Here’s “Woven” in situ.

Woven, a sculptural book from Celo Knob Press

Bookopolis, the annual show for prints, artist’s books and letterpress is coming up at Bookworks in Asheville, opening September 23.  Bookopolis Weekend runs from Sept. 23 to 24, 2011, and includes the reception and show and workshops.  For information see ashevillebookworks.com.

Woven went to the show yesterday, but delivering a paper sculpture is a little tricky.  The solution, an upside down rubbermaid plastic box–think giant cake carrier.  This is the first artist’s book printed at the Celo Knob Press.

Also in the show: Emily Orzech’s screenprint Floating Tunnel, 2.  For other works, see her website, www.emilyorzech.com.

Emily Orzech Floating Tunnel, 2

On Sunday, April 3, many friends of the poet Margaret Rabb, who died last winter, met to celebrate her life.  The readings from Peggy’s work and from the readers’ own work created a memorable weaving together of recollection, elegy, humor, and meditation.  Many thanks to David Rigsbee for his organization, to all who read and offered their reminiscences–and to Sharon and Chris Ringwalt for their hospitality later. Here Ron Bayes tells stories about visiting Ezra Pound.

David Rigsbee, Daphne Athas, Jill Bullitt, Ron Bayes

Marianne Gingher steps up with a poem

John Balaban reads an elegiac poem

Thanks to Steve Robinson of Rising Sun, Indiana, a spiffy new / old press has now landed safely in the Celo Knob Press shop.  Steve’s the greatest–good refurb, amazingly easy set up.  And now the press is up and running.  Here’s a ‘first light’ print run, along with a party invite for my graduating PhD and MA students.  You’ll also see the first production from the Samizdat Press, whose proprietor I’m allowing to use my equipment.  The Samizdat editor is working on a truth-in-labeling project he calls the Orwell Project.   First item, a set of desk cards: on one side “Big Stick” and on the other “Best Practices.”  Broadsides to come!

The shop with press

Heres the press, side view, with the inking wheel on the right.

Furniture, slug cutter, slugs--let's hear it for sawhorses too.

Over the past three years I’ve begun publishing letterpress broadsides and chapbooks, under the press name Celo Knob Press.  My current project is a series of broadsides featuring poems by North Carolina poets.  This spring I’m collecting the parts of a printshop, soon to be installed in my basement out in the country from Little Switzerland, North Carolina. Here’s the furniture, the wooden spacing you use to lock up a type form in the press bed.

Centaur is an Humanist Type Family originally drawn as titling capitals by Bruce Rogers in 1914 for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The typeface is based upon several Renaissance models. Rogers’ primary influence for the Roman was Nicholas Jenson’s 1475 Laertis, considered the model for the modern Roman alphabet.

Centaur also shows the influence of types cut by Francesco Griffo in 1495 for a small book titled De Aetna written by Pietro Bembo. The 1929 typeface Bembo, is based primarily upon that specimen. Rogers later added the Roman lowercase, and the italic, based upon Ludovico Arrighi’s 1520 chancery face, was drawn by Frederic Warde, and is the typeface released for general use in 1929 by the Monotype Corporation Ltd.