MULTIFACTOR COMMUNICATION Very successful workshop with the University of Virginia community printing handmade woodtype, handset metal type, and photopolymer on BookBeetle Presses!
ICON OF PROTEST! Contact josef@josefbeery.com for demos printing the Declaration on a wooden press in your classroom or library.
MUSHROOM MADNESS We host a fungal frolic here in our mountain fastness during these warm, wet days of late summer…
THE DECLARATION LIVES! Printing the Declaration of Independence with young visitors to the Smithsonian. A small political act in this challenging time. Encouraging all to read it and share it!
INTRODUCED AT SKEUOMORPH PRESS! A free 32pp illustrated guide to teaching with the BookBeetle Press. Download from www.bookbeetlepress.com
Amanda, your lasercut in boxwood of the BookBeetle logo is just fabulous! Many thanks… Boxwood is a fabulous material for relief blocks. I have a box full of small uncut boxwood rounds similar to this one in size that I can share with you. Perhaps planing the surface could be done on a CNC router?
Hello Stephen! A number of institutions have set up mobile letterpress work stations with the BookBeetle. One of my favorites is at Baylor University. Here is a recent photo from their Instagram #baylorbookarts
Copy of Dunlap Broadside in the Tracy W. McGregor Library, Special Collections, University of Virginia. 20C repair with a pasted in facsimile of the missing portion was removed digitally by Josef Beery.
TORN ASUNDER ONCE AGAIN This fragment of the Dunlap printing of the Declaration from July 4-5, 1776, is front of mind today while reading the news. One of the two dozen surviving copies from the edition of approx 200, it was found wrapped around other documents in 1955 in Albany, NY. UVA Libraries.
FAITH IN THE FOREST The persistence of natural forces turning through their seasonal cycle heartens my spirit. Each February this homely flower pushes its way through the snow and mud at my home to remind me that the world will turn with or without us. It is Symplocarpus foetidus, skunk cabbage.
PRINT CULTURE DEEPDIVE. Participants in the BookBeetle Press AlphaBuzzzz Project have been developing educational projects for use with the desktop press. This past weekend they spent a day learning about the support and resources available at UVA Library’s Rare Book School and Special Collections.
Ryan, for even printing on a handpress: 1) Verify that proper adjustments have been made to ensure that the platen is parallel to the bed, 2) Use PLATEN BEARERS in your form, “type-high material
placed in the corners of the form to bear off excess or uneven pressure.” (Richard Gabriel-Rummonds)
Sharing History of the Book! Center for Book Arts in NYC. Audience fascinated by BookBeetle Press.
Hello Zanna, Send your query to the webmaster of the American Printing History Association website, www.printinghistory.org and ask to post an “In Search Of” blogpost on their webpage. Email is website@printinghistory.org. -JosefBeery
