Master paper artist Claudia Cohen has turned Seattle's Paper Hammer into a giant paper sample book. The informal exhibition Pleasure of Pattern draws from Cohen's extensive personal collection of paper from all over the world. If you'll be in the area, it's most certainly a must-see! For the rest of us, you can peruse some of the items via Paper Hammer's online gallery.
Never judge a book by its cover, right? In the case of rare books, the cover or more accurately, the binding of a book can significantly impact the book's value. Collectors should know about the materials and terminology associated with book bindings.
By Bruce Levy
During my tenure at the Harry Ransom Humanities Center (HRHC), I encountered countless texts from all over the world. Despite the variety of printed texts, most books are built with relatively standard techniques.
This week we are happy to welcome Bruce Levy, a renowned book conservator. Since 1980, Bruce has worked with high-end rare book dealers, collectors, and institutions throughout the United States.
It all began in 1769. John Granger published his Biographical History of Englandwithout pictures. He did, however, include extra leaves in the book so that people could add their own illustrations. His readers took that cue, often pillaging other books for portraits to accompany the thumbnail biographies in Grangers book.
Screen printing is a printmaking technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. A roller or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil, forcing or pumping ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open areas.
Letterpress printing is a form of relief printing of text and image using a press with a "type-high bed" printing press and movable type, in which a reversed, raised surface is inked and then pressed into a sheet of paper to obtain a positive right-reading image.
Relief is an image created by a printmaking process, such as woodcut, where the areas of the matrix (plate or block) that are to show printed black (typically) are on the original surface; the parts of the matrix that are to be blank (white) having been cut away, or otherwise removed. Printing the image is therefore a relatively simple matter of inking the face of the matrix and bringing it in firm contact with the paper; a printing-press may not be needed as the back of the paper can be rubbed or pressed by hand with a simple tool.
