This week we highlight four delightful wood engravings by Washington artist, sculptor, and printmaker Gretchen Daiber that serve as illustrations for Welsh poet Leslie Norris’s 1984 chapbook of poems A Tree Sequence letterpress printed by Suzanne Ferris on handmade papers by Neal Bonham at their Sea Pen Press and Papermill in Seattle, Washington, in a limited edition of 20 copies signed by the poet and artist..
Daiber lives and works in Leavenworth, Washington, a Bavarian-styled village in the Cascade Mountains of central Washington State. She writes that “My work reflects the landscape and environment which I love– the mountains where I live… . my passion is to record and interpret my surroundings with sculpture, pastels, original prints, journal sketches and watercolors.“
We also include two watermark illustrations by Neal Bonham. At first, we couldn’t understand why there are two blank handmade sheets of paper in the middle of the book made of different fibers than the paper in the rest of the book. Then we tuned a page and the light caught the watermarked illustrations of trees and their shadows. Both Ferris and Bonham graduated from the book arts program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where they were students of the great letterpress printer, book artist, and papermaker Walter Hamady.
Our copy of A Tree Sequence is another donation from our friend Jerry Buff.
I am pleased to announce the completion of my most recent binding, a copy of “Lines: Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a tour: July 13th 1798″, or, in short, “Lines”. The book is a 2002 publication by The Old Stile Press of a poem written by William Wordsworth which is often abbreviated to, “Tintern Abbey” although the building doesn’t actually appear within the poem. It was written by Wordsworth after a walking tour with his sister in this section of the Welsh Borders on the banks of the River Wye. The abbey fell into ruin after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century.
Frances and Nicolas McDowall from The Old Stile Press actually live on the banks of ‘the Sylvan Wye’, about two miles upstream from (‘above’) Tintern Abbey. Taken from The Old Stile Press website:
“Having lived for more than fifteen years amidst ‘these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape’, we felt the time had come to tackle the work that we have come to regard as ‘our’ poem.
We can almost see William Wordsworth’s footprints on our riverbank. Even before we came to live here we felt a deep affinity with this poem. Wordsworth helped us to understand and to accept the 'sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused’ of which we have always been aware. The images involved Nicolas editing photographs which had been taken on our stretch of the river but Frances too spent long hours at the vat to make paper for the entire project text, endpapers and binding.
Spring water on its way to the Wye is an essential part of this paper making process and plants grown beside that stream were used in the endpapers. Altogether a very personal project!”
Decided to try my hand at making my own paper! I keep collecting any scrap bits, notes, old mail, anything I can use! Now I just need to think of something to do with them! Any suggestions?
