Spring sale at Phoenicia

Now through April 15, with a special gift for the first five who order.
Phoenicia Publishing (Montreal)

"Mystery is in the morning, and mystery in the night,
and the beauty of mystery is everywhere." 

–Melville's The Confidence-Man, published today in 1857

Steidl, mostly--

from www.steidlville.com

Metapost

Earlier I was fooling with my post for Sunday. It had certain pronounced leanings toward transcendence and also gardens, and then somehow suffered metamorphosis and turned into a rhymed, metrical poem. Thus it departed from the blogger-plane of existence. And that is The End, or perhaps a beginning, as it travels on and I start another post entirely.

How to Make a Book with Steidl

Last night I watch a documentary about German publisher Gerhard Steidl, and though it is a bit repetitive and hypnotic in the way of many documentaries, I found that the repetitive and hypnotic elements perfectly fit the account of Steidl's obsession with perfection in the making of books. It's also rather exhausting to contemplate his dedication as he travels from Göttingen to Vancouver and New York and Los Angeles and Nova Scotia on quick work trips, visiting photographers, artist, designer, and novelist. (The film features Steidl with Günter Grass, Karl Lagerfeld, Edward Ruscha, Robert Frank and June Leaf, Khalid Al-Thani, Martin Parr, Jonas Wettre, Joel Sternfeld, Jeff Wall, John Cohen, and Robert Adams.)

Directors Gereon Wetzel and Jorg Adolph capture Steidl's confidence in his own skills and book-creation lore. They convey his love of the book, his determination to catch every aspect of book pleasure--the fragrance of different papers (if treated properly in printing), the sound of one heavy page falling onto the others, the touch under the hand, the instinctive grasp of how to make book design fit its subject. The publishing house that is Steidl reaches a rare level in the quality of paper and printing, and the freedom to pursue any design. It is very impressive to see.

The film also made me appreciate how lucky I am to have done book covers with interesting artists. In particular, I felt how lucky I have been to do books with Clive Hicks-Jenkins of Wales (Thaliad and The Foliate Head) and some first-rate book designers, including Elizabeth Adams and Andrew Wakelin and Burt and Burt.

Addendum: After reading artist Marja-Leena Rathje's comments, I have thought to mention that Clive has a number of fine-art books with the UK's marvelous Old Stile Press. You can scroll through posts on both those books and the ones with more commercial printing by going here. All are beautiful.

Passion

"All our books are designed and produced under the same roof. These days, very few publishers run their own printing presses. I, however, firmly believe in this noble tradition, as it enables me to follow and oversee every aspect of a book, from the artist’s initial idea to the final product. Thus, I can ensure a quality standard that would otherwise remain elusive." -Gerhard Steidl

Steidl found his vocation as a printmaker at the age of 17. I love that--love that he found his passion at such a young age and has held to it so long. I feel perfectly congruent with that sort of obsession! It won't be long until he will have been in the business for fifty years . . .

I Interview my Visitors, no. 2

Lori, the woman who ought to be a Bigwit instead of a Witzel, has a passionate curiosity that drives her to see and to say what and how she sees in words, drawings, photographs, and poems. Her primary blog, Chatoyance, flings a seemingly infinite number of tendrils into the aether of the internet, making connections with me and you and somebody with a laptop who is sitting under alien leaves on the other side of the world. Lori Witzel is curious about the way light tosses a glimmering, insubstantial banner into an auto repair shop, about the way decreptitude takes a a plaster wall, about the stuttered reflections on a ribbon of windows in the city.

She is a metaphysical dreamer and eavesdropper. Look: right now she’s leaning over her Starbuck’s coffee, listening to those two women with their heads bent together. She’s sketching the acanthion above the scroll of a lip and jotting down notes in the margin. She plunks down in the dirt, staring at sun through tattered leaf, camera in hand. She’s pausing in an alley to take in the weird poetry of rust on a hand-welded gate and metal rooster. Out of a clear blue Texas sky, cats are dropping onto her legs and back, sniffing behind her ear. A husband is calling from the background. But Lori just laughs and doesn’t turn her head as she steadies the camera: she’s alive, and she’s looking, and she sees.

Marly:
What’s the most interesting swap you’ve seen on your worldwide swap blog, Gimme Your Stuff? And is your blog, I’m Sorry I Haven’t Posted, really a form of metafiction—since you never (“no, not ever—hardly ever”) post?

Lori:
Unfortunately, I haven’t been monitoring Gimme as much as I used to when it was just a Teeny Lil’ Blog looking for swap-friends. My role is very peripheral—I’m sort of a departed founding partner of Gimme Your Stuff, and the people who really keep it growing and fun are Rikki and ThomP.

But rather than answer “the most interesting swap,” if I may I’ll share the back-story on how that blog came to be.

My friend Andy Spiegel’s friend Willie Baronet left a comment on Rikki’s blog during a debate about “Milo vs. Nestles,” rather insistently pushing to get Rikki and company to send him some Milo so he could experience Australian chocolate drink mix nirvana. I countered with a much more charming approach to wheedling Milo, and Rikki took pity upon Milo-less me and sent it to me, not Willie. (And while I thoroughly enjoyed “neener neener nearer”-ing Willie, I did share the Milo with him.)

Well, I loooooooooved the Milo. It was what Ovaltine wants to be when it grows up. And, being a woman who doesn’t have much sense of proportion at times, I decided to extend a big-as-Texas thank you to my Aussie blog-friends by getting and shipping them the fixings for a Tex-Mex party. Lots of chips, salsas, a cookbook and various other sundries were packed and sent off, and Rikki and ThomP were completely surprised (and maybe mildly alarmed.)

The Tex-Mex love made an impression, all right—the next thing I knew, I was getting mysterious emails telling me They Had Something Big Afoot as a result of our food-swap. Clever, creative people they are, they built a whole Web infrastructure to make it possible for random strangers to build bridges of fun, trust and cultural exchange.

I helped for a while, but my job and my art (not to mention cats and hubby) made me a poor partner in Gimme. They’re very kind to keep me on the roster of ringleaders.

****
Yes, I’m Sorry is now metafiction, and that amuses me almost as much as my red plastic Mary Janes. It did start as a trawl for those sorts of posts; I decided it would be funnier if I just stopped. (I wonder how many metafiction writers simply drove down a plot cul de sac and became post-modern by accident?)

Marly:
In your many photographs on your primary blog, Chatoyance, you demonstrate a passion for the overlooked, the decaying, the peeling, the faded, the rusted, the on-the-edge, the weird-in-the-mundane, the back lot, strange layered elements in nature, skewed visions via reflections, and a look that we might call Accidental Folk Art. Is this a tendency that evolved from a mode less devoted to the world’s broken and entropic self, or was it part of your “eye” and predilection from the start?

Lori:
A friend once told me, years ago, that I was drawn to “the wreck of beauty.” Although she was referring to an at-that-time-boyfriend’s physiognomy, I suppose I’ve always been drawn to the liminal and transitional. There are qualities in the mystical notion of tikkun, bringing the broken shards of creation back together, that attract me—and there are qualities in old fairy tales, where the shadowy and broken hold the key to wholeness, which I also find compelling. And as far back as I can remember, even as a little girl, I was like this. (Oh, my poor parents!)

Marly:
You take photographs, sketch, write poems (earlier it was more poems, fewer sketches I note), keep multiple blogs and generally frolic about the world of blogdom, meeting people. (Where did you encounter me, I wonder? Laurelines?) I am quite sure that this is merely the iceberg’s tip. How would Miss Jocelyn Bell describe you, were she a human adolescent, and not a hair-on-end cat about to pounce?

You are so right about finding you through Laurelines—your comments were so darn well-thought and well-wrought I had to see who that Marly person was!

Jossie, if a human teenager, would probably say (were she not texting and squealing about boys with her girlfriends), “Oh, HER. She’s always doing something, and oh my gosh, I never saw anyone so curious about EVERYTHING. I mean, Lori’s nice and all, but she just reads and does stuff and I wish she would just chill and go shopping and pay more attention to me me ME!”

And a cat-tale: Jocelyn Bell Burnell is a part-Siamese who I adopted from a young woman, a science major studying at the University of Texas. This young woman named every kitten in the feral litter she rescued after a woman scientist she felt deserved more attention. Hence, our lovely youngest cat is named after the woman who discovered the pulsar.

Marly:
Thinking about your pictures, I note that you have a penchant for the overwhelming sky that reduces birds to pinheads, granaries to stubs, us to vanishing point. Is this you and Texas? Is time and space just different there? I lived in Louisiana as a child, and I recall (perhaps wrongly) the utter martyrdom of crossing Texas—the occasional joy of an armadillo football booted into the air, or a bird slashing by, or a tumbleweed catching and freeing itself and rolling on.

Lori:
I think it is me and Texas—or perhaps me and the American West.

I was born and raised in New York, but when I was very little I ran away to become a cowgirl and live in Texas. Although I turned back at the first street crossing (and oh, did I get the spanking of my life) I finally make it back.

I cannot ride a horse well, but Texas is just “west” enough to feed some open, wandering part of me. Going to college in Northern Arizona left me with a thirst for open sky and land, places where people are scarce enough to make every stranger a harbinger of something mysterious. That’s not quite where I live, but it’s close enough for now.

Marly:
You’re involved with four blogs (although involvement with I’m Sorry I Haven’t Posted seems rather metaphysical, or perhaps merely whimsical!) What have you found to be the most fun—or the most curious, or the most inspiring—about your links to places like The Art Blog Challenge? (And is it what prompted, in part, a return to sketching?)

Lori:
I think it was Willie who linked me/invited me to The Art Blog Challenge, but that didn’t spark the return to sketching. Rather, it was a camping trip I took a little over a year ago that set me sketching again.

Friends said they wanted to travel vicariously with me and see things through my eyes. Andy lent me a digital camera, which I was quite nervous about taking (I had no love of photography, and tended to break even the simplest cameras.) Beth (the blog-less and shy) suggested I take a sketchbook, and write/draw what I saw and felt.

Their wildly enthusiastic and supportive response to what I did while traveling set me back on that path, and Laura consolidated my efforts in her gentle, double-dog-dare way by hoping I’d sketch more and more.

Although I’ve found some amazing artists through links to blogs like The Art Blog Challenge, the most gratifying thing has been the one-to-one neighborliness and support I’ve been lucky enough to experience. The generosity of people like yourself, and Dave Bonta, and Laura, and many many others in supporting creative growth amazes me.

Marly:
In the sketch and notes of “Self-portrait Marathon: Take 2,” you are shown wandering and waiting for “a surprise, a wonder, a befuddlement.” You seem to be a person of much energy, and yet you are frequently very, very still—and, camera in hand, you are “waiting” on the universe to show itself. Explain yourself!

Lori:
Hah! I wish I could—and goodness knows my husband wishes I could as well!

I guess I’ve been blessed with a large helping of paradox.

One of my favorite approaches to walking along a hiking trail? Stepping just off the trail, just to one side, and waiting. And waiting. Deer come close, mistaking me for a shrub (as long as they can’t sense my human scent.) People walk by and do not see me at all. Lacey little bugs flitter by. And it’s all such a delight for the eye and heart, my mantra through those moments can only be “thank you, thank you, thank you.”

And a heartfelt “thank you” to you, Marly, for asking—it’s good to reflect on all these things, before I pop up and see what I need and want to do next…

* * *

Chatoyancy,
a definition from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia:

In gemology, chatoyancy (or chatoyance) is an optical reflectance effect seen in certain gemstones. Coined from the French, meaning "cat's eye," chatoyancy arises either from the fibrous structure of a material, as in tiger eye quartz, or from fibrous inclusions or cavities within the stone, as in cat's eye chrysoberyl. The effect can be likened to the sheen off a spool of silk; the mobile, wavering reflection always being perpendicular to the direction of the fibres. For a gemstone to show this effect it must be cut en cabochon, with the fibers or fibrous structures parallel to the base of the finished stone.

Some gem species known for this phenomenon include the aforementioned quartz, chrysoberyl, beryl (especially var. aquamarine), tourmaline, apatite, and scapolite.

Chatoyancy can also be used to refer to a similar effect in woodworking, where certain finishes will cause the wood grain to achieve a striking three-dimensional appearance.

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