"Never knowingly understood"

The photograph immediately above will be instantly recognizable (to all that have fallen under his spell over the years) as Ivor Cutler . . . of blessed memory. The, probably unfinished, portrait above was painted by Hans Schwarz (who was a neighbour and purveyor of weird and wonderful prints, books, antiques and all sorts when we lived in Blackheath during our 'life' in London) and discovered by us recently.

Here are a couple more photographs of the great man whom I first saw in 1963 in London's Comedy Theatre at An Evening of British Rubbish with Bruce Lacey (with his robots) and The Alberts. His long-faced songs, unique Scottish accent and tortured portable harmonium combined to keep me (and thousands of others) in stitches of laughter.

A song entitled "Shoplifters" involved (naturally) a request to know whether you would like your shop lifted - high, up in the sky.








I now get to the reason for this post. A number of years ago Frances and I were part of a Private Press Book Fair being held in The Royal Festival Hall. Suddenly I looked up and realized that Ivor (or Mister Cutler as he insisted with a twinkle on being addressed by those he had not been introduced to) Cutler was walking down the aisle straight towards us. I was instantly turned to jelly. I almost ran away and perhaps that would have been better than the ludicrously awful performance of shyness and nerves that I subjected the poor man to. Believe me, it was dreadful. He was most understanding.

The next year, the same event happened again and there was Mr Cutler bearing down upon us. This time, the dear man came straight up to me, shook my hand and suggested a little walk. We walked and talked and ended up in The Poetry Library (which used to be within the RFH) and compared notes on poets we liked. Then he was on his way leaving me to realize that this whole exercise had been to put me at my ease and to expunge my blithering idiotness of last year.

He did also introduce us to the wallet which contained his famous Able-label 'publications' and he handed over to us ones that he thought we would enjoy. I have always thought this one of the most powerful publishing formats ever devised and a study of the internet shows that there are many others who treasure the tiny tracts that were solemnly handed to them.

As one and then another were passed to us, Frances said she was sad not to have something to give to him. He retorted that he did not give things to be given something back and that Frances looked the sort of person who would appreciate the gift and share it with others.

We kept the treasures in a pot on our mantlepiece and they came out regularly to be shown to visitors. About a year ago I looked in the pot and found nothing. Had some over-zealous cleaner (which we do not have) thrown them away? No amount of searching revealed them.

Then suddenly, just the other day, when looking for something quite other, there they were . . . 'tidied away'. They are now safely returned to the pot to delight suitable visitors but also I was able to photograph them. I hope this shot can be clicked big enough to allow you to read every word.

And yet . . .

. . . having said so firmly that I was not going to 'traipse round with my camera', today was so deliciously lovely that I couldn't resist! I will just let these images speak for themselves on the subject of the piece of heaven in which we are lucky enough to live. Small wonder that an old name for this corner of the Wye Valley was "God's Pocket".

Transfiguration

The dramatic blast and whoosh of Spring this month (despite jackets and heating still being needed the moment the sun goes behind a cloud) has been so universally felt and talked about that I do not feel a traipse round the garden with a camera would add very much to this blog or to the world at large.

And yet I feel it SO fiercely. The winter we have just gone through was so cold and dark, metaphorically for us as well as meteorologically, that I despaired of ever being returned to the light.

But the Green Man finally began to stir and some brave birds began to challenge the darkness with a tentative chorus at dawn. Now there is an ecstasy of song from every bush and yesterday we saw three martins flying, although they have not yet returned to our nests. The sunlight lays open the unimaginably youthful greens of the trees and it is this one sight that I have tried to capture - to stand for all the rest.

This Aspen is my favourite tree. It looks wonderful, it sounds wonderful and we planted it!

Abstracts at the seaside

He's been at it again!
Down to Pembrokeshire we went, the moment a big sun showed up on the online weather forecasts for more than an hour or two at a time. Wonderfully restorative. Snow? What snow?





It is frustrating not to be able to paint pictures like this but very exciting to see them literally lying around on the beach waiting to be discovered and recorded.

Click to increase the size of these canvasses!


































This is my favourite. It is called "Sand, historic coal traces and an action-painting dog"!

One tiddler does not a fish supper make . . .

. . . but this poor little creature (help came too late, I am afraid) is the very first to have been discovered on our riverside field!

High tide this morning and a lot of rain on previous days so the river overran its banks. Our small friend must have swum happily into this gentle new backwater and got left high and dry

HERE

where the arrow points!

Renewed elegance for our Website

It seems (was) aeons ago that we first dreamed of having a website but wondered who would have the knowledge and experience to work the dark arts but be sensitive enough to avoid the cheap and garish excesses that, even then, tended to make web surfing a less than relaxing activity.

As we have mentioned before, the answer came somewhat laterally when we saw a small site (later it would have been a Blog) put up by our long-standing friend Michael Hutchins as a means of sending news and images to friends and family back home while he was in Australia. We were amazed and delighted by the simplicity and understated elegance of these pages but hardly surprised given the fact that Michael had been a letterpress man for ever and the screens had been designed in the same way as pages from his beautiful Chimaera Press books.

Thus it was that we became fortunate enough to have Michael design our site, its basic structure and its content. First one or two photographs were posted on pages about our books but, as the wizardry advanced, we put up more sophisticated 'movies' which enable people to study a decent sample of one or all of our books. The next best thing to handling them.

Over the years, people have gone out of their way to compliment us on our website and to say that it was easy to navigate, helpful and friendly. Over the years, it has also to be said, the number of new 'friends' that have come to us via the internet, from whatever starting point and by whatever route, has greatly outnumbered those who have arrived in more traditional ways.

The last few years have, sadly, been cruel to Michael and his family in various ways and we agreed recently that he did not any longer need the added burden of looking after the OSP site.

SO, we set off to find a new webmaster who would invest the site with some fresh mechanisms and enhanced staging devices but would retain, most importantly of all, the simplicity that people have so liked.

Enter Sally Wakelin . . . or, rather, Sally came on the scene some time ago and has been working away sharing modified pages with us in a way that no one else can see!

At the start of this, albeit faltering, Spring, the cover is whisked off and you can explore the new-look 'early' pages, menus and so on. Although the design has been agreed for the 'Book Pages' (see EQUUS), the rest of these pages have yet to be modified. This will take place as quickly as possible. Sally and we very much hope that you will not be troubled with broken links or other teething troubles but please tell us if you come across any or if you have any suggestions or criticisms.

We are so very much indebted to Michael for all that he has done . . . and already very grateful to Sally for pitching in with such vigour and imagination.

www.oldstilepress.com

Lithographs from the 'fifties

I was recently rambling round the website of a friendly art dealer and identified a couple of lithographs dating from the mid- (nineteen) fifties and deliciously redolent of the period. I did not recognize either of the names involved, but that did not seem to matter very much when put beside the deliciousness of the prints themselves.

The dealer kindly came to see us and brought the two lithos (along with, I confess, one or two other delights) and the prints showed themselves to be as full of life and zest as we had thought. He revealed that these two had been part of a folder of c.10 which he had acquired. We agreed that the most probable source was an art college of the period and this was student work. The fact that two of them had the words "Intermediate Lithograph" written on them seems to underwrite that theory. In the end the dealer said that, as we had paid for the two best and he felt the the folder might best be kept together, he would like us to have the lot. What a star!

But we know nothing more about them. They are all clearly dated 1955-58 but there is no indication of a College or anything else. I'd love to know . . . so, with no great amount of hope of unearthing the pin from this particular hay stack, I will add a list of the people who signed the prints, in case the group of names stimulates the memory of some old alumnus or some lecturer recognizes a particular style of a particular College of the day.

That would be fun but I don't mind at all if nothing comes of the quest. I, at school at that time, was loving books full of images like this and seeing such lithographs in Lyons' Corner Houses and so on, and I just think they are glorious.




































The names: M. Whittaker, R. Swift, Noel Kenning, D.J.Murphy and a number by Anon!.

Stunning "Plague" images

We have described HERE the saga of how the final copy of the extraordinary piece of work, that Angela Lemaire made in a tiny edition when she was a student, came to us and was eventually given a designed binding for our library by Nesta Rendall Davies.






HERE, more recently, we described how we could not resist making available a small but immaculately produced and housed edition (only 25 copies for sale) and how the master printer Martyn Grimmer was battling away in Bristol to take impressions of the plates.

This task has now been completed and Angela has also finally managed to beat the snow to do her signing. The Binder is in the process of making the necessary drop back boxes and, when they arrive, I will take photographs of the folio in its entirety. Here, for the moment, is Frances . . .




. . . collating the plates with their tissues and the text pages.




And here, because I couldn't resist, are a number of close-ups of these amazing prints. Powerfully horrible they are by clear design but these feelings, for me anyway, are swept clear away by a recognition of their clear-eyed truthfulness and their extraordinary beauty.

It's even deeper in Greenland!

The redoubtable Nancy Campbell was most recently staying here about a month ago in order to work with us on the preparation of the second helping of our Bibliography. More about that anon.

She was regaling us with excitements and fears about her upcoming adventure - a residency of two months at Upernavik Museum in Western Greenland.

Her Blog HERE is always a joy and an erudite feast but her tales from the North are beginning to be really something and the least we can do is to is to steer our friends in her direction.



For an old snowphobe like me, this photo of the little house she has to live in (taken at midday, no doubt!), is pretty daunting but I have to say that this one is quite breathtakingly beaautiful.





Do visit her blog and enjoy the goings on. For the record, I have to claim that early experiments with snow/maple syrup were conducted at Catchmays Court!

A few dates . . .

For those eager book buyers who like to see and handle books before adding them to their shelves, here are some occasions during the year when you have the opportunity to enjoy displays - not just of The Old Stile Press books - but those from other presses too.



During the Bath Literature Festival the Gallery in Chapel Row, Bath will be showing artists’ books from some of the members of the Fine Press Book Association:
13 February - 2 March



Then later in the year:
3,4,5 June we shall be showing downstairs at the London International Antiquarian Book Fair 2010 at Olympia. Here we are in the company of many major booksellers who have for sale treasures from the whole tradition of private presses. It is good to be surrounded by examples of the fine printing and imagery which inspired us to use those skills for contemporary book making.

23-26 September are the dates for the second London Art Book Fair at the Whitechapel Gallery - this is the Fair which has succeeded Marcus Campbell’s fairs at the ICA. We exhibited at the first show last year - and here we are in the company of all sorts of contemporary artist’s books from the unique copy to small editions by an individual alongside major trade publishers who specialise in books about art and artists. We enjoy displaying what we do and finding so many who are unaware of the output of presses working with old traditions to create new and exciting books with contemporary artists and writers.

2-3 October will see the Oak Knoll Fest 2010 in New Castle, Delaware, USA - we have still to decide upon that.

A few people have said that they ‘look forward to seeing us’ at the Watercolours & Works on Paper Fair - this year to be at the Science Museum in London (3-7 February). Sadly, however, this new venue does not have sufficient space to include the group of presses showing their work - so we won’t be able to see you there.