30 August 2006

DAY'S WORK

Today I finished the cover design, actually a couple of versions of a cover design, for AFTERIMAGE, by Charles Borkhuis, to come out from Chax Press in about a month. Also tried to do what I could to hasten the cover design of SWOON NOIR, by Bruce Andrews, hopefully to come out about the same time. Both of these books are pretty much complete and ready to go to press, pending one more look by the authors.

More paper came into the studio and our great intern/volunteer, Angie, cut that so we can print the last four pages of WAR, by Kathleen Fraser, with images by Nancy Tokar Miller. Last four pages of the poem, that is. The images will be printed next week & the following week, & hopefully we'll then move on to binding. This one is a hand printed, hand bound book that is a particular & marvelous conjunction of book art, visual art, and poem. It will exist in about 40 copies, perhaps 25 available for sale, and be available sometime in October. I"m going to post more about it soon, with some photos of the studio work in progress.

I also sent the corrected proofs for a fine letterpress book, SALT, MY LOVE, by Patrick Pritchett, back to the typesetter today. Our new intern, Jesus Garcia, carefully proofread it for us, and I reviewed his work and sent it off. The 12 pt. Perpetua font for that book looks terrific. I went over the page proofs for an artist's book by local artist (one of the best visual/performance artists I have ever known) Dennis Williams, who was chosen in a grant award contest we had last year for proposals to have an artist's book produced by Chax Press. This one will be a photocopy, on acid-free paper, of his unique documentary notebook journal, and will likely exist in about 100 copies, most bound in found notebooks, likely covered with weathered papers, but about 26 reserved for a special binding we are developing. At this point the working title is ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTER, but that could change. Finally, I did some work on the layout of ANALECTS, by Glenn Mott, another book to come out this fall about which I am tremendously excited.

The only book currently in progress on which I didn't do any new work today is MEDITATIONS IN CROWDED AIR, by Gene Frumkin. That one is coming along very well, but I am doing part of the work along with former intern Mridul Nanda, who is now in Phoenix, and the current work is in her hands. It will make more progress soon.

That's seven books in progress at present. They will very soon be joined by others: books by Beth Joselow, Tim Peterson, Linda Russo, Jeanne Heuving, Jefferson Carter, and John Tritica. Most of these will be out from Chax Press before year's end, but if one or two have to wait just a bit longer, for reasons of design needs or financial needs, or whatever the book takes, that's all right. We have other books to come, too, after these — terrific books (as are those I have named already) by Sarah Riggs, Steve McCaffery, Michael Cross, and more!

Chax Press is a lot of fun right now, & a lot of work!

Stay tuned.

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