Barbara Hodgson: Trading in Memories and Other Ways of Seeing Books

In her new book Trading in Memories: Travels Through a Scavenger's Favorite Places Barbara Hodgson takes us on an unforgettable trip around the world. From the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul to an ephemera show in Portland, Oregon we get a front row seat as Hodgson works her magic unearthing relics of material cultural. As the collector knows, the pursuit, in many cases, is as fulfilling as the acquisition.

The fruit of travel is in "collecting fragments of people's material lives" says Hodgson in the introduction; in Naples it was tearing posters off the walls, in Portland it was a mugshot, in Fez El-Djedid is was an portable Arabic typewriter, in France she was on the the trail of Pierre Loti (the image above is of an authentic Japanese pagoda Loti had installed in his house).

Hodgson "believes that it is in the streets, bookstores, and markets where the city tantalizingly and coyly unveils its real past and most intimate self" and she places each journey within the perfect amount of historical context that you wish she would keep on going; one more stall, one more city. In a world increasingly bent on the disposable Hodgson proves that value remains in much of what we leave behind. Move over Madonna we have us a new Material Girl!

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An exhibit of Hodgson's work, "Barbara Hodgson: Other Ways of Seeing Books", runs through April at Wessel & Lieberman.

The exhibit features her recently released collaboration with Claudia Cohen The Temperamental Rose and Other Ways of Seeing Color which is undoubtedly one of the most beautifully executed fine press books of 2007.

For the exhibition, Hodgson has created a limited edition keepsake, "The Temperamental Rose: An Experiment with Light". Each copy is hand-colored with a selection of lightfast and fugitive watercolors. It is designed to be exposed to the sun over a period of a year to demonstrate the effect of light on pigments.

Hodgson has also designed seven unique dust jackets for Trading Memories each containing material found during her journey.

There will be a reception for Barbara Hodgson at W&L this Thursday night from 6-8pm.

Trading In Memories website
Brief interview with Hodgson

The Growing Bestiary of Briony Morrow-Cribbs

The "Cabinets of Curiosity" of the 16th and 17th century is the jumping off point for Morrow-Cribbs. These rooms of mythical constructs blur the boundary of fact and fiction, where the real and the imagined share the stage.

Morrow-Cribs says she "uses the mediums of print and the book arts (and occasionally ceramics) to create a graphic connection between the recognizable 'real' world and my invisible, 'fantasy' world.

Her latest project is providing 11 aquatint prints to accompany the first book publication of Brigit Pegeen Kelly's prose poem Iskandariya. The book is designed and published by Rollin Milroy at Heavenly Monkey.

Milroy says the poem offers "a perfect companion for Briony's growing bestiary of anthropomorphically jumbled creatures."

Millroy and Heavenly Monkey continue their ascent to the top of the fine press world with each book taking us on a quality journey utilizing the most creative artists, writers and book makers this region has to offer. I have yet to be disappointed.

Morrow-Cribbs, the daughter of two artists, has yet to leave her twenties so settle in, this journey is just beginning.

We are delighted to host an exhibit of the work of Briony Morrow-Cribbs to coincide with the release of Iskandariya. The exhibit runs through Halloween. For those who can't make it here is the online version.

A Tribute to Theodore Roethke

We are pleased to announce they release of a broadside we published to coincide with A Contemporary Theatre's premiere of David Wagoner's one-act play, 'First Class', a tribute to his mentor, Theodore Roethke.

The broadside includes 'The Rosebush', a poem by renowned poet, David Wagoner. Wagoner is professor emeritus of English at the University of Washington, and edited 'Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke, 1943-63.'

The photograph of Theodore Roethke is by Mary Randlett, well-known for her original photographs of Northwest artists and writers. A monograph of her landscape photography will be published in the Fall, 2007, by the University of Washington Press.

Here are the details:

[Roethke, Theodore]. Wagoner, David and Mary Randlett. The Rosebush; a memory of Theodore Roethke. Seattle: Wessel & Lieberman Booksellers, 2007. Limited edition. Single-sheet, measures 7 x 17-7/8". Printed letterpress in an edition of 100 copies(of which 85 are for sale) at Springtide Press by Jessica Spring, with an original mounted giclee print, from a photograph by Mary Randlett taken shortly before Roethke's untimely death in 1963 at the age of 55. Signed by both Wagoner and Randlett.


Don't miss the ACT trailer for the play and related events
and a 2 minute behind the scenes video

In Memory of Chris Stern: "You Told Me Once You Only Printed in Natural Light"

Maralyn Crosetto, Day Moon Press, and Mare Blocker have combined to produce a new limited edition broadside. It is being sold as a fund-raiser to help with the medical bills for the late Chris Stern. Chris Stern was a nationally-known fine press printer and teacher. He passed away last November. The image on the broadside depicts Chris and Jules' printing shop in the Skagit Valley of Washington, The Printing Farm.

Chris was a dear friend. We are honored to have copies of this wonderful broadside and to help with sales and distribution. The price of the broadside is $75. (A larger donation is, of course, welcome.) Checks are preferred, due to the nature of this fund-raiser.

Maralyn Crosetto:
"I have some wonderful memories of sitting with Chris Stern on one porch or another, drinking coffee, eating his famous scones and talking about books, or printing or anything else in the world. Most of my memories, however, are of Chris at work. At work is where I could find him. Whether it was noon or midnight, that is where he would be.

The inspiration for this broadside comes from those many, many nights when Chris would be out in his and Jules' shop, working his magic with type, ink and paper. When I told Mare Blocker of my vision of the Printing Farm, glowing in the dark, she most graciously wrote the poem to accompany it."

Maura Shapley, Day Moon Press:
"When Maralyn approached me with the idea of printing this piece, she hadn't started drawing yet. We decided early on certain practical matters: first, her comfortable image size and style determined which presses to use; then, parent sheet size led to finished size; proportions narrowed down type choices.

After scanning her pencil drawing, Jack used filters to translate it into a mezzotint-like image. A magnesium engraving was then made (locally, at Evergreen Engravers). Maralyn then cut the linoleum blocks for blue-grey and yellow, registering to the black proof. In one week, we had all three main presses tied up at once - the large Vandercook on black, the SP-15 on grey, and the 12 x 18 C&P on yellow - then again for both type passes - while Maralyn set type and remixed inks for the color balance, and I tweaked fit.

Maralyn and I have worked together on letterpress projects of all kinds for nearly thirty years, and somehow this was the smoothest and most satisfying of all."

Jules Remedios Faye:
"When I learned that Maralyn Crosetto, Maura Shapley and Mare Blocker were collaboratively creating a broadside in Chris' memory, I was deeply touched. But when I visited Maura's shop to see this broadside for the first time, the tenderness of the image and the heartfelt words of the poem broke my heart open. The love and genuine affection this collaboration represents is deeply healing and inspiring.

After the hospital gave us a generous 80% charity deduction on the bills we incurred while Chris was in hospital, I am left with close to $30,000 in medical bills. 100% of the sales of this loving tribute to Chris will go toward paying those bills. This broadside is limited to 70 copies. The first 65 people who send $75 or more will receive one of these beautiful broadsides, which were lovingly letterpress printed by Maura and Maralyn and include an original image by Maralyn, accompanied with a poem by Mare. "