Late Autumn

Posted on November 19, 2017 by Annette

November morning

The days have become short and the trees are balding. Some mornings come with a hundred shades of grey and silver while dense fog flows like a giant’s veil over the barren fields. Summer has gone, winter is not yet here. A few of the many cranes have not departed so far.

The untimely frost in late spring did not allow us to have apples or medlars. But we did get a wealth of pumpkins instead. We had beans and mangetouts and many a cob of maize. We had small forests of sunflowers. The place got invaded by butterflies, bumble bees and lady birds.

We had a stoat visiting in early spring. We had hares boxing in dusk. And we had three little ones in September at the foot of one of our apple trees.

Young hares

Where the beans and maize were grow winter onions now. Many of the sunflowers are still standing. The birds were quick in finding them devouring their seeds.

Bird feeder

October sunflowers

And there are still flowers – even in mid-November. The nasturtiums shine in bright yellow and orange and a beautiful brown-burgundy.

November orange

The white dead-nettles are still in full bloom. They are the first to go ahead in late winter feeding the early bumble bees. They still fed those large bumble bees when we were working outside in early November. There is a second generation of borage flowering right now. And we had butterflies baking in the autumn sun in late October. A large oriental poppy braved the autumn storms.

Oktober poppy

Hops

Our garden has changed. Some of the changes result from the change of season, some have come about through us working. It took us almost four days to get all the shrubs planted that will grow into our hedgerow over the next couple of years. Most of the time we had to spend on clearing the strech from weeds, mainly quitch. The long striped roots in some places looked like a pack of spaghetti. There is sea buckthorn now, and broom, juniper and cherry laurel, elder and a young birch tree. All of them with their roots neatly safeguarded by wire baskets to prevent the root voles raiding the newly planted.

As I write this we have not had frost yet. It is mid-November and it was a day of heavy showers and strong blustery winds. However, there was the odd sunny spell. The oak trees have not yet lost all their leaves. Some mornings the dew looked as if it was white frost. It was not, but it might well be any time soon.

On the Brink of Summer

Posted on May 31, 2017 by Annette

Lady od Shalott

It is only late May and it is still some time to go until we’ll have summer proper. But the light and the atmosphere feel like summer already. The huge oak trees have put on their full green coats. The tulips and daffodils are long gone. Now is the time for the poppies, the wild ones and the garden varieties. The first roses have started to bloom just recently. A dark blue larkspur shines next to the huge white oriental poppy.

Oriental poppy with visitor (white tailed bumblebee)

Bumblebee feeders

We have a large population of dead nettles alongside the old stables and in the odd far corner. Presumably, they have been dwelling here for a very long time. They are our bumblebee feeders. They start flowering early in the year and will feed the white tailed bumblebees (who are the earlybirds amongst the bumblebees at the very start of the season) while temperatures are still rather low. The abundant white flowers keep feeding them and their cousins including honey bees and solitary bees for months. All the bees and bumblebees here have done a fabulous job: One of our apple trees is determined to deliver fresh apples in its first year with us. The others have tried but were too early and their flowers got caught in a late spell of severe frost. But this one tree waited out the frost period before opening its buds. There is still a long way to go before we can pick our first apples. Fingers crossed.

Gooseberry youngsters – they are supposed to turn red at some point

We have put up the netting over the berry bushes these days. There are red and black and white currants and red and green gooseberries. There was good reason to do so, because our meadow welcomes a great variety of diners as regulars. We like our little helpers that come day after day and browse our meadow for grubs and wireworms and whatever they can find to fend for themselves or feed their chicks. Our guests are rooks and starlings, magpies and fieldfares. There are wagtails and black redstarts on the ground and martins and swallows in the air, there are sparrows and tits and a pair of goldfinches was checking things out the other day. However, we’d rather they stick to browsing the meadow than picking the berries off the bushes.

A very young ladybird on garden sage

Some of our little helpers are even smaller. These are ladybirds and hoverflies and all sorts of butterflies. So far I’ve seen peacock butterfly, small tortoiseshell, brimstone butterfly, a small emperor moth and many others.

Slightly longer ago we put up little fences around our fruit trees. At the foot of the tree we keep a circular patch free of weeds and grass. It is here where we decided to sow crimson clover. The sandy soil is poor in nutrients and the clover’s rhizobia will improve soil quality over time by fixing nitrogen straight out of the air. The clover is not hardy and come winter will wither and leave its roots in the soil and thus share all the fixed nitrogen with the roots of the trees. We needed the fences because apart from the feathered diners we als have hares coming in at dusk feeding on the green stuff on our meadow. They even had a go at the broom bushes which I cannot appreciate. The books say broom is poisonous to hares and other wildlife. But those hares might not have read the books yet. We also put nasturtiums in with the clover. They are said to attract black lice and also they have nice flowers. The hares are welcome to munch the dandelions and daisies and sheperd’s purses in our meadow, but we wanted to make sure they leave the clover and nasturtiums and lupines alone.

Flax

Bryony

The pumpkins are going strong on top of the compost heap. I put them out much earlier than last year so I’m hopeful we’ll have a nice harvest. I had an experimental go at what is called The Three Sisters, that are maize plus climbing beans plus pumpkins. As we have strong winds pretty often and I wanted to grow climbing beans I felt it was a nice solution to have the maize as posts for the beans (with the pumpkins growing elsewhere). However, the beans are outgrowing the maize so I had to put up bamboo poles nonetheless. I’ve had to water this bed on a daily basis and it still looks like a bit of an adventure. But the broad beans nextdoor are doing well, and I had some old seeds of purple Mangetouts which are growing surprisingly strong.

We had a furious storm on Monday night. Tuesday morning the rain gauge revealed that just under 16 litres of water had fallen on to each square metre of ground. The pinks looked somewhat bedraggled. Some of the climbing beans succumbed to the strong winds, still not having attached themselves in time to either the maize plants or the bamboo poles. There were gaping holes in the soil where the water had hollowed the burrows of root voles and moles.

Iris

But most of the garden is fine despite the very strong winds and violent gusts dashing the hail against the window panes. We live on sandy soils and the large amount of water was welcome after what had been a rather hot and slightly windy weekend. We only just missed out on 30°C and it started getting humid.

As I write this dusk is closing in. It is after 10pm – the days are long, the sun rises early. The rooks that sleep in the oak trees wake up around 5.30am and straight away start telling each other the dreams they had last night. Soon the foxgloves will open their flowers, and the large bush of oxeye chamomille, too. And there will be more roses.

Patio rose Yorkshire Princess

Relocation Process Complete

Posted on April 17, 2017 by Annette

This is my last post in the Relocation Journal. The seemingly endless process of relocating my studio has come to its end, at long last. The opening weekend went ever so well. Over the three days we had lovely spring weather. The white tulips in our garden opened right in time.

We put up the banner with the new name of the press just a week before the opening, showing the fork and broom that had been on the floor in the stable when we first visited the place. We had assembled the new shelves for my books and arranged the large red sofa and the old-style chairs. On Friday we picked up the abundant bunch of tulips for the big yellow flower vase.

On Friday evening all our wonderful neighbours came to have a look. They had all been eagerly waiting to see how the old stable would turn out and what the presses would be like. On Saturday and Sunday I was busy printing. I had hand set a keepsake for the event and printed the two colours on the front page during the days prior to the opening weekend. I would be showing printing the back page during the two days of the Open Studio. My husband had meticulously removed all the flash rust, that had gathered on my Grafix proofing press during the three months it had been sitting waiting in a cold room. At last the press was in good working order again. After one whole year I was printing again.

The two days went quickly. The place kept being crowded with visitors. I was busy printing and answering questions. I printed the keepsakes in good quantity. Their back gives the date of the next open studio which will be in the course of the upcoming LandArt-Festival this summer.

My studio has joined the LandArt-Route which is made up of five circuits with a large number of stations on each. No 5 is the most northwesterly leg and my studio is No 16 on this track. The whole route has been set up by the Landkreis Minden-Lübbecke and amongst the stations are studios and workshops of artists and crafts people as well as museums, windmills and cafes.

After the opening weekend I was taking a couple of days off work. It was the perfect time of year to have a break doing the garden work. We had decided to have some currant bushes, red, white and black, and some gooseberries to go with them.

We’ll have to be patient and see how the cockchafer grubs, wireworms and root voles will deal with all this. I planted all the berry bushes within a wire basket each, which hopefully will keep the root voles at bay. We had been treated to a stoat dancing on our meadow in the spring sun lately, which makes us hope that the numbers of root voles won’t climb that much. Add to this the little owl is not far. As to the grubs and wireworms our hopes rest on the shoulders of our resident mole, and the starlings and crows ransacking the place on a regular schedule. Spring is in a very good mood and made the tulips and cherry trees show off their beauty.

As I write this dusk is closing in on Easter Monday. The weekend treated us to lovely sunshine, cold winds, rain, sleet and even hail, plus stunning sunsets. We had some ten liters of rain to the square meter over the past four days. The soil and plants needed it badly. And, of course, by now we are looking forward to the start of the asparagus season here. Add to this: the first swallows and martins have arrived just a week ago.

From Stable to Pressroom

Posted on March 6, 2017 by Annette

Cattle stable in January 2016

When we first came to this place the stable had been disused for at least 15 years. The cattle had moved out, the floor and cesspit had been cleaned. The floor was made of red bricks, there was an old wheelbarrow, a fork, a broom. Cobwebbs. Saltpeter. Drinking troughs.

Saltpeter

Stable outside January 2016

That was where we started in the summer of 2016.

The old oak beams had to go and with them the attached pipes and drinking troughs. The screws were rusted in, the oak beams fitted perfectly and were pretty hard to get out.

Oak beams

The floor was made with red bricks neatly laid out in a bed of sand. Wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow the bricks went out on a huge pile outside. Many of them now rest in the wall of a raised bed for our herbs.

Red bricks and a drinking trough still in place

First bricks taken out of the floor and a drinking trough still in place

More bricks to go

The floor would keep us going for quite some time. All the bricks had to go. Then there was the cesspit. There was a fair amount of water in there which had to be pumped up. It went on to the compost heaps. The cesspit itself got filled with rubble and sand.

One part of brick floor done

Once the last of the oak beans had gone the rest of the bricks was easier to remove.

The sand could be roughly leveled out and the wooden doors went.

The next step would be the windows. The old simple stable windows had to make way for new ones. We decided to have long narrow windows and keep the shoulder in the wall at the bottom of the windows.

Adjusting the windows

And then came the day when things really happened: the concrete for the floor went in.

Concrete delivery

The room had changed already.

With windows

The concrete had dried and solidified. Now the new windows went in. To the right there are still the glass bricks in place. These would go at a later point to be replaced by proper windows.

With heating

Once the plaster work was finished the heating could go in.

The painters with the last touches

The painters finished in mid January 2017. Three doors had been taken out and bricked up, one door needed to become wider. The windows went in and a short ramp had to be built at the entrance. We got the all clear to move in presses and type.

First press to move in

And we gladly started shoving it all in. In October the presses and type cabinets had arrived on an articulated lorry. They had been sitting in the barn and a side room waiting for better times to come.

These buckets and machinery got snowed in. At this time none of it was needed anymore.

The studio has almost moved in. The date for the opening is set for 31 March to 2 April.

The studio will be re-born with a new name. One of the images that stuck with me right from the start was a fork and a broom on the stable’s lovely brick floor. The new name of my studio is: The Fork and Broom Press. There is a new website too. Just klick on the new name here.

As I write this a little owl is calling to make sure the place is his. The tulips are growing and the daffodils are showing first small buds. Spring is round the corner. The daisies have already opened their first flowers. A pheasant made our meadows his the other day. He was striding the place during a downpour and he got soaked.

Pheasant

First Winter

Posted on February 7, 2017 by Annette

Neighbourhood in January

We are settling in gradually. There has been a nasty cold spell rather early in November that left us wondering what winter would be like here at our new home. We had expected it to be milder than where we used to live.

We’ve had a number of tasty cakes, there have been stews and biscuits and flapjacks – which, for as long as I shall live, will remind me of Keswick youth hostel, where I had them for the first time. But, basically, our first winter in the new home is still quite busy.

New windows

On a sunny day in November the new windows were built in on the front facing east. Originally there had been glass bricks in place. After breaking down the glass bricks the yard was covered in shards. The large door will be replaced next. The hinges are worn and each time we have strong easterly winds the door keeps rattling.

Medlar tree

In mid December we discovered that the young medlar trees we had planted only weeks before quite obviously were to the liking of the resident rabbits. So we needed to quickly build some protection for the young stems from the wire mesh we had used to keep the root voles off of the tulip bulbs.

In December there was not enough time for the painters to get all their work finished in the pressroom-to-be, so they resumed their work in January. The last task was the varnish for the concrete floor. There was no chance we could move the type cabinets and presses in any sooner than mid January.

Some snow

The builders had left part of their machinery in our back yard and in January some snow fell covering it all nicely. In the following days temperatures stayed low, there was no more snow but we had fog.

Fog in January

Now this is when you realise that there is a peat bog not far. Over a few days there was fog and frost and the fog set out to freeze on to all surfaces. It froze on to wire mesh and barbed wire, branches and twigs, leaves and spiderwebs.

Oak trees in January

The scenery became magical and almost surreal.

Front garden in January

The view to the west changed once more.

Into the west – January

We live in a very beautiful place all year round. The rooks still come for their lunch browsing our meadow. A family of magpies joins them every now and then. Geese travel to and fro over our farm. They might be roosting in the bog and feeding elsewhere – or the other way round.

As I write this the woodpeckers are hammering their trees and the little birds have started to sing their songs again. There will be another cold spell. But days are much longer than they were during winter proper. Soon spring will come and the tulips will start to grow and colour the garden.

Sunset early December

The Book About Awayness

Posted on December 5, 2016 by Annette

Artist’s book: away

The process of relocating my studio is not over yet, but we are getting there. This relocating business has been ongoing since early 2012. There was no denying: my situation was either being away from my work or being away from my husband.

Artist’s book at Hamburg Book Fair 2016

It goes without saying that over those past years this has got me thinking a lot about what away means. I took to dictionaries. There was a wealth of meanings and sayings. I remembered an old lady who used to live in my mother’s neighbourhood. She had a lovely little pet companion, a dachshund by the name of Wastel. And one day he was no more. She never said he had died, she’d always say he had gone away. Awayness comes in various kinds. Some awayness we choose, others we are forced into. Some awayness is temporary, others will be permanent. Some awayness feels like alleviation, others hurt. Some awayness we hardly notice, others will be life changing.

Add to this, there was a constant flood of news about refugees. Migrants and refugees are facing awayness as fiercly as hardly any other group of people. Their homes might be bombed and non-existing in a matter of moments. Their loved ones might be killed. Their perspectives of getting an education or earning a living might vanish with the political regime changing. They might be left with just what they can carry or not more than the clothes they wear – everything else they used to live with is gone away in a moment of shelling.

And there are people who see their homes flooded – this need not be the monsoon, it can be torrential rain in the Lake District. Or shaken to rubble by earthquakes, be it in Japan or Italy. Or burnt to embers by wild fires, be it in Australia or Spain. Or blown to pieces by tornados in the US. Or washed to the sea as in Norfolk. Cattle are taken away by drought in Africa. These are but some of the many shapes and diguises in which we might encounter awayness.

The news tell us of the catastrophy, or the war, the bombing or the accident. The news do not tell that people lost all their family photos, their favorite soft toy, the violin their granddad used to play. It might be small things, but nevertheless they cannot be replaced or rebuilt. Once they are lost they are away for ever and a life is changed.

When I had the idea to turn all this into an artist’s book, I knew this book would be different compared to all books I had made so far. I had to plan this book far away from my studio. I’d then pack my suitcase and travel to my studio for a working visit limited in time. Once there, I’d print all sheets and cut to size all material needed. I’d fold and press the cover sheets. There would be no board shear, no block cutter, and only the smallest of my bookbinding presses available to me after I had left heading home again. All machinery would be some 500 kilometres away. I packed a box with the hand tools I’d need: awl and needles, thread and bonefolder.

Cover: metal type to go in the press

Makeshift workplace away from the studio

Thus this book is special in more than one aspect. It is the last artist’s book I printed in the old place. But it is not made entirely there. I took the printed and folded sheets to finish them off away from the studio. I worked on a makeshift workplace in the tiny flat we were living in at the time. This book is not just about the meaning of the term away. It is made in different stages of being away, part of the book’s substance is awayness. It is built upon, has taken shape within awayness. It breathes awayness.

The book itself is an edition of twelve one-offs. Each of the books comes with a unique compilation of twelve photographs depicting a scene of awayness. The text passages are taken from various dictionaries. All books are hand sewn as coptic bindings. The cover is printed on grey Gmund Bee paper. The pages are fitted with glassine sheets to protect the photographs. The book was presented to the public at the Fine Press Book Fair in Oxford in autumn 2015.

2015 Fine Press Book Fair at Brookes University

As I write this the sun is shining from a spotles sky. We had one more rather frosty night and everything out there is covered in white frost. The world looks a beautiful and quiet place. Normally around noon the rooks will come in numbers and search our meadow for lunch. I doubt they will do so today – with night temperatures as low as minus 7C the sandy soil gets rocksolid. The cranes have gone away on their annual migration. And we may expect those fascinating birds back some time in spring.

Migrating Cranes

Leaving the Old Place for Good

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Annette

The last morning in the old studio

On the last weekend of October we hit the road one last time to collect what was left in the old place. We were lucky in that this very weekend treated us to three lovely late autumn days. This particular year the typical Golden October days were rare, making these days even more special than they already were for us: I had come to the place where I had been working in during the past twelve years, and I had come here for one sole purpose: leave it for good.

All cleared.

It was a gorgeous autumn morning with mist clinging to the mountain Hohenstaufen’s base. Even though we had been clearing out bookbinding and printing gear on three previous occasions already there were still enough odds and ends left to keep us busy well into the afternoon. But, finally the space was cleared, nothing left. We handed over the keys, and off we were.

Hitting the road one last time.

Monastry in Lorch

Leaving Waeschenbeuren behind we headed for the B29 road that would take us straight away to the motorway A7. We were surrounded by the mountainous countryside with trees and bushes at their autumnal best. Our route took us past the monastry in Lorch and right through Unicorn tunnel underneath the town of Schwaebisch Gmuend.

Einhorn Tunnel in Schwäbisch Gmünd

Crossing stream Rems

East of the town we crossed the stream Rems and on we went towards the city of Aalen. We were travelling on Monday but the following Tuesday would be a bank holiday in a number of German counties, so there was not as much traffic as on a normal weekday. We went on the northward bound stretch of the motorway A7, having a break at some point. The route took us through some of the low mountain regions one of them by the name of Rhoen. The highst elavation within the Rhoen region is the mountain Wasserkuppe just under 1000 metres. We did not have to brave that one, but the views of the many mountains either side of the motorway was stunning. The riges and slopes are forested and the trees had put on their colourful autumn foliage. In some spots large patches of European Larch were showing off their very special colouring.

Heading north

Having a break

Further north we had to battle what is called Kassel mountains. Here the motorway climbs a number of slopes and driving a van loaded to the brim can be challenging.Only a few kilometres shy of Kassel we left the A7 for the A44 and later the A33. Now the countryside becomes slightly less mountainous. Crossing the stream Twiste shows a meandering creek whose banks are decorated neatly with birch trees. The land gradually flatens out, the streets are lined by rows of trees and wind power stations are more abundant than in the south.

Crossing stream Twiste

Flat country

Around Herford we left the motorway for road B239 taking us through Luebbecke right on the foot of what is called Wiehen Hills. These are part of the most northerly low mountain region in Germany and the last mountain proper we had to conquer. Their highest elavation is the mountain Heidbrink with just under 320 metres. Further north streches the North German Plain towards the coastal regions of North and East Sea respectively. Luebbecke is famous for its privat brewery Barre whose buildings greeted us while we were going downhill. Leaving Luebbecke behind we came passed its port which is on the banks of Midland Canal. Building this waterway started in 1906, it runs almost straight west-east. It links river Elbe with river Weser and – via Dortmund-Ems Canal – with river Ems and the Ruhr region. The Midland Canal actually crosses both river Weser and river Elbe.

The town of Lübbecke

Crossing Midland Canal means we are almost there. Dusk was closing in, the clocks had changed back to winter time only the day before. We got home just after 5pm. The last we had loaded on to the van was my studio’s 1950s fridge. This was the piece we definitely wanted to unload straight away. There was no way I could have defrosted it prior to loading. We had pampered it with a huge pile of old towels squeezed inside to sponge up the water from the thawing ice. This had worked perfectly fine. We left the rest of the load on the truck for Tuesday. We had to hand the van back just after noon.

The barn in January

This is the barn as it looked in January. In the meantime we have cleared out the straw and where the straw was now sit all the type cabinets. And this is the printroom-to-be as it looked in April. It is still a long way until the presses can move in there and I shall be able to start printing again. We are getting there step by step.

Printroom-to-be

As I write this the wind is blowing strongly and there are powerful gusts outside. It is chilly and there are like fits of rain or drizzle. The sunflowers must feel pretty shaken by now. All of a sudden this morning the sky filled with large birds and their cries. It looked like a huge flock of cranes gathering to hit their road heading south for the winter. They were awesome to watch.

Sky filled with birds

Movable Type.

Posted on October 24, 2016 by Annette

Movable type

Moving tons of metal type and printing presses is a hard job to do, no matter what time of the year. However, there was one thing I absolutely did not fancy: having to move my type and presses during the winter months. When in August I realised that all the type cabinets might fit into our barn for short time storage, I considered moving the lot during October. The printroom is still far from being finished, but it might be ready to use some time in December. Having all the printing gear at hand, would mean it can go in there the moment the paint on the walls has dried. Dates were fixed and time went quickly. Add to this: it went cold.

Memphis

First cabinets on pallets

I drove south again on 10 October. I had just about one week to shove all the type cabinets on to palettes and thus get them ready for transport. The articulated lorry would come to pick it all up on 18 October. Packing up stuff is a peculiar job. Each piece you pick up, shove around, wrap in bubble foil and strap to a palette comes with its very own story, be it long or short. Some of those stories you had forgotten about, others you all of a sudden realise you had not even been aware of.

I have a small number of oversized type cases. In German they are called „Brotschriftkasten“, which literally means case of bread type. The reason for this was: the larger cases held more type specimens and were used to compose long texts. It was these cases that helped the printing office make its core income, hence the name bread type: the type that payed for the bread. I kept one of these cases, housing a rather old and worn type, sitting on top of one of my older type cabinets. Normally the cabinets would have been made of beech wood. This one was made of fir or spruce and it looks rather bashed-up. My landlord helped me lifting the case off of the cabinet and place it on another to be strapped in for transport. Only when I started taking the cases out of the old cabinet I became aware of a label that was pasted on to the wood. It was an old rail transportation label stating that this piece of furniture had been on its way from the main station in Stuttgart to its destination on 12 April 1928.

This cabinet was travelling in the times of the Weimar Republic, when Kurt Tucholsky was still alive and writing, a decade before the start of WW2. It reminded me of meeting a printer once at a fair. He was running his own printing office which had been a family business for at least three generations, perhaps more. Both, his father and grandfather had seen all their type taken away more than once by the military during war times – to be made into ammunition. I could almost feel his disgust about such an utterly savage act. Type was the medium that had made possible and helped spread education, knowledge and understanding. With printed books and leaflets people could learn each others languages, could descry other peoples’ culture and art and customs and recipes. Metal type was a means of understanding, a means of crossing borders and connecting people. „This is a printing office, crossroads of civilization, refugee of all the arts against the ravages of time …“ You can almost hear Beatrice Warde’s words (dating back to 1932) ringing in your ears. You can hardly imagine anything worse than turning metal type into ammunition to kill off people. Nevertheless, it has been done again and again.

Where The Red Poppies Dance

Another of my very old cabinets is the one housing the small family of Trajanus, the fount I used for my artist’s book „Where the Red Poppies Dance“. It is the type of cabinet that comes with four oversized cases plus ten normal size cases and ten narrow cases for larger type. On the Sunday my dear friend Ivonne came to help me all day. A more than heartfelt thankyou goes to her. It is totally her credits that I managed to have all cabinets ready for transport by the following Monday evening. I would not have been able to achieve this without her tireless effort. We took out the large cases and discovered a nest neatly made by one of my furry visitors. What a thoughtful choice! Trajanus is one of my favourite founts and here we were: The specimens of the 9 point lower case ‘d’ had been snuggled into a neat and cosy looking circle and cushioned with little snippets of paper – part of which had been labels in another of the cases, containing ornaments. But there was still more to come.

Somebody made themselves at home in Trajanus type

When we started to take out the cases in one of the other cabinets, the meanwhile homeless mouse was sitting there staring at us. It had started building itself a new nest on the floor beneath the lowest case. It was a very beautiful mouse, though, with a nice long tail and lovely spherical black eyes. We tried to catch it but with no avail. It took flight and appeard to have vanished. In this place I’ve seen a number of furry visitors and feathery ones, too. Normally I was able to return them into the wild where they belong and are happy. I have no idea what happened to this one. It might have taken its chance to travel to a new place. If so, I’m sure it will love our barn and not regret its decision to cling on. That is, at least until its first encounter with one of the martens that live here, or for that matter our neighbour’s cat.

I should have known, but it still came as a surprise that there were so many cases so heavy weight. A few of them were the ones coming with Baskerville. In my first couple of years we were given the opportunity to use a colleagues Monotype caster to cast our own type. We chose to cast 10 point Baskerville. And we decided to cast more than normal, to make it our bread type, so to speak. But there were other cases full to the brim, too.

During this one week I was taking out each type case from each cabinet and putting it back in after the cabinet sat firmly on its palette. I saw them all once again. The ones that I have used often and the ones I always wanted to use and up to now never found a suitable project for. I saw all the ornaments, decoration, borders and clichés. I cut up my old worn needle felt carpet from the floor to use it as padding in the cases.

Old carpet as padding

On one day I came across two cases that were amongst the first I had bought. The owner had been a photographer, running his own shop and, in a way, publishing house. He produced a number of series of postcards. One edition pictured locations where hill walkers and hikers would go to, particularly the pubs or snack bars there. The other edition was of famous people of the time, singers and actors mostly. He would take the photographs produce the prints from them and then print a small text on the back of the postcard. The text would either be the name and details of the person or the place and elavation of the location depicted. He also produced autograph cards that would be signed by the singer/actor.

Since he was neither a printer nor a composer he used his type in a somewhat unorthodox way. He compsed the text, printed it and kept it for using it again. Basically this is what printers would have done. But a printer or composer would not have used cellotape to keep the set type together. He did so, with the effect that over the years the glue became somewhat half-solid and almost un-removable.

Add to this, while keeping all his old text bits, he gradually ran out of type. He must have kept ordering more over the years or decades, but at some point the type he had started off with would be out of stock at the foundry, or given a re-design. Quite obviously he decided to take one similar to the one he had putting it in with the rest of the old. After so many years he ended up with at least three or four different sorts of 8 point type in one case. We had tried to sort it, but given up on it. There was no way of ever working reasonably with type like this. I had kept these cases solely for the reason that they were amongst my first. I saw clearly that this was the moment they would go to the scrap metal merchant. Back then I had bought two cabinets from his stock, one of which was a smaller, almost delicate nice little furniture. However, the photographer being a smoker and handling chemicals obviously at the same time, there must have been an explosion of some sort on the cabinet and you can still see the spill of the blast.

The evening prior to loading

Proofing press on forklift truck

So many stories. Still far from all being told. On Tuesday 18 October early afternoon the articulated lorry reversed back into the yard and parked in front of my old studio’s doors. A forklift truck packed the cabinets and presses one by one on to the truck, which was said to measure 22 metres in length. We agreed to meet again Thursday 8.30am.

Type cabinets safely arrived at their new home

I was on my way back all Wednesday covering 560 kilometres to our new home, hoping all would be fine. On Thursday the truck was late, stuck in a traffic jam. It got to our new place in Westphalia just after 11am. While the forklift truck was unloading the cabinets and presses it started to drizzle, but never rained. We just so managed to pack almost all cabinets into the barn. Three of them had to go inside with the two proofing presses. There has been no frost so far.

The old place: almost cleared

As I write this it is cold outside with the occasional shower. Earlier today I have put protective foil to the windows in the printroom-to-be. Tomorrow the plasterwork on the inside walls will start. A number of young shrubs and bushes are waiting to be planted where our garden is going to be. However, I won’t be able to stay that long – the last odds and ends will have to be collected at the old place – this coming weekend.

Autumn evening at the old place in October

A Bindery’s Trek: Episode 2

Posted on October 7, 2016 by Annette

Diary

During my ongoing process of relocating I found things I had long forgotten about. One of them was a little red notebook. Its cover is made from red plastic sheets and it has a white wire binding. I used it as my travel diary during a family summer holiday in France and we must have bought it locally at some stationary shop. There is no note about the year but it must have been in the early or mid 1970s. I had pasted in picture postcards of the location and vouchers of a pancake (crêpes) vendor called „The Golden Anchor“ plus a table of the opening times of a marine zoo.

Diary

Diary with printed poems

Until today I keep my diaries like this. I even constructed a special type of book which is designed to keep safe bits and pieces pasted on to the pages. My journals have always been companions for me. They are all worn and brim over with all sorts of snippets and odds and ends. I very vividly remember a trip to Scotland in 2006 during which my journal got soaked inside the rucksack. It was one of the first I had designed and made entirely myself. I dried it over night under some more or less heavy things I had with me, and it was fine. It still is.

Historical binding

Folding sections

In September we set out with a rented truck a second time to get the remaining components of the bindery. The intended side effect was to clear the front part of the old place in order to be able to move out the presses and type cabinets from the back. I left our old farm in the north on Thursday 22 September.

Prior to sewing

There was still paper left to pack and load. There were two old wardrobes that wanted to be dissembled, one of which we had turned into a storage place for prints years ago. There were four sideboards and work benches one fitted with a thick and weighty worktop made of black schist. Ad to that there were a fair number of type cases that would have to go on this tour because they don’t fit in any of the cabinets.

Type cases in waiting

Artist’s book on Human Rights

However, this tour still was abut moving my bindery, making it complete in the new place. I enjoy making books differently. I still want them to bring a message or come with blank pages to hold a message somebody puts in. I still want them to be proper books and be handled as books. I believe the nature of a book is that of a vessel, transporting something inside, that will be revealed or set free by opening it and turning the pages.

Cover made from towel linen

Cover made from brocade

As a child I adored those wee little Chinese boxes all covered in cloth. Mostly the fabric used was shiny brocade and inside the box was something delicate. A precious brush for calligraphy. Or meticulously carved chopsticks. Once I started bookbinding I wanted to have a go at using fabric for book covers. Over the years I tried a lot of different qualities of fabric. The most sturdy must have been some hessian from a coffee sack, the most delicate a silk cutwork fabric, handmade in Asia.

Artist’s book

Loading type cases

We kept loading the truck for three full days. The last to go in were, again, potted plants. Some young shrubs and bushes, some ferns plus the two hydrangeas and the begonia still in bloom. For a brief anxious moment it looked as if it was impossible to fit all in. But then, quite miraculously, it worked out and we made the lifting ramp go shut. In my van, once more unjustly dwarfed by its bulgy cousin, some items were nestled together that were telling of the more challenging part of the relocation process that is still to come. Two small platen presses, one of which our Adana 8×5, were carefully padded for the journey. The larger platen was strapped safely in the truck. The printing gear was till sitting in the old place untouched.

Trucks loaded

This time the journey back went pretty uninterrupted. Wednesday was a sunny day with temperatures in the mid 20s feeling like late summer. Back at the farm the sandy soils had gone dry like dust. Thursday was the day to unload. We had one whole day, but we only just so managed to have the truck empty before it went too dark for the job.

Still loaded

There it goes

There was an early start on Friday to hand back the rented truck. Here it goes, dawn just breaking. Only minutes later the really big vehicles came to the farm. But this is a different story altogether, to be told in in one of the posts to follow. First of all we will have to prepare for moving the presses and type cabinets in mid October. The date is set. Stay tuned.

More to come

As I write this the sunflowers keep nodding their golden and bronze heads in the wind. We have had chilly nights, unseasonably chilly to be honest. The crows and jackdaws and magpies had their family gathering on our meadow today playing a game around the walnuts on our neighbour’s tree. And the far reaching view to the west is restored after the field of maize has been harvested these past days.

Evening early October

Garden Reloaded: The Raised Bed

Posted on September 20, 2016 by Annette

Old bricks

At a fairly early stage I had the idea of having a raised bed for my herbs. With so many bricks having to go from the stable (during the process of turning the stable into the print room) it was tempting to have the raised bed with a red brick wall made from the old bricks, that had served as flooring in the stable for at least decades.

Shower of sleet in late April

Our herbs sat waiting in their pots on our patio. In late April they got showered with sleet. There was a meadow to begin with, and a rumble strip with demolition waste, that I don’t know how many generations had a habit of dumping there. In the first place the debris had to go and the grass. The grass was easy to remove compared to all the rubble. The latter had to be dug out and this took me weeks. It was rusted keys and shards from cups and broken bricks and tiles and bits of concrete. And bones. Old bones, from cooking broth so I believe.

Weeding and digging

Mr blackbird on the outline

In June I could put down the outline. The bed is facing southwest. It will have full sun from one side and the small pig stable in its back. The stable’s wall heats up considerably on hot summer days and reflects the heat of the sun until late in the evenings. Mr blackbird was very torn: the open soil made it so much easier for him to find food for his chicks, but that lady digging was a bit of a nuisance. This was when Mr and Mrs blackbird were raising their June chicks.

Windmill in Levern

Raised bed in July

The village Oppenwehe is part of a municipality consisting of 13 villages and hamlets altogether. The municipal administration is located in the village Levern. It was there that I first saw that red bricks were used in traditional gardening around here. There is a little gathering of historical housings in Levern. They nestle around a large windmill, in which couples can get married. One of the old homes shows off a traditional farmer’s garden. And all the margins of the beds were neatly laid with red bricks. Putting in that margin around my bed-to-be took a while during July.

Raised bed in July after rain

For some time there was very little progress as to the raised bed. There were so many other things on the agenda. In August we hit the road to fetch the bindery, but work resumed in September. We started to mix mortar and build the brick wall. By this time the old bricks had been waiting piled up on the site. They had got washed down repeatedly. We’d had torrential rain on one or two occasions. And all of a sudden there it was: a raised bed made from red bricks. We filled in the rest of the rubble for good drainage. Then we put in the sand that had been sitting in heaps around the bed. And on the sand we put a layer of garden soil mixed with compost.

Brick wall growing

Raised bed from red bricks

Sand goes in

By late September the herbs at long last could abandon their tiny pots and move into their new bed. Here they have plenty of space and all the sun they can wish for. There is two small bushes of rosemary, one sage and a variety of thyme. There is caraway and oregano and marjoram and parcel, which is a cross between parsley and celeriac.

Raised bed with herbs

Red Admiral

Some fellows are quick in making friends: the red admiral butterflies seemed to love the place from the start. A number of them kept coming back sitting on the bricks in the sun. And the bumblebees came to visit the lavender which is still in bloom.

As I write this it has gone chilly outside. Temperatures have dropped rather quickly these past days. The swallows and martins have left for warmer regions. I have seen more geese flying in formation. The starlings are still here, though. The sunflowers show all shades of bronze and golden-brown. In the barn the nest of the white tailed bumblebees seems abandoned at last. And dusk sets in so much earlier in the evenings. But the sunsets are still as stunning as on our very first evening here.

Sunset September

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