Day Two: Codex Book Fair

Codex 2013 took place over 4 days in two locations. The Book Fair made itself quite at home in a new location at the beautiful Craneway Pavilion, just north of Berkeley on the Richmond waterfront. The symposiums took place on just two mornings at the Berkeley Art Museum and featured many excellent speakers. On Monday, Sandro Berra of the Tipoteca, the working museum for the history of printing and type near Venice, Italy, spoke about the importance of working with metal type. Tuesday morning began with Russell Maret speaking on his own letter forms, books and printing. German book artist Veronika Schaepers spoke about living in Tokyo and making artist books. I won't spoil it for you, but her books are very intelligent and curiously amusing. The morning finished with an excellent presentation by Mark Dimunation, Chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections for the Library of Congress, speaking on the artist's intention when making modern artists books. As good fortune will have it, I discovered that all of Day Two's sold out symposium is available to watch online here. If you have any interest in books and printing, you should not miss it. 

An early stop at the table of Barb Tetenbaum of the Triangular Press revealed several treasures of new works. Glimpse, the name of the most recent collaborative edition she made with Julie Chen of Flying Fish Press can be seen here. Barb also had a fun double deck of Ideation Cards designed for use as a catalyst for conceptualizing artist's work. This work was also designed in collaboration with Julie Chen.  

Kim (Antic-ham) and Francis (Franticham) of RedFoxPress in Ireland, produce a variety of editioned books featuring digital, screenprint, assembly and transfer images with Dada, Fluxus influences. I hope to do a feature on one of their large screenprint books later.   

Shelley Hoyt's The Circus of Most Inventions, a typographic accordion work which makes me smile. 

Stopping occasionally to look up and take in the view of San Francisco in the distance and the large container ships sailing by, certainly had its rewards. It was such a lovely setting.

One of my favorite discoveries of the week was not your typical modern artist book, but rare Kimono pattern trade catalogs from Kyoto Japan, the center of the kimono industry at one time. The books presented by Mitsui Fine Arts, Inc. contain page after page of stunning woodblock printed textile designs printed as early as the mid-19th century. I also hope to feature these books in a later post.    

Day two brings a visit to David Lance Goines' renown Saint Heironymous Press in Berkeley, where we were invited to lunch with Jenny Wilkson's old friend, Richard Seibert. Jenny and Richard once worked together at Peter Koch's press. Richard befriended Goines many years ago when he worked for Alice Waters at Chez Panisse restaurant. He showed an interest in printing and Goines, who was a frequent Chez Panisse patron and promoter, invited Seibert to work for him. He now shares the print shop with him and is a master letterpress job printer (and still a great chef too!)

Printing pals, Richard & Jenny.

The C & P press which was the alleged model for the Full Circle Poster below. As a young start-up in the graphic design world in the early 70s, Goines had a terrific influence on me. I purchased this poster in 1976 from the Full Circle Gallery in Seattle, and remember it was $10. This was the first piece of collectible artwork I ever purchased, and it was costly for me at the time. I framed it and gave it to my father as a gift, and I'm now hoping he will regift it back to me someday.   

Goines' linoleum cutting tools with an old package of Speedball cutters, which I believe goes back to the sixties. In a conversation with him, he explained that he always creates a linocut for the line art of each poster. He then scans this and completes the rest of the artwork digitally. Below is a linocut image he did for a centennial anniversary card for their C & P.  

We were treated to a generous backroom lunch prepared by former Chez Panisse chef Richard Seibert. He made a beautiful green salad with sauteed mushrooms and a salad dressing with a subtle hint of truffles. He also served a wonderful chicken pâté. His skills in the kitchen are only equalled by his skills as a letterpress printer. These prepared lunches are a daily occurrence I'm told.
     Tomorrow in this same space: Day 3 of the Codex Book Fair.

Peace, Love and Art

The Rainbow Box was a series of four small books written by Joseph Pintauro (1930 -) and beautifully illustrated and designed by Norman Laliberté (1925 -). They were published as a boxed set by Harper & Row in 1970 and came packaged with the fold-out "Peace Poster" seen below. Pintauro, who was a priest, poet and a playwright (A—My Name is Alice), was given leave from his parish to work in advertising at Young & Rubicam. In the late 60s he collaborated with Sister Corita Kent to write a trilogy of books about belief of Things, God and Man. His prose for The Rainbow Box series rose out of the 60s Peace and Love decade and the bitterness of the Viet Nam War. At times it is rather dark, and other times is very optimistic and revealing. The quartet was divided into the four seasons, each relating to themes of time, love, peace and magic, and are quite distinct from one another, revealing Laliberté's remarkable versatility as an artist. Some of the books are entirely hand-lettered in his signature style, while others rely on a liberal use of press type at times. The set of four books, consisting of The Peace Box, The Rabbit Box, The Magic Box and A Box of Sun, came nicely packaged in a square-cubed box. It was originally printed in an edition of 15,000 and sold for $15.95 when it was introduced in 1970. A short time later it earned Laliberté the AIGA Award for Design when it was selected for the Fifty Books of the Year exhibition in 1971. See more photos of the boxed set here.

With rabbits and the joyful signs of renewal in the air, I was reminded of the The Rabbit Box book, one of the four seasonal books in The Rainbow Box quartet. This book of Spring is the most simply-designed book in the boxed set. Perhaps an economic decision—it is printed just 2-color sepia tones to give it that mock nostalgia feel. Laliberté combined old found photos, bits of ephemera, and hand-shadow illustrations, with beautifully hand-lettered script for this entire book. The cover design using Palace Script, is an injustice however, and I wince every time I see it next to his lovely hand-lettered script inside the book.

Laliberté's brilliant artwork is always colorful, diverse and imaginative. Early in my career I  discovered his influential book 100 Ways to Have Fun With an Alligator, and it totally flipped on a switch in my head. Co-authored with Richey Kehl, it is an invitation to a party written with exercises and inspirational quotes for art education teachers, and playfully accompanied with Laliberté's lively illustrations. My own tattered paperback copy with loose pages and marginalia, still gets occasional use whenever I need to re-boot and do some serious problem solving. Although difficult to find, he co-authored numerous other books on art education in the 60s and 70s which are just as relevant today. A prolific artist, Laliberté has always explored a variety of styles and media, including stencil, woodcut, collage, pencil, watercolor, and papercuts to name just a few, and his work has continued to evolve in his later years. As the seasons change, I will continue to chronicle each of the other three books in The Rainbow Box series, as there is far too much design goodness to share in just this one post.
:: More stuff from the Letterology Library 

Ephemeral Books

I'm rather intrigued by the ice book projects of Basia Irland who is an environmental artist concerned with river and watershed restoration. She works with research biologists, botanists, stream ecologists and community groups on various conservation projects to promote healthy watersheds. As part of her river restoration projects, she works with participants to hand carve ice books of frozen river water and embeds each with local native seeds which become sort of an "ecological language or riparian text" as she calls it. As the frozen books are launched downstream, the ice melts in the river's current and the seeds are released. Theoretically the seeds will grow into plants and trees which help to stabilize the river banks and provide shelter for fish and wildlife. I imagine this could happen, but it seems rather overly simplistic to me. I do appreciate the concept however and think her ephemeral books are beautiful. They promote an awareness of watershed preservation and restoration, and oh yeah, it must be really fun to watch ice books float downstream. You can watch a video of Irland's ice book project Receding/Reseeding here.

This ice book weighed 200 pounds and included seeds of the mountain maple, columbine, and spruce. It was released in Boulder Creek, Colorado in 2007.

A young ice book reader wonders why there are no pictures. 

Irland makes other materials in the construction of her environmental books. The one above is Barnacle Book II on the shores of Puget Sound in Washington state. Below is a text of sand dollars in what else, but sand.

The Book of Drought is made from parched field notes and dehydrated paragraphs. The pages are dry from being sun-baked.