Movable Type.

 

Movable type

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

Memphis

 

First cabinets on pallets

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.

movable-type-hands

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.

movable-type-cabinets-03

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

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

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.

movable-type-wine-luck

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.

movable-type-cabinets-04

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

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.

movable-type-stars

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.

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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

The evening prior to loading

 

Proofing press on forklift truck

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

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

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

Autumn evening at the old place in October

My Books 2000-2015 – Part 2: Typographic Books

 

Fernöstliches Schmausbuch

Fernöstliches Schmausbuch

 

I consider myself lucky in that I have a huge stock of metal type to work with. I started off with two cases of metal type way back in 1998. One was Victor Hammer’s Uncial, the other was a well filled case of 10 pt Optima. Over the past years the stock grew to around 100 founts. It really is a treat to have so much choice. However, when it comes to relocating this will make up for a heavy load.

schmausbuch-lebenskraft

The first typographic book I made was a cookbook. As you can imagine, it was unusual in many ways. I love cooking, I enjoy philosophy and I am fascinated by founts. This easily sums up to a cookbook with philosophical texts, designed using a variety of different founts.

schmausbuch-art-der-tiere

All recipes in the book are of Asian style in that exotic spices like ginger, cinnamon or curry are used. And all recipes are accompanied by an aphorism or a philosophical tale taken from Asian wisdom, like the thoughts and writings of Confucius and many others (with one ancient Roman thinker having wormed himself in). All the philosophical texts are in some way or other to do with eating and drinking or with what people relish. The book comes with some 20 recipes, printed with some 30 different founts. I printed the book in 2002 and I used most of the metal and wood type I had on stock back then.

deckled edge paper in the colours of cinnamon and ginger

deckled edge paper in the colours of cinnamon and ginger

The recipes, of course, are those we used ourselves. It is quick as well as sumptuous meals, vegetarian dishes as well as some with fish or meat, and there is one dessert right at the end of the book. I used Zerkall deckled edge paper for the book in the colours of cinnamon and ginger refering to the ingredients used in the recipes.

Peacock cover

Peacock cover

There were three different covers, made from specially chosen fabric related to the recipes‘ ingredients. One cover fabric was striped in the colours of exotic spices, one was a brown-beige fabric with a pattern resembling the ornaments on blankets used on elephants, and one was a chocolate brown fabric with a very sophisticated design of peacocks, whose home is in Asia and India. The book sold out a couple of years ago.

 

book-mirabeau-cover-DSE9558

My second typographical book is a response to the beginning of the war in Iraq in 2003. I came across a speech of Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, comte de Mirabeau. He delivered this speech on August 22nd in 1789. It is on religious tolerance. Of course, back in those times, it would all be about the hostilities between Roman Catholics and Lutheran Protestants. But it can be read in a far wider sense. Basically, what Mirabeau says here holds true for all sorts of religious thoughts and the strains between them. The quintessence is that we all can co-exist. We can be braod-minded towards other peoples‘ religion and still sleep peacefully. There is no need for killing each other for religious reasons.

book-mirabeau-DSE9563

Taking into account that Mirabeau was an 18th century person I chose Baskerville for the text, as it is an 18th century design. I used paste paper as endpapers. The pattern is an 18th century style made by Susanne Krause in Hamburg, who specialised in making paste paper for restauration purposes. The cover is made from an African batik fabric. The design has been printed by hand on a delicate damasc fabric. The book comes in an edition of 16 copies, one of which is still for sale.

book-mirabeau-finis-DSE9564

Mirabeau had been involved in the process of discussing and designing the Declaration of Human Rights. That was the particular context in which he delivered his speech on religious tolerance.

menschen-wuerde-rechte

In 2005 I chose a number of articles from that declaration and made an exclusively typographic book. There was only one fount I could think of using for this book: Futura, as austere as beautiful. I wanted this book to be special in a number of aspects. I wanted its character to mirror the long-term validity of the articles in the declaration. I wanted the book to have something sovereign to it; it was to express duration and hope. First of all I chose a strong paper of green colour, since green is the shade of hope. I printed on it the grain of an old weathered wooden board, rubbing it off by hand. In this grain every single year the tree has been living has materialised, thus it is like time becoming observable. I printed the text from Futura to stand strong for itself. I gave the book a cover from kingly red silk, expressing its sovereignity. And I made the book a concertina folding whose pages can be turned and turned endlessly. While turning the pages the book will be set in motion like if it had a life in itself. Additionally, the book can be stood on a plinth. The book’s title is „Menschen Würde Rechte“ (Men Dignity Rights), it is an edition of five. The work was accepted at the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt for their second Biennial of the Artist’s Book in 2006. One copy is part of their collection.

manarah-human-rights

In 2009 I became aware of the activities of the al-Mutanabbi Street coalition when I met Sarah Bodman at the book fair in Hamburg. Almost instantly I joined in with their broadside project. In 2011 there was a call for artists to join the „An Inventory Of Al-Mutanabbi Street“ project. I developed the idea of the magazine-like works by the title „Manarah“. I had been doing research around this theme for some time, following the Swiss voting against minarets being built within their country. Manarah is an old Arabic term describing a place that sheds light, literally and in a wider sense. In ancient times this would have been something like a signpost or a lighthouse or whatever device to guide people on their journeys. However, over the centuries this term would develop into what we now know as minaret, the typical tower of a mosque.

Manarah - Issues 1 to 3

Manarah – Issues 1 to 3

My work „Manarah“ resembles a magazine. I decided to have three issues. Each issue is a collection of poetry on a special theme: war, time and love. Alltogether they span a period of some 400 years of human thinking about these themes. As this work is partly in German and partly in English it will be described in the upcoming post dealing with all my works related in whatever way to the English language. There is a special blogpost in the category „Artist’s Books“ dating from December 2012 describing „Manarah“.

 

Poetical Rose Book

Poetical Rose Book

My Poetical Rose Books are utterly different in almost every respect, and they were deliberately designed to be that way. The most normal about them probably is their binding. Depending on their size they come with either seven or nine poems. All poems are dealing with roses in one way or another. And all poems are written by well known German poets like Heine, Hoelderlin, Theodor Storm and colleagues. The total number of pages in each book varies according to size and making between around 90 and 152. Understandably these books come with a good number of blank pages each.

Poetical Rose Book

Poetical Rose Book

Poetical Rose Book

Poetical Rose Book

Each book is meant to be completed by its owner. There are many ways this can be done. Gardeners fond of roses could use the book as their garden diary. It could be used as guestbook on a special occasion like a wedding anniversary. People writing poetry themselves could fill the pages between the printed poems with their own poetry. These books are a series of 20 one-offs. Every book’s cover is made from a special fabric with a design related to roses. Every book is unique.

 

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My artist’s book about Kurt Tucholsky is a very special work without doubt. It is purely typographic apart from there having been used some old clishees. There is a special blogpost dating back to July 2014 when there was an article on the book in Matrix 32, plus another one dating back to December 2012 in the category „Artist’s Books“ describing the work.

Mir fehlt ein Wort (I lack the word)

Mir fehlt ein Wort (I lack the word)

I fell for Tucholsky’s writings way back in the 1980s when still a student. He was a writer and essayist in Weimar Republic. His mastering the German language is outstanding. He saw a second World War coming. He opposed Hitler’s party as much he could. His writings are as relevant and disturbing today as they were back in the 1920s and 1930s. He pointed out that socialists and communists faced much more severe sentencing at court than conservatives and fascists. He described how economic networks, particularly concerning the fire arms industry, had their own notion about wars paying off for them. He pointed out that as these industries made their profit by selling weapons, they quite naturally had a dislike for peace. He got stripped off his citizenship by the Nazis in 1933 and took his own live two years later in his Swedish exile.

tucholsky-Ms-Lenin

The very special feature of the book is that it is entirely made of spoiled sheets. The idea being that a young printer had collected those spoils from the waste bin at his Berlin printing office and taken them home to make a good read. He’d collected the texts he liked most in three portfolios. After him fleeing Germany for America in 1933 these portfolios end up on the desks of the Nazi party and thus were turned into files used for prosecuting and expatriating Kurt Tucholsky.

 

Meine Worte fallen wie Steine (My Words Fall Like Stones)

Meine Worte fallen wie Steine (My Words Fall Like Stones)

My so far newest book is entirely typographic. Also, it is of a very experimental sort of typography. Contrary to that typography originally is supposed to aid and support reading and understanding the text, here typography impedes reading, it disrupts and interferes with understanding.

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This specific typography wants to make aware of our preoccupations. It wants to make us learn that we so often do not read what is written or printed but instead what meets our expectations. We are unaware of us being convinced we know the text without reading it. We reckon we can guess, and we rely on our guess being correct. The book comprises of 14 postcard-like prints. Each of them comes with one sentence. Next to the sentence a name and a year are given. All sentences have been spoken to me in real at one point in my life, in some sort of context. The context, of course, is not revealed. Readers are free to make up their own ideas of what sort of context this might have been or could be. The books are sewn in a modified way of Japanese binding. The cards are printed on a rather aged quality of brown cardboard. Covers are made from strong cardboard material in different colours. The book’s title is „Meine Worte fallen wie Steine“ (My words fall like stones). It is a series of 12 one-offs. These books are not numbered nor are they signed.

card-meine-worte-DSE9567

card-meine-worte-DSE9572

 

There is a blogpost dating from December 2012 by the title „My Type“ which in a way is about my stock of metal type.