a day or two at the seaside . . .

We popped down to our favourite part of Pembrokeshire at the beginning of this week. Partly business of a sort but we did get down to the sea . . . and enjoyed some unexpectedly glorious sun. I really DO love just walking and looking but I cannot resist searching for treasures, sometimes actual stones, shells or ROCKS if I am not restrained, but increasingly with a camera. The following glories were all captured within a range of about 100 feet. Maybe more to come!

p.s. to the flood

Knowing, as I do, that half the world is agog to discover every feature and happening of 'our' river, I felt that I must waste a moment of your time with the following!

This photograph, and the one below, have little point without my stating 1: this dead tree is so heavy that Frances and I together cannot move it, 2: it was brought here and plonked down just where it is . . . by the flood water, 3: talking of water, the river when I took this photo was showing how it normally is at a lowish point of the tide.

Given that a tree of this weight would need quite a depth of water to float in freely, I reckon it must have been between five and six metres higher than it was for the photos.

There, I said you'd be interested!

In the Printing Office . . .

. . . things are beginning to bubble up nicely! At the beginning of work on any book it seems that weeks if not months of solid work go by and nothing seems to have been achieved. I print text on one side of a sheet but I know that that sheet must have text on the other side and then two (or sometimes four or six) further printings of blocks before that sheet is finished.


With the sheet in this photograph, I have at last reached that point. There is already text and imagery on the other side so, after these final images have dried, the sheet will be ready to be guillotined and then folded and collated with the other signatures to form the final book. When this point is reached, each day is likely to produce another sheet ready to be passed over to Frances for these final rites - including, we hope, the weeding out of any sheet that has acquired somehow an inky fingermark from the printer, although I rather think that these should be charged extra for!


This book is the wonderfully erotic poem, Black Marigolds, translated by E. Powys Mathers from the Sanskrit. The images are by Glenys Cour whose work for Vernon Watkins' Taliesin and the Mockers has been so much admired. The technique (although subject matter and format of book give a quite different feel this time) is the same as in the earlier book . . . collages of black and white paper and white paper given a patterning in black by such techniques as monotype, stippling and so on. In the photograph above, Glenys' original collage is on the right while my printing is on the left, with a verse of the poem. The gold-coloured thing above is the photo-polymer block which I made from the original and with which I printed my version.

While taking these photos, I suddenly thought that I would give to the world an uncensored view of the environment in which I work! At the start of a new book-building project I do start off with a clear table and most things 'put away'. As the process continues, tools and other things are laid out and must fall under the hand when needed again. I am sure it will be clear to all that everything in these photographs is exactly where it should be and any misguided tidying-up would be completely disastrous.

I have sometimes been shown into printing offices which look more like operating theatres or smart Show Houses than anything I would recognize as a place I could inhabit for many hours each day. In fact such places really give me the willies!


In the background of this other photograph (below) is my guillotine - made at the turn of the (previous!) century and still going perfectly. All it needs is a really sharp blade and a strongish arm to turn the handle. It is, incidentally, totally without safely features of any kind. 'Health and Safety' addicts would get the vapours just to look at it! If I, alone, use it then that is legally OK. If anyone else was to use it, however, I could be had up immediately. Hence (as all my other machinery is of similar vintage and degree of lethality) we can allow no assistants, students or helpers of any other sort.


If cars 'run' on petrol and sheep on grass, I 'run' on music! My cordless headphones are on all the time and there is always a CD somewhere that will answer my mood!


Back, finally, to the work in hand . . . an opportunity to compare more closely the original against what the process-camera 'saw' and what the block made of it.

Harry Brockway: Sculptor & Wood Engraver

As a recent visit here allowed me to take a photograph of our long-standing friend, Harry Brockway, I thought I would embarrass him by putting up a selection of lovely things that he has done for and with us over the years.

When you see examples of his work in his two media side by side, the style and particular character of the artist is clearly present in both and is of the same order . . . and yet some people appear surprised that the engraver is also a sculptor and vice versa.

There are, happily for us, 'signs of Harry' all around us. As you enter our domain, it is Harry who confirms that you have reached the right place. Below this elegant letter-cutting there is also our press-mark carved but the undergrowth seems to have taken it over!



When this fountain 'mask' was being thought about, I felt it would be fun if it could be seen as a combination between a 'green man' and one of those winged putti who pout their lips to blow winds from appropriate directions on ancient maps. Harry got the idea perfectly and a good number of years have given a wonderfully ancient and, yes, romantic feel!



The deliciously carved figure below is an early work and it has been with us decades. It is a full-length figure though less than life size. The dress is simply the wood painted white.

You may be able to see, incidentally, tucked between the uplifted arm and her cheek, a small tube like object. This has nothing to do with Harry but has a rather enchanting history. Many years ago Matilda (then about 10), the daughter of Sara Philpott (but that's a whole different story! See here and here ), came with her family to spend a summer day with us. We heard later that she had been a bit shy to say to us how much she had enjoyed the time so she took a piece of 'paper' from a paper-bark maple in the garden, wrote a sweet note on it and slipped it into the safekeeping of Harry's figure. It is, of course, still there carefully preserved in its niche!




The Lad Philisides has always been a special favourite of mine. In the planning stages, we looked together at wood engravings and etchings by Blake, Samuel Palmer and, particularly, Edward Calvert and also some of the contemporary and near contemporary followers, such as Robin Tanner, Paul Drury and my favourite neo-romantic painters. How well Harry got into the spirit of these artists when it came to these poems by Sir Philip Sidney.






There are, I think, just two or three copies of this delicious book left - though I have to confess that I am staggered that they have survived thus far!

Harry's second book with us, Faithful John was much later and there are also copies of this remaining - even some of the Special Edition, I believe. His treatment of this powerful and resonant fairy-tale continues to amaze me for its technique as for its content. Not everyone knows that we started with the 'challenge' of him designing and engraving (and me incorporating into a page design) these bizarrely shaped blocks which in fact remained to him after stock-sized blocks had been cut down to size for one of Harry's many commissions by the Folio Society. Constraints always make for excitement.









We are in the process of trying to plan another project together. I cannot wait!

It's been raining a bit in Wales . . .

. . . so we're a little flooded. Happens each year (more with global warming, no doubt!) and does not matter to us for the good old builders of our house built it safely up the side of the valley rather than in the flood plain which seems to have been the fashion among imbecile planners in the UK for many a year.

It is quite dramatic, though. What those of you who have not yet come to visit us and seen the Wye in its detumescent state, as it were, have to realize is that the trees you can see in both of these photos - the ones which are sticking up out of the water - these are all on OUR side of the river.

The strange terracotta colour of the water is also absolutely genuine. The river has a normal colour at normal times but lots of rain brings mud from the fields of Gloucestershire into the river Lugg (how anglo-saxon can you get!) which is a tributary of the Wye and thence past us and into the sea at Chepstow.

There is no reason whatever for posting all this. I do it simply because I am taking the greatest delight in being able to! The fact that I can take some photos this morning, fiddle a bit on the computer and then friendly blog-followers in Orkney (hello Norman!) or Australia (hello Guy!), or wherever, can know precise, if totally unimportant, details about our lives as if they lived next door . . . is just fun and friendly and generally life-enhancing!

Back from San Francisco!

Hi! This is Frances, for a change.
You might get the idea from all the swans and sheep that life is rural and gentle at The Old Stile Press. However, this last month has been hectic and full of contrasts for me. First, the Works on Paper Fair at the Royal Academy where we met an amazing number of people, most of whom were unfamiliar with the book as art, or even a repository for art. For a long time we have endeavoured to find opportunities for our books to be seen together with works of art not just among books and this proved to be all that we had hoped. Many of the visitors to the fair were hugely excited by the books they encountered (not just ours) and bought enthusiastically. The logistics of getting ourselves and books to central London at short notice and then staying for five days took some considerable effort and then back to base to spend a day wrapping and despatching a large number of parcels before setting off to California. So I set off on a high, though exhausted.

I should have known - but it was nevertheless unexpected - I left Britain in snow ( and Nicolas has some horror stories involving being snowed in at home alone, fallen trees and chainsaws) and arrived in California in rain. When it rains there, it really rains although it had waited for two dry months to tip it all down on my head! My destination was Berkeley (the University Campus was alive with anti-war protests, drumming and singing in the main plaza) where printers, book makers, librarians, collectors were coming together for a symposium and book fair for four days prior to the world famous San Francisco Antiquarian Book Fair. The contrast was great and discussions changed gear because all these folk were deep into books, their history, the way they are produced, presses and the intricacies of their productions. The way they all looked at books was so different from the buzz generated at the Academy. That is not to say there was no buzz here too but of a very different nature. Many of the books produced by Californian artists explore structures and are many layered in terms of imagery and printing method - often startling and eye-catching and make our books seem very cool and spacious. At first I thought this was going to mean that no-one would choose to buy from us - however, on the third day that changed and we sold to some very enthusiastic people. During the course of the event, however, I had the pleasure of meeting librarians and collectors who had previously only been august names.

Martyn Ould's mobile phone captured this shot of us with the Berkeley Campanile behind us - he was showing his Old School Press books and there were six other British presses who made it over to California. In all, there were about a hundred presses showing their books, with a sprinkling of papermakers and leather suppliers for bookbinding. It was a remarkable gathering and evidence of a healthy interest in the creation of books - but one of the questions posed was whether an art is dead if it is only appreciated and bought by its creators. The works shown would certainly demonstrate vitality in the huge variety of approach to the creation of books. Coincidentally, the vitality is best demonstrated by the much greater interest shown in books at the Royal Academy show where the buyers were certainly not makers. They did, indeed, find it of added interest to meet the makers rather than the more accustomed (in that context) gallery owners.

Valentine's Day found Berkeley awash in flowers - everyone seemed to be giving and receiving bunches of roses, or a single flower . . . no more the faltering anonymous card sent to the seemingly unattainable person of one's dreams. Far distant from our partners, Martyn and I had the brilliant thought of taking a photo which could be sent by e-mail to each partner. N had the effrontery to wonder if the roses were on a garage forecourt - hey, they were the most flamboyant in town! Having said that, the flower shops themselves were not what astounded me, but the green of Berkeley and the profusion of growth. Yes, there were daffodils, primula and tulips but also arum lilies, agapanthus, roses, caeanothus all of which grow almost wild on the hillsides and huge Magnolia grandiflora, eucalyptus and pines - how do they know what season it is there! I managed a trip around the bay to see the skyline of San Francisco and its bridges. The photograph might seem stagy but it really was that glowing orangey-red with dark outlines of bridges and islands and distant mountains. Overwhelming, especially on top of such an outpouring of books and conversations with the people who made them . . . at breakfast and every moment throughout the day!

How I wish this book was one of ours! . . . 3

This is one of the most entrancing books I have ever held in my hands. I put it like that because it is really is delicious to hold. It is smallish, as my comparison shows, but is by no means a miniature. It also delights in the tall format that has been a great favourite of mine for as long as I can remember.


It is an edition, published by Macmillan in 1896, of Christina Rossetti's weird and haunting poem, Goblin Market. The wood engravings were designed by Laurence Housman but were actually engraved on to the wood, and with the greatest skill, by his sister Clemence Housman.


A quick glance shows that the artist was not just doing a number of pictures to be handed over and popped into the publishers' book by a workaday printer. Rather, it is clear that Housman was entirely responsible for every single detail of the book's design and physical make-up (even though it was never anything other than a 'trade edition') and contemplation of this fact and the wonderful result of such 'oneness' of purpose has been a tremendous inspiration for my attempts to 'go and do likewise' at the OSP.

The richly gold-blocked cover, front AND back, makes the book, as it nestles in the hand, seem like some rare decorated treasure . . . but the repeated pattern is actually straightforward and 'wholesome' rather than over-wrought and leads seamlessly into style of the imagery within.


The titlepage is deliciously detailed but it is the next opening - the first page of the text - which takes my breath away and seems to sum up all that I am trying to bring to our books.


How daring . . . just the title and four lines on this page but with an image which seems to sum up completely the atmosphere in which the story is to be told in the same way that a painted gauze can prepare the audience for what an opera or ballet is about to describe. The image is not particularly large of course but it has been completely released from any box-shape or framing square. Its energies rush out and inhabit all of the space offered by that whole spread. Sun and sickle moon we see . . . and think of Samuel Palmer, the other Ancients and all the tradition down to the Neo-Romantics whose work I love so much. Almost a cliche already, but I don't care!


Through the book there are a number of single page engravings (which face a page of text) and a number of small vignettes which punctuate the text, as you can see above. Most amazing of all, though, are the pairs of mighty engravings which are separated from each other by the book's gutter but which actually form a single image.


What a glorious treasure!

Off she goes again!

As I write this, Frances is preparing to fly off to San Francisco. Indeed I am typing this so as not to get in her way for it is past the point where I can help. It is just a touch unkind of Fate that, on the one day we have to leave the house in the middle of the night, a blizzard is expected. If you never hear from me again I shall, ironically, have perished in the snow in the attempt to get Frances to California!

She is going to show our books at the event described above . . . and to meet a lot of nice people and, I hope, to have an enjoyable time. Everyone says I should go too but I really do prefer to stay at home for some reason and someone's got to do the printing! She also reckons that I can be a liability if I try to 'present' our books at a fair for, if someone looks at a page for more than a few seconds (which they should, of course, do), I presume they must have seen an invisible imperfection in the printing . . . and I have to start apologising for it!

So I will continue to print Glenys's lovely images on the Black Marigolds pages and talk to my friends, the grazing swans!

Jolly funny sheep!

Such a lovely morning here . . . I thought it would be fun to take a photograph (to be entitled "Sheep and swans may safely graze") to point out the contrast between what I am doing and what dear, wonderful Frances is doing on her trip to London and the Royal Academy (see below). In fact, I know she is having a great (though exhausting) time and meeting lots of interesting people.


Having bagged that one I suddenly became aware of developments which lead to this . . .



. . . and then this!

I had expected a bit of a quarrel but there was none. The sheep's 'interest' is clearly real but I could not begin to divine its nature. The swan's ridiculously coy pose must, I feel, be down simply to the moment of shutter capture!

Artists' Books at prestigious Art Fair in London.

Covered!
is the title given to an exciting new addition to the Watercolour and Drawings Fair at the Royal Academy of Arts, 6 Burlington Gardens on 1 - 4 February. It is part of the Modern Works on Paper section which fills the ground floor with prints, photographs and posters.

However, one room will be filled with BOOKS which are true marriages of text and image - some created entirely by a single artist and some which are close collaborations between an artist and a designer/printer. This will be a rare opportunity to see and handle the work of about a dozen presses, each sought after by libraries and collectors worldwide.

Such books preserve the craft of printing directly from an artist's work. They use fine materials and are accorded the time and care which is often lost in large scale printing processes. Such books, filled with original prints, will present entirely new experiences for many collectors and readers to discover.

The presses are: Susan Allix, Altazimuth, Enitharmon, Gwasg Gregynog, Inky Parrot, Old School, Old Stile, Parvenu, p's & q's, Tern and Whittington.
Nearly all of these have a website to explore with details of their books and the press.

More details of the Fair itself, including dates and times, are at
www.watercoloursfair.com

What's on the press at the moment?

Black Marigolds by Powys Mathers is an amazingly sensuous poem of love remembered and yearned for. The original was written by Chauras, a young Brahman poet, about nineteen hundred years ago but it was in 1915 (while in wartime 'hutments' on Salisbury Plain) that Mathers 'englished' the fifty stanzas in such a haunting way. To be a young poet imprisoned for having loved the king's daughter and to know that the morning would bring the loss of one's head - for this is indeed the scenario - might well concentrate the mind and this is suitably powerful stuff.

I am in the middle of printing the text (in a beautiful burnt orange ink) but I long to get to the images . . . by the wonderful Glenys Cour.

Above are photographs of two of the collage artworks - from which I make blocks to print. This book has a smallish, tall and very concentrated format which seems to us very right for the subject (and we also have some exotic ideas for the binding but I'm keeping mum at the moment!) but is completely different from the earlier book we published with images by Glenys Cour.

This was Taliesin and the Mockers by Vernon Watkins, with an afterword by Gwen Watkins and a commendation by Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.

In case you have not seen it, here is its front cover . . .


and here its titlepage spread . . .



and one of my favourite two page spreads.




Full details can of course be found here.

Charles Shearer

We went to our friend Charles Shearer's most recent exhibition (at the Galanthus Gallery in Wormbridge, Hereford, UK) armed with my trusty camera but unfortunately without checking its battery. It succeeded in taking the striking, if surprising, image above - among a number of others which were more or less random in such matters as focus and exposure - before giving up the ghost entirely.

This exhibition continues until 20 Feb and consists of a number of Irish (and some Cornish) landscapes in his unique style. To quote the catalogue: 'Charles' work sensitively depicts the processes of wear and decay in a way that seems to raise an unloved and often forgotten ruin to the status of well-loved, stately old gentleman.'

The two works on paper given below are NOT part of the exhibition and were photographed when my camera was properly charged!

I cannot resist whispering to the world that we have been trying to persuade Charles to join us to produce a book for about FIFTEEN YEARS!

All parties concerned are keen but all sorts of things seem to intervene to make it not happen. I am not quite sure why but I feel that the renewal of good intentions this time might just bear fruit. Watch this space!