Off With Their Heads - Peter Chasseaud's new typographical print

With thanks to Lewis Carroll, who featured this phrase in Alice in Wonderland (the Queen of Hearts ordering the decapitation of the three gardeners).

Dada Christmas - Do You Dada?

A couple of examples of recent things I've printed from wood blocks on the Albion handpress at The Tom Paine Printing Press, using Khadi hand-made paper.

EAST LONDON LINE & THE WHITECHAPEL

Here is a limited edition typographical print which I've been producing to launch my new poetic photobook The East London Line at the Whitechapel Art Book Fair (Thursday 23rd to Sunday 26th September). The large-format softback book, under my imprint Altazimuth Press, will be in a limited edition of 100.

I've been producing the print on my wooden 'common press', a replica of an 18th century press, and as the press is a two-pull press, and therefore has a small platen, I have to pull and wind-on two or three times to obtain one print.

The print is composed in metal type and wood letter on the stone bed of the press. I will have some for sale at the Whitechapel, along with the book, and also a few of my limited edition typographical map, printed in black, red and blue, also entitled the East London Line (see an earlier post).

New Letterpress Work in July

Here are some images of a couple of new things I've produced on the hand press during July

East London Line typographic / cartographic print

This is a proof of my new East London Line typographic / cartographic limited edition print. I set the type on Friday and Saturday, and proofed it on Sunday. It's also a typographic experiment towards my East London Line book, which I will launch at the Whitechapel Art Book Fair in September.

This print celebrates the reopening of the East London Line (which has now been subsumed into the 'Overground' system), but is also intended to preserve the memory of the old East London Line, as well as the London, Surrey, West Indai, East India and other Docks and the working class communities of the areas covered. Action by government, local authorities and developers (nowadays called 'regeneration') has, since the war, erased whole areas of the old London. They have done more damage than Hitler's bombs.

Rights of Man, Billy Budd and an 1843 Albion press

I've printed a new typographical poster 'Rights o' Man' (Budd's merchant ship, named after Tom Paine's 1791-2 seminal work) before he was pressed into HMS Indomitable (a name which did not appear in Herman Melville's original story). to mark the terrific new production of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd at Glyndebourne. I printed this poster before I attended the dress rehearsal, and, even so, wouldn't want to change it much. But my posters have a habit of transmuting within short periods of time! So within an edition of, say, 50 posters there could actually be several different printing states. The one shown above does not have the red stars by Captain Vere's name ('Starry Vere') which appear in a slightly later state.

I've just taken delivery of a small 1843 Albion press (see photo above), constructed in the sixth year of Queen Victoria's reign, which I will be able to use for printing broadsides, woodblocks and other relief work. I haven't measured the platen yet, but it can print foolscap (bigger than A4). This is now installed on a stout table in the Press at 151 High Street, Lewes, along with the big common press (which, of course, sits on the floor).

Just got back from Toronto, where I visited the very friendly and interesting Coach House Press (two Heidelbergs), and also Don Black's amazing letterpress warehouse. There's an interesting exhibition relating to the Coach House Press and its work since 1970 in the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto. This is a wonderful gallery and, quite apart from lots of great art (including Rembrandt etchings at present), there's a fine collection of model ships in the basement. If you're interested in naval architecture (Billly Budd, Wooden Walls, Hearts of Oak, etc.) this is well worth a long look.

OLYMPIA & THE WHITECHAPEL: New Letterpress Poster: WRITERS & POETS

This is my new 'writers and poets' letterpress poster, printed in a similar way to the previous two ('political philosphers' and 'artists') using a combination of wood letter and metal type.

I shall be showing all these posters, and more, at the Antiquarian Book Fair at Olympia (London) in June, at the Whitechapel Art Book Fair in September, and the fine press fair at St Bride Printing Library in (I think) November this year.