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