and Cross Words as well as recent books King Leer: A Tragedy in Five Puppets, Funny Peculiar Funny Ha Ha, and Out There In Here. For more information: CODEX 2019

Workshops

Maine Media Workshop letterpress class

August 4, 2019toAugust 10, 2019

   

Letterpress printing can be a slow process, but it can also be very spontaneous. Using a Vandercook proof press with magnet and Boxcar bases it is possible to print in a spontaneous manner composing the image as you print. Stainless steel wire combined with various sticky backed foams can be cut and manipulated  to make shapes and lines quickly and can be altered as needed. P22Blox are shaped modules that can be combined and recombined to forms letters, frames, figures and more. The emphasis will be on experimentation and variation rather than on specific end products. Each participant will contribute a set sized sample print for a portfolio exchange. For more information go their website: Maine Media Workshops

New Work, Residencies

Bodleian Bibligraphic Press project

   

The project Order of Appearance: Disorder of Disappearance, printed for the Bodelian Bibliographic Press has been completed and the first copy has become a part of the collections at the Bodelian Libraries. Additional copies will be for sale at the Codex Book Fair in 2019. Robert Bolick visited and included a write-up of the project on his blog: Books On Books – Curated by Robert Bolick

Residencies, Works in Progress

Printer in Residence Bibliographic Press, Bodleian Libraries

     

I am now in Oxford, ready to start printing my project: titled Order of Appearance: Disorder of Disappearance. The press room is located off the courtyard of the Old Bodelian library building with a lovely view of the Radcliffe Camera (reading rooms for English, history, and theology collections) out the window. The press is a British licensed version of a Vandercook proof press, it seems about like an SP20 to me.

Workshops

UK Teaching: The Exquisite Corpse printing workshop

September 12, 2018toSeptember 14, 2018

  

In the early part of the 20th century a group of Surrealists played a parlour game called Consequences where each player writes or draws on a piece of paper, folds it, and passes it on for further contributions. The game, initially done for fun, soon revealed its enriching and creative side.

The name for the game coined by the Surrealists is cadaver exquis, or exquisite corpse, and is the inspiration for Emily’s class. Using a variety of printing techniques, participants will produce various fanciful images that are passed on to the next person for additional input. It’s a collaborative exercise that stretches the usual comfort zone of a single individual. It is bound to throw up many surprises and open up new ways to look at imagery and interact with it.

Participants will execute fanciful or serious images of creatures (human or otherwise) and learn a wide variety of hand printing techniques using stencils, collage, relief printing from wire, hand-made stamps, gelatin printing and other paper decoration techniques. Each participant will make multiples of their images to be exchanged among the group and then each will bind these collected pages in to a book. A multiple set of prints will be made so that each student has a full edition of the results. The prints will finally be bound into a book, or perhaps even something more…

For more information go to the BINDING re:DEFINED website using this link:  full details 2018