Love of letters ... and snail mail

So excited when I got home from the studio last night and discovered the envelope, above, in my mail box. Even more excited when I opened it to find the card/poster below.

It's by Erin Beckloff, a young, enthusiastic letterpress printer. A bunch of us were on Facebook lamenting the news that the post office will stop Saturday delivery later this year and extolling the virtues of snail mail, printing, paper, etc. Erin promised to send me a letterpress card if I sent her one. I did, my bell ringer card - as a New Year's card.

Erin teaches at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and in her spare time, is consumed by all things letterpress. She operates Inky Winke Press and its Etsy shop. The shop is empty at the moment while she works on printing new cards, etc.

She comes by her love of printing via her father, Scott Moore. He makes - yes, makes - wooden letterpress type. I can't wait to see what the exchange will bring next. Time to get my letterpress going again.

Plenty of cool images but still no pope ...

Well, it's taken six months, but I'm back to scanning that cast of marvelous Italian characters into the digital archive. I started again when trying to be timely by posting an antique image of a pope. Still have not found one among the 88 hand-colored plates in the Costumi Dei Secoli. The book was published in Firenze (Florence) in 1837, so there is bound to be a pope somewhere.

I'll keep searching. Meanwhile, here's a look at who I did find ...

                                              

High Euro style: March 1899

I'm trying to imagine negotiating the wacky March weather we've had in any of these ensembles.

They are from a bound volume of six monthly issues - January-June 1899 - of the Young Ladies' Journal. After searching it the other day. I thought it was about time that the 20 gorgeous fashion plates were scanned and archived.

You'll note that some images are whiter than others, which seems odd since they were all in the same volume. Some are so white, I'd have suspected they were reprints if I hadn't seen the original source. The paper they were printed on may have something to do with the differences.

The magazine was a British publication but the fashion plates were printed Paris - a fact proudly noted on each cover. I discovered the magazine via framed plates in a friend's apartment, then, scoured the internet and area bookstores to find some. This is the only bound volume I have ... at the moment.

My plan is to use the plates that are most oxidized or torn in collages; the others - which are in near mint condition - will be matted and sold in the "Stuff I Can't Bear To Cut Up" bin at the studio.

Tools of the trade: smoothing out things

Bone folders are one of a collage artists's essential tools. I use them every day to burnish paper, smooth out wrinkles and to make sure that everything is well adhered after gluing. As much as I like bone folders, I've all but given them up in favor of Teflon "Bone" folders.

The major advantages are that they don't leave marks on the paper, won't tear thin papers and are easily cleaned. Happily, a bigger range of sizes and shapes is available now. And, as soon as I pay the most recent framing bill, I'm saving for an entire set of Teflon tools. Right now, I have but one large folder. A few weeks ago,  that one was misplaced and I was in a panic until finding it.

No shops carry them locally, so I shop online. The ones pictured above are available from Talas. It's a remarkable Brooklyn shop for conservation, preservation and restoration supplies. It specializes in bookbinding supplies and the customer service is great.

An even bigger selection is available from BoneFolder.com. I haven't ordered from here but am impressed by the array of folders. It also carries Teflon-coated tweezers, spatulas, carving tools and scissors.

Another source, but with less of a selection, is Ann Arbor's Hollander's. Love, love, love this place. I once detoured to Ann Arbor to visit the shop, and will likely do it again. It's paper heaven.

Redo No. 2

Having just finished the revamp of "Over the Summer Sea" detailed in the last post, I decided to tackle "Plate 25." It's another long, narrow collage from the same time period. For a while, I had been thinking that it needed to hang horizontally and the initial idea was to turn it on its side, and add a group of children. Not just any group, a specific group from Godey's Lady's Book that included a girl in a dress decorated with letters.

I used an image of her on a postcard and sign for the studio, and thought she'd fit nicely with the vintage report card already on the collage. But I couldn't find her. Fashion bins? No. Letter bins? No. Children's bin? No. Girls bin? No. After two days of looking, I remembered where she was ... in the "collages in progress" bin. I tucked her away there, thinking she'd be safe until I wanted to use her. But I'd forgotten that the engraving illustrated costumes, and once I saw it, I knew it wasn't what I wanted.

The search wasn't a bust, though, because during it I found a beautiful engraving from Peterson's magazine of a girl studying. It's titled "The Hard Lesson" and I discovered two copies. I almost decided to create twins. Almost. With the background removed, it appears that she's sitting at a table covered with marbled endpaper.

During all that rummaging, I came across a roll of vintage embroidered initials. Since the name on the report card begins with an "E," I decided to add them. The final touch was lightly coloring the image transfers on the left side, which were too white.

So, that's it. Well, except for the title - after all the searching, I'm thinking of changing it to "The Hard Lesson."