I worked on this project for Edwin Blair with designer Daniel Lievens in 2019. It was an enjoyable project to be part of in so many ways. All of these images and descriptions have been 100% stolen from Daniel Lievens website: https://rdaniel.net/patchen-paintings-book
Book Interiors
The book features a foldout section of photos from the opening. The photos are reproduced in risograph and digital printing.
The book's endpapers and inside covers feature risograph and screen printed reproductions of Kenneth Patchen's and Edwin Blair's correspondence.
“To commemorate the evening the bookstore published 100 letterpress broadsides of a Derek Walcott poem from his book The Bounty. Karoline Schleh, a local artist, designed, printed, numbered and signed each one. My apprehension about whether Derek would also sign them was quickly dispelled. He was quite pleased with the broadside; he immediately sat at my desk and neatly signed each one as I handed it to him. When we finished, he gave me one of his cards, which I still have, and asked that I send the first ten broadsides to him at his Greenwich address in New York City. Most of the remaining broadsides were sold that evening. Number 64 is framed and hangs prominently next to the poetry cases in the bookstore. Very few are left.” ~ Joe DeSalvo
Derek Walcott and myself at Faulkner House Books to celebrate the release of The Bounty
This broadside includes an excerpt from Robert Olan Butler's 10th novel Fair Warning and an excerpt from Elizabeth Dewberry's novel Sacrament of Lies which friend and master type setter, Laura Richens. This broadside was printed to commemorate a reading by the husband and wife team of authors at Faulkner House Books on February 14, 2002. Each copy is signed by the authors and myself.
For the image I chose to make an etching from a circular copper plate I sketched after reading these two excerpts. The architectural elements inspired by the St. Louis Cathedral, very near Faulkner House Books, with my silhouetted/shadowy drawing marks sort of repeating the shapes of spires when the plate is turned for a dream like effect. My backwards script etched in the background to print forward. Laura set the type around it to shape the text, and frame the image. We printed 100 of these, run 3 times through the presses for each color. I have a couple left, with one signed by the authors with personal notes on it for myself which I hold dear.
“An Everyday” poem by Marcella Durand, and lino cut by Larry Giacolleti. I set the type for this shortly after I finished printing “Mistah Leary, He Dead”. A personal project with close friends. I was particularly happy to find the small couch type blocks for this piece. We made only a few copies. This one is well worn from reading it through the years.
Detail of “An Everyday” by Marcella Durand. For more info on Marcella ~ https://www.poetryproject.org/people/marcella-durand
Mistah Leary, He Dead
Hunter S. Thompson
Perdido Press New Orleans / X-Ray Book Co. San Francisco
1996
Edition size 300, with an additional 26 lettered copies, and 3 marble covered proofs for publishers & printer
I printed and bound these chapbooks in 1996 when I worked at The New Orleans School of GlassWorks & Printmaking Studio. This was a collaborative project with Edwin Blair/Perdido Press in New Orleans & Johnny Brewton/X-Ray Book Co. in San Francisco. The text is Hunter S. Thompson’s obituary for Timothy Leary, originally printed for Rolling Stone magazine, after which Johnny received the permissions for us to create this unique edition of hand printed & bound chapbooks to memorialize this. The edition size was 300, with 26 special lettered copies. 100 of these were given to Hunter S. Thompson by Johnny after the edition was completed with the remainder given to Edwin and myself.
These are my remaining copies from the edition. The marbled paper cover and green cover are trial proof experiments I ran to try other papers. In the end we decided to use the purple grey Mexican handmade paper for the edition. I bound 3 of the marble covers with interior pages for Edwin, Johnny, and myself to commemorate the completion of this project. These copies are available for purchase, please contact me through the contact form for information on this. #mistahlearyhedead
Interior of front cover
Interior front cover unfolded
Interior of back cover unfolded with faux LSD page. I was very proud of myself for finding perforation rule in time (wasn’t very easy finding letterpress equipment/ type in 1996)
Interior of the back cover with blind stamp
Back cover design. I found the sputnik image in a Russian Aeronautics book while exploring used bookshops with Johnny in the French Quarter, Again, it wasn’t as easy to have polymer plates made in 1996, but it was entirely worth it :)
Some of the photos and things I still have from this project. My favorite memory from this was having the opportunity to meet and talk with Gypsy Lou Webb.
More proofs & ephemera. I gave everything else I still had to Edwin to include with his donation to the Historic New Orleans Collection (Marshmallow not included, he wanted to help with the photo shoot.)
After unpacking and organizing, I decided to finally give these last 3 empty marble covers some interior pages from the remaining proofs. Printed in 1996, hand bound in 2023 red, yellow, and blue linen threads leftover from the Patchen Paintings project with Daniel Lievens.
For inquiries on this project, please fill out the Contact form