letterpress

Your School, an artist’s book (glass/copper)

Posted by Tom Virgin
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Your School
8 in x 45 in x 3 in (open)        artist’s book    2012
“Your School” is an accordion structure book created from fused glass and cut copper drawings, bound with multiple ply waxed linen thread, and text printed on bands of Hahnemühle Ingres with a Vandercook 3 Proof Press. The book employs the metaphor of keeping a low maintenance pet (a fish) to examine multiple challenges that schools, and especially young people, are currently facing in Florida and Miami. This book is an edition of two with the second book being sewn with a codex binding.

This book came from my admiration of a friend’s creative use of non-book-like media to create a book. The glass process was enhanced by the advice and guidance of Gail Dahlberg at the Anderson Center at Tower View. The color and glass inclusions fused into window glass created a transparent structure for a very opaque situation, the state of schools. The fish metaphor came from a continuing collaboration with Michael Hettich, a “gringo Magical Realist” poet from Miami.

Ganko, an artist’s book

Posted by Tom Virgin

“Ganko,” is an observation of overlapping cultures, housed in a multiple quire binding. After a class in single/complex quire bindings by Julia Miller at Oregon College of Art and Craft in 2007, I couldn’t wait to put the knowledge to work. During my residency there during summer 2007 this book came together with letterpress printed covers (thanks to Moe Snyder), digital imaging on sheets of Mohawk Superfine Text, and end sheets of kimono fabrics from the Japanese Gardens in Portland, Oregon. Akiko Watamori, my friend (and my bird Ashlynn’s Veterinarian) gave me a window on Japanese culture. I gave her a tour of Miami. The result, including some random images of Portland, Oregon, became “Ganko” in an edition of three.

Can’t See It From My House, an artist’s book

Posted by Tom Virgin

Can’t See It From My House     artist’s book/ title page    9” x 12” x .5”        2008

Can’t See It From My House was created from woodcut prints, photographs, and other ephemera gathered between 2005-2007 in Miami and Coconut Grove, Florida. It is a story of one neighborhood being replaced by another, although it is far from being a completed story. The story will continue to be told by the City of Miami for years to come.
The cover is blind embossed Murillo, with Foldovers and Tackets. Paste papers front and back are real estate listings, laminated in Mulberry paper, as are the end sheets. The book block consist of seven folded sheets, twelve by eighteen inches, of Hannemuhle German Etching paper. It is sewn together with a kettle stitch and bound to the cover with a Complex Multi Quire binding.
The images are inkjet photographs, mixed media drawing, and five woodcut prints (reduced and recreated with polymer plates as relief prints with the Vandercook 4 proof letterpress at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts at Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton, Florida). Can’t See It From My House is an edition of twenty with five artist’s proofs.

Conversation, an artist’s book by Tom Virgin and Kari Snyder

Posted by Tom Virgin

Conversation    artist’s book/ title page    6.5” x 9” x .5”    2008

This book was born of a profound respect of the printmaking skills of Ms. Kari Snyder. A Florida Individual Artist Grant Winner, Kari’s intaglio prints of indigenous plants, birds, reptiles and other wildlife compelled me to ask her to collaborate on a book project.

Conversation was letterpress printed from linoleum plates, half from Snyder and half from Virgin. It has sixteen pages bound with a complex quire binding.  The cover is laminated paper with Thai Banana on the outside and Japanese Katazome paper on the inside. Each artist contributed five plates and hand colored the Rives Tan paper pages. Conversation is an edition of 20 books. “Conversation” was printed at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida with special technical assistance from Seth Thompson.

Process: DC Art Press Folio, 2010

Posted by Tom Virgin

This work is a portfolio that came from a collaboration with Leon Loughridge of DC Art Press. After flying into Denver on the way to an earlier residency at the Ucross Foundation, I saw one of his books at the Denver Public Library’s Artist’s Book Collection. Not only was the work exquisite, but the book included a fine explanation of reduction woodcut printing.I met Leon in Denver after several attempts, returning through Denver from an artist’s residency at Jentel in Banner, Wyoming.

Leon publishes an annual portfolio of prints, print processes, and other work that includes an image by another artist. I am honored to have been 2010’s contributor to “Process: DC Print Folio.” For this publication which was entirely printed on the letterpress at DC Press in Denver, Colorado, I contributed an essay on the topic of process and a 5 inch x 7 inch multiple color print printed on Kitikata paper for the edition of 30 folios. My print was printed at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts, at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida.

Your School, an artist’s book (paper)

Posted by Tom Virgin

9.5 in x 40 in x .25 in (open)        artist’s book    2012
“Your School” is an accordion structure book created from waxed Stonehenge paper, and text printed on bands of Hahnemühle Ingres with a Vandercook 3 Proof Press. The book employs the metaphor of keeping a simple, low maintenance pet (a fish) to examine multiple challenges that schools, and especially young people, are currently facing in Florida and Miami. This book is an edition of 17 with 3 artist’s proofs. This book is a scanned copy of the glass book that approximates the presence of the glass book.

It seems that most everything that I make for the last few years has been directed to teenagers. From the National Parks books that pass along places that many of my students have not been, to work that was created to record what has disappeared, my work archives my world. This version of “My School” is a larger edition than the glass book, that will allow it to live in more than two places.