Donald has been telling everyone about our project. This means we’ve had lots of curious visitors.

We’ve even had the local tv news come in to film a spot about the project! It’s not a bad explanation of the project, but it’s not super flattering of me—too much direct light, chins and whining about hand inking! (there will be more about that later). I know Donald and I said much more interesting and smarter things than what got into the video—and Lynn too! Oh well, it was exciting to suddenly be Dunedin famous! Here’s the link:

http://www.dunedintv.co.nz/news/joint-project-inks

The next day the ODT (Otago Daily Times) came in—so we were in the newspaper! This time the photographer was nice enough to photograph us from above—much better. I was also happy to have Lynn more included this time. Too bad Rhian wasn’t there!

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/project-follows-spirit-du-faur

Hopefully that’s it for the paparazzi.

While I’ve been setting and printing the text for the book, Lynn has been busy with working with photos, maps and other visual material for us to include in the book.

It’s tricky finding just the right images, as well as the right size and color. The subject and text don’t call for the kind of layering and playful treatment we both tend to do in our own work, but we’re learning a lot reigning it in! It’s good for me to see that I can successfully (so far) work on a project that’s not centered around humor.

Also, because of our time constraints, we’re having to be very decisive very quickly. It can be a bit nerve racking at times and poor Donald or Rhian sometime walk in right in the middle of one of our moments of waffling and fretting. Sometimes bringing us snacks helps.

Lynn is amazing with the solar plates she’s been making. She tests sizes with transparencies on our mock up of the book. She tests exposure times  and makes multiple plates to make sure she gets JUST the right image.

She’s using a few different kinds of plates. Some are similar (or maybe the same) as the polymer plates we use for letterpress/relief printing. Some are greener and more flexible.

The plates are created by placing a transparency (a negative to create a relief plate and a positive to create an intaglio plate) over a light sensitive sheet of plastic. Then the transparency and plate is exposed to UV light. Everywhere that doesn’t get hit with UV light is the washed out with water, leaving a plate with either a raised surface where the image is or a groove where the image is (depending on whether you were aiming for a relief or intaglio process).

Here are some of the transparencies, tools and resultant prints

We really liked this map that Rhian worked with before, but the image wasn’t crisp or in high enough contrast to make a good plate of it.                      

Then Lynn found this map of Mt Cook and the Southern Alps. It worked perfectly!

She printed the plate as an intaglio—meaning she covered the plate in ink, so the ink would get into the grooves of the image. This is actually a picture of her working on a plate other than the map, but you get the idea.

Then she wiped the excess ink away—leaving a just enough to give the map the look of dirt and age—and ran the plate through the etching press with dampened paper. It came out great! And about 160 times too! The map is the front paste down for the book.

This is how Lynn exposes the plates. It’s a huge, very strong light bulb. In this photo she’s re-exposing a plate after washing it out. This hardens the plate and keeps it from breaking down during the printing process.

Here’s an intaglio plate, inked up, wiped and ready to print. This is a plate from a photo that will be the back paste down for the book.

Here’s a few plates and a registration set up on the press.

Just can’t get enough of all the stacks of prints. Just look at all those Fredas! They were also printed as intaglios.

A few more prints. The book is going to be great!

With the structure of the book settled, the cover materials decided and the labels printed it was time to work out the pages more fully. Before coming up with the dimensions for the book, I set the poem (there are eleven of them) with the longest line length:

and the poem with the most lines:

This helped me figure how what page dimensions would fit the poems best. I also considered the size of the sheet of paper we would be working with, so we could use as much of the sheet without wasting paper.

Our paper was delivered to the University Bindery and Don cut it up to the press sheet size we needed. Needless to say, I was excited when he let me use the huge guillotine to cut some of the paper myself!

Now to setting type! I set myself up so I could keep an eye on all the people, birds and traffic outside while I worked.

My choice for the body type was pretty much made for me. I wanted to be able to have a lot of text set at once so I could move through the printing quickly, and not have to keep breaking down type to set the next bit. In order to do this I would need a lot of type. The type Otakou Press has the most of is 12 point Garamond. Perfect. That’s what I set those first poems with and now it was time to set more. I tried out a few different versions with other type and colors for the titles of the poems.

In the end I decided—with Lynn and Rhian agreeing—the 18pt Gill Sans Extra Heavy in gray worked best. (here’s that picture again)

I like the variation from all Garamond and the more modern touch it lends the design. At first I was looking for something less heavy and fat, but we didn’t have exactly what I was looking for. Printing it in gray ink knocks the big type back a bit so it’s not so over powering. I think this is what’s fun (in a slightly twisted way perhaps) when hand setting type—I don’t always have on hand exactly what I want, so I have to get more creative and resourceful to make what I do have work.

So I went about setting six of the poems and proofing them.

Here’s a couple views of the work space.

I printed some of the proofs on this press.

It’s a sweet little press. I feel like it gets eclipsed by the big dramatic Columbian Press. I’m probably anthropomorphizing too much again.

Don came back in the next day with a mock up of the cover with the pages/accordion inside.

We tweaked the design a bit to make sure the hinges between press sheets would be at the spine edge of the book. I’ve had success with them at the front of a book before, but that was with thinner paper. This one is definitely better with the hinges at the back.

Here’s the cover that Don made.

Since we need to have the whole edition bound before the wayzgoose (celebration at the end of a printing job) on September 7th, we decided it was a good idea if the bindery could get at least the first 3 press sheets soon, so they could start gluing them together. This meant that—with our design—the title page, colophon and introduction about Freda and poems would have to be set and printed right away. I usually like to print the title page and colophon last, but not this time!

So I had to work out a design for the title page. Again, I didn’t have exactly what I thought I wanted for type. I tried out a few things.

In the end we all liked this the best.

It was some fussy two color hand inking (more about that later).

But I printed 160 of them. We need an edition of 120, but it’s always good to have extras—just in case. I’m a bit extra worried, so I wanted a lot of extra!

Sometimes the coolest stuff that comes from printing is the clean up.

This is what happened when I was cleaning off the roller.

So along with all my setting, proofing and printing—and Lynn’s plate making, mixing inks and  printing—we’ve had a lot of visitors. Some fans of the Otakou Press and the Printer in Residence program have been stopping by to say hello and see what we’re doing. We’ve also had classes from the University as well as the Polytechnic stop in to talk with us about the project.

Rhian, Lynn (taking the picture) and I spoke with this writing class (Lynn’s taking the picture).

Lynn showed a science and communication class how she makes and prints the solar plates she’s working with.

These visits have been fun. Word is definitely getting out, thanks to Donald. We even had the local news come in and interview us (more about that later too) and the newspaper! I guess we’re big news in Dunedin!

I’ve mentioned the paper for the project and a bit about the structure of the book, but not in detail. Originally I thought a series of one-sheet books in an enclosure would be interesting. Maybe one book per poem (when I thought there would be 4-6 poems). But eventually I realized that was an idea I was interested in with my own personal work and it didn’t make sense for this project.

Then I considered many variations of binding structures. Our book has to do with the Southern Alps, so I wanted to do something that alluded to a mountain range. I tried a number of ideas…

and made a bunch of models.

Mostly they all seemed a bit forced and over designed. Then there was this to think about—this is a fairly large edition of 120 that will be bound by the University binders while I’m still here in New Zealand—so keeping it simple is very important. So I went back to a structure I used recently. It’s a simple accordion in a case—attached on one board.

This will be pretty simple to print (so she says)—no need to worry about imposition and little printing back to back. So that’s appealing when time is short. But what makes the accordion structure so appealing for this project is that it refers to the shape of a range of mountains and allows for a bit more variation in image making techniques for Lynn’s work.

So that’s the plan. Lynn has been making plates galore. There will be a photo of Freda in the front, so she’s been working hard to make a big edition of prints.

Rhian, Lynn and I have been getting together in the studio pretty often to talk about ideas, adjust work in progress and generally enjoy our collaboration.

I met with Don Tobin at the University Bindery and picked out some cloth for the cover.

We decided to inset the title label, but that meant I had to decide quickly what that label would look like and where it would go. I remembered the printers cuts of Mt Cook that John Holmes brought out when he came in.

I tested some different colors for the mountain and the type over it. We all agreed that grays and icy blues made sense for Mt Cook and also the black and white photos of Freda and her excursions.

The book has a longer title than just “Freda”, but it seemed like a good idea to have just her name over printed over the mountain. So here’s the label and the cloth colors. Now Don and Romilly at the bindery can get started making the cases for the book.

Well, after about a year and a half of planning, I’m finally here in Dunedin! It’s a great city with beautiful hills all around—right down to the water (which I haven’t been to yet).

Here’s a few pictures from the trip over and the first couple days.

The Printer in Residence projects at University of Otago are collaborative projects. A project may be with a designer and printer working with area writers, or an illustrator working with a printer. There’s all kinds of combinations but it’s almost never a solo endeavor. The goal is to produce an edition that shows off the printing facilities in the library and to foster book-making both within the University environment and to the wider arts community. Copies of the edition are sold—often to collectors and institutions, but the copies are available for sale to everyone—with the proceeds going to the next year’s project.

I tend to work alone in my personal work—producing the writing and imagery myself as well as the printing and binding. So this will definitely be a learning experience for me to collaborate so fully on such a large project. Fortunately I have friendly and very skilled people to collaborate with!

I wanted to work on something that had to do with the landscape—since that’s what most Americans think of when they think of New Zealand. I also thought it would be good to work with a New Zealand writer working on new material, rather than with previously published material. After discussing a few ideas with Donald Kerr, we decided on a project that fit the bill perfectly. The text comes from Rhian Gallagher, a poet who has been working on a series of poems about the Southern Alps—New Zealand’s highest mountain range—and in particular Fred Du Faur, the first woman to reach the summit of Mt Cook. Lynn Taylor is a local printmaker, will be creating imagery for the book.

Together we will design the book, I will set the type and in a group effort, we will print the edition. Binding the edition will be done here with the University Bindery.

Here’s an article on Te Ara about Freda Du Faur: http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3d17/du-faur-emmeline-freda

Here’s the Wikipedia article about Freda Du Faur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freda_Du_Faur