Camera Obscura Nova

[Anagram for Ink] 2010 Flying Machines Calendar!

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:33:21 GMT

On Tuesday I finished the last printing I needed to get done before the
new year: my 2010 "Flying Machines: possible and improbable" calendar.

On Thursday I trimmed, hole-punched and packaged all 30 of them, and of
course signed and numbered them. I had already pre-sold two at the
Halifax Crafter's Market, and had two other people interested in buying
when they were finished. So I've now sold 5, will keep one for my
files, and will probably use 5 or so for gifts. So that leaves 19 for
sale in my Etsy shop and my ArtFire shop.

The calendars are printed on one of my favourite (non-handmade) papers
for letterpress: Mohawk Via Vellum 80 lb cover. The 100 lb is nice,
too, but doesn't fold as well for greeting cards, so I usually buy the
80. The vellum finish gives it a soft texture that doesn't interfere
with the printing as heavily textured papers sometimes do. I chose warm
white for this, rather than my usual cool white--although cool white
tends to have less affect on the ink colour, the warm white seemed
better suited to the subject matter, and goes well with the brown ink.

I printed the names of the months first, using a different historic
wood type from the Dawson Printshop's collection for each month. I
added a lot of transparent base to the ink, and printed relatively
lightly in order to get all the texture and imperfections of the old
wooden type to show up. For printing the wood type, I used the shop's
Vandercook Universal 1 proof press.

Then I printed the numbers and the images at the same time, from
polymer plates. I used quite a bit of packing on the cylinder to bring
up the pressure and get a nice deep embossment (technically debossment,
I suppose). The letters for the days of the week were printed the same
way, only with a different colour of ink, of course. The polymer plates
were all printed on the shop's Vandercook Universal 2 proof press, a
very rare press (apparently only 50 or so were made).

All of the images except two are ones that I found in my various
history of flight books (I have a small collections). Many of them are
Victorian, and a few of them were in full colour, which meant I had to
remove the colour in Photoshop before converting the files to vectors.
The two images that weren't ones from my own books came from a file of
miscellaneous images on the Printshop computer. Some of the machines
pictured actually flew, while others are simply exercises in
imaginations.

I'm going to post a contest here soon, where you'll be able to win a
copy of the calendar. I think what I'll do is make it a trivia contest,
where you'll have to identify some of the machines--maybe which ones
actually flew, for example. More on that very soon.

[Anagram for Ink] Letterpress, Not Screen Print

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:20:22 GMT

Despite the many print jobs I've had in the past few weeks, I still
managed to design and print two new holiday cards. Well, I cheated a
little on the design, and took one of the motifs from my first design,
enlarged it, added to it a little, and printed it on its own.

I started by drawing the images by hand, then I scanned them and opened
the files in Illustrator. I used live trace to convert the images to
vectors, which generally print much better than, say Photoshop files.
Once I was happy with the designs, I had to separate the colours (which
was easy since I only used two colours in one card and one for the
other, so all I had to do was select the relevant parts and drag them
to a new file), then convert everything to registration black.

Registration black--that is, black that will be printed with CM and Y
as well as K, and not just the black ink cartridge--is necessary to
make the negative dense enough to block light. I send my files off to a
pre-press guy, who sends me back a negative. I cut the pieces for the
different plates apart and then use a platemaker to create the images
on polymer. After washing with soft brushes to remove the unexposed
polymer, the plates are dried and then cured in the sun. I leave them
to cure for at least 24 hours before printing.

I tried to print the single reindeer card with a split fountain
(there's no actual ink fountain on the press, but it's basically using
two--or more--colours on the same press; in litho class we called it
a "rainbow roll"), and you can see from the photo that it looks great
on the rollers and even on the plate. Look at the image of all the
printed cards, though, and you can see that they dried in a solid
grey-blue. I'm still not sure quite why that happened.

I also printed a two-colour card with 3 reindeer, but neglected to
photograph it in process.

Interestingly, everyone who saw the reindeer card at the craft fair
thought it was either a screenprint or a die-cut until I showed them
how the relief printing created an embossed effect where the white deer
shape is raised above the surface because the coloured areas were
pressed into the paper with so much pressure. I guess I have to learn
how to design letterpress images that look like letterpress.

Photo credits: Top = polymer plates for holiday cards and 2010
calendar. Second = two inks at once on the press and the plate. Third =
a whole pile of reindeer cards, printed and drying. Bottom = my booth
at the Halifax Crafter's Christmas Fair. A little crowded, but each
time it looks a little better. All photos by Niko Silvester, taken with
an iPhone.

[Anagram for Ink] Experiments In Coptic Binding

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:22:54 GMT

One of the jobs that's kept me so busy these past few weeks was a
binding job for a friend of mine to give as a gift. (I won't mention
who the friend is or who the gift was for, on the slender chance that
the surprise could be spoiled. I don't think the recipient is likely to
come across my blog, but you never know).

The specifications were for a journal, with reasonably nice writing
paper (nothing expensive) and a leather cover, with the recipient's
initials blind-tooled on the front. My friend found an image of some
journals she liked the look of--the spine wasn't visible in the
photograph she sent, but they were either Coptic or longstitch (an
evolution of Coptic), with exposed stitching on the spines. I've done
similar books before, though with hard covers rather than limp leather.

I used Classic Laid paper for the text block (for those who don't do
books, "text block" is the stack of pages, regardless of whether or not
they actually have text on them). It's kind of the go-to paper for
anyone who learned binding with Joe Landry. It's relatively
inexpensive, but has a traditional-looking laid finish and feels quite
nice. And though it's textured, it's not so textured that it's
difficult to write or draw on.

For the cover I got some very nice, but also inexpensive,
chocolate-brown cow leather. With this kind of cover, you need a
thicker leather than you would use on a hardcover with leather spine.
The leather itself is both the cover and the sewing support, so it
needs to be strong.

I laid out and punched the sewing holes for longstitch, then went
looking for a diagram to refresh my memory of the sewing pattern. And
of course I couldn't find one. Not in my books and not online. And I
seem to have mislaid some of my binding notes. While looking online,
though, I found a really nice Coptic stitch that uses two needles for
each thread, and a separate thread for each pair of holes. It turned
out to be even better for the sewing holes I'd punched than my original
idea.

I made a practice book first, since I hadn't done one quite like it
before (it's the top one in the photo). Then I went on to the real
thing, after deciding to do three pairs of holes instead of two
(because of the larger size). I ended up juggling six needles at once,
but I think the result was worth it. And my friend was very happy when
she got the book in the mail (it's the bottom one in the photo).

I had the practice book on my table at the Halifax Crafter's Christmas
Market, but I was not at all sad when it didn't sell. I've had my eye
on it myself to use as a naturalist journal. Of course, I could always
make another one.

Photo credit: Coptic stitch blank journals bound and photographed by
Niko Silvester.

[Anagram for Ink] Another One Down

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:31:59 GMT

Yesterday I finished off another print job. This time it was 500
business cards and 1000 hang tags for Lesley Armstrong, a Halifax
textiles artist. Even printing two-up, it was a big job and would
normally have taken four days of printing, plus a day or so of prep and
finishing. As it turned out, the "soon, but there's no rush" timeframe
I was initially given was actually more like "right now, but Tuesday
will have to do" (from now on, I'm going to insist on actual completion
dates). In order to get it done on time, I condensed four printing days
into three (thankfully, there were no big problems), and printed on the
weekend, which I don't normally do.

While I was finishing the job, I thought a lot about the difference
between "perfect" and "acceptable." Usually, I like them to be the same
thing. But when printing a big job on a press not known for its
accuracy of registration, the difference between perfect and acceptable
gets bigger. I always print more than the actual number required, but
sometimes it still comes down to weeding out the worst misprints and
leaving the rest in. Of course, I'm talking about prints off-register
by less than a millimetre, but I can see it's not perfect, and it bugs
me.

Another factor, though, is the "handmade factor." When something is
handmade, clients want it to look handmade (without being shoddy). A
perfect letterpress print by the old definition would be
indistinguishable from a digital print, except the printing would be
denser, and perhaps softer on the edges. These days, though, the appeal
of letterpress is its ability to impress the type or image right into
the paper. You can feel letterpress. And the imperfections that would
once have been rejected become interesting.

I was speaking about just this concept with Vince (former Dawson
co-manager) during his visit from Kingston last week. He commented that
people want some of that imperfect look, and I suggested that maybe we
need to start thinking of printing from polymer plates the same way we
think of wood type--the imperfections will happen and maybe we
shouldn't try so hard to get rid of them (with old wood type, it's
often impossible to get a perfect print, anyway).

So I finished the Armstrong Textiles job on Tuesday when I weeded out
misprints, clean up a few ink smudges, and did the final trim. Oh, and
hole-punched all 1000 hand tags by hand. Ouch! Today I finally started
on the binding job that's next on the list, sent a quote off for the
NSCAD President's Chistmas cards (to be printed next week, most
likely), and caught up on some paperwork. I even got an article for
Handmade News done (on how to make a little book from a single sheet of
paper--it'll go live tomorrow), blogged for About PSP, and tidied my
worktables. The studio is still a mess, but it's just a teeny bit less
of a mess.

Tomorrow I need to finish a PSP article and maybe get started on a
review, and finish prepping the digital files for my calendar and
holiday card so I can send them to film on Friday.

Photos (all by Niko): Top - Vandercook Universal 1 proof press inked up
in green. There's a little polymer plate on there, ready to print the
second colour on the hang tags for Lesley Armstrong.

Middle 2 - Armstong Textiles hang tags and business cards, 4 to a page.

Bottom - A colourful beetle that landed on the ground in front of me
while I was taking the air just outside my house.

[Anagram for Ink] One Down

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:05:25 GMT

I was going to photograph the order for Halifax stationery shop Duly
Noted and post it here, but in my zeal to get the job wrapped up
tonight, I packed and bagged the whole lot before I remembered. They
ordered three dozen each of four different cards--two are designs by
former Dawson co-manager Vincent Perez, one is a design by other former
Dawson co-manager Carley Colclough, and one is printed from an old cut.

I also wrote and queued up an article on paper grain for Handmade News.
I'm turning my bookbinding "inspiration" column Leaf by Leaf into more
of a how-to and have re-located it to the Craft Techniques department.
It'll go live tomorrow.

Then there were the usual house odds and ends. My studio space is still
a disaster. Maybe I'll have some energy when I get home from the
printshop tomorrow to organize a bit. Though I also have to start
my "Hot Holiday Games for PSP" article.

Photos by Niko of cards designed by Vincent Perez.

[Anagram for Ink] Or Falling Off a Bicycle

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:26:38 GMT

Well, I managed to do pretty well with keeping up on my NaNoWriMo word
counts. Until Friday. I missed a couple of days, but managed to get
caught back up again. Then came Friday, and snow, and a full day in the
printshop, and driving home in the dark and wind. I was both tense and
limp by the time I got in the door. I managed to feed myself some
leftovers and then collapsed on the couch next to Bill, who'd had an
even worse day of driving than me--his driver's side windshield wiper
went on the way in the school and he had to drive leaning over to look
out the passenger side. To his credit, he made it to school, did the
whole day and made it home again.

And the weekend was full of house things and driving back and forth to
Truro trying to get the right bits to install the new faucet, and again
no writing happened. So anyway, I'm three days behind on writing, which
is really just a point of pride. There's nothing saying I have to
complete NaNoWriMo, but I'd really like to. And of course, today is
such a perfect day that I've had a really hard time keeping myself
inside working. There's a gate that needed disassembling, so I could
have the boards to put up a shelf, you see. And now I really want to go
out a snap a photo of a mushroom I spied in the undergrowth near the
driveway, and I have to move those last couple of gate boards up next
to the house, and, and, and.

In other news, I'm working on a fairly large job printing business
cards and hang tags for a textiles artist. I had hoped to get started
on that today, but getting Bill to school takes precedence over getting
me to the printshop. He should have his truck sorted out by tomorrow,
though, so I'll head down then. The polymer plates are ready, and they
look pretty good. Some of the type is quite small, but I've printed
type that small before and haven't had too many problems. So main issue
is going to be the pressure on the press. The Vandercook Universal 2
that's in the shop has developed a problem where the press bed won't
drop as far as it should, no matter how you crank it. By using very
little packing, it's still possible to print polymer plates--as long as
the paper isn't too thick. I'll be printing on textured card stock, so
I hope that I'll be able to get the pressure to cooperate. Otherwise
I'll have to print on the Universal 1 in the Design shop. Which I
actually like better, but I'll be more likely to be in the way of some
class or another, and the Universal 1 has issues of its own.

(Photo: the Dawson Printshop's Vandercook Universal 2 proof press,
before it developed press bed pressure adjustment problems. Photo by
Niko.)

Anyway, if I can get that job started tomorrow, I might be able to
finish it by the end of the week. Then it'll be back to holiday cards,
a 2010 calendar, and book jewelry. And maybe a couple of really
fantastic blank journals. Oh yeah, and a binding job. I'll need to
start that this week, too.

[Anagram for Ink] Like Riding a Bicycle

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:11:18 GMT

I haven't written much fiction at all in quite a long time, and that's
not a good thing. I've sort of been making up for it by reading a lot,
but reading fiction is not the same as writing fiction.

So I signed up for NaNoWriMo this year, hoping to kick-start myself
into fiction writing again. With so many other things on the go, I'm
not sure I'll manage the 50,000 words by the end of the month, but I'm
at 1711 so far, which is just a little over the necessary 1667 a day to
reach the goal and "win" NaNoWriMo.

It wasn't until I actually sat down to write this evening that I
actually decided what to work on. I didn't really want to work on White
Foxes, even though I really would like to finally get it done. I wanted
something I could start and finish, not something I was halfway
through, even though I'm pretty sure there are well over 50,000 words
left to go in White Foxes. I considered writing the second book in the
Kentaurs series (I wrote the first one last time I did NaNoWriMo), but
I don't really know what happens yet--not even how it begins, except
that Octavian goes looking for his brother Archer.

But then I remembered that I had been thinking about making The
Fabulous Forays of Aeryn Daring into an illustrated serial novel
instead of a comic (hypothetically leaving me more time to work on the
long-time-in-progress Fey comic). It's something I already had a
beginning for (though in a very different form), notes for the near
future of, and a general idea of where it was headed. I suspect it may
grow into a series of short serial novels, but I won't know until I get
there, I guess. So, 1711 words and it's pretty silly, but I'm having
fun and it means that anyone who has actually been reading Aeryn on
webcomicsnation might actually have something new to read soon. Cool.

I've attempted NaNoWriMo three times before now, in 2003, 2004 and
2005. The first two times I did really well, ending up with The Secret
Common-Wealth (a faery story) and The Madness of Kentaurs (an
alternate-world fantasy), both YA novels and both well over 50,000
words. The third time was the year I started at NSCAD and I realized
almost immediately that it was a really bad idea to try to do end of
term projects, and write a novel. The end of term projects alone almost
did me in. So, I know I'm capable, at least.

Here's to hastily written novels!

[Anagram for Ink] Catalogues for Sandra Brownlee

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:22:22 GMT

I'm supposed to be printing cards today. A Halifax stationery store,
Duly Noted, is patiently waiting for an order they put in several weeks
ago. Alas, today the car decided not to start. In fact, it didn't even
seem to try to start. I'm hoping it's something simple that BillyZ will
fix in five minutes after he gets home this evening, but in the
meantime, I'm not printing.

I'd have had the order finished a couple of weeks ago, if not for a
couple of rush jobs that I didn't feel I could turn down (not to
mention that the extra income is very welcome since we just bought a
house). The first job was the certificates for the Lieutenant Governor
of Nova Scotia’s Masterwork Award. (How could I say, "No," to the
Lieutenant Governor?) The design had mostly already been completed when
the Dawson Printshop printed last year's certificates (I was in
Pennsylvania for a few weeks when that happened). Former Dawsonite
Carley Colclough did the rest of the design long distance from BC, and
then I made the polymer plates and did the printing.

I miscalculated a little when getting the paper together; the paper was
from the Colours line by Papeterie St Armand, which is rather smaller
than most of the stock we use. And the certificates are quite large. I
had thought I would get four certificates from each sheet, but was only
able to get two. This meant I didn't have enough paper to make many
mistakes. I cut a lot of scrap for testing and re-used some of last
year's discards. I managed to print all six certificates (the five
finalists and one winner) without a single mishap, which has to be a
record, considering it was a four-colour job. It was nerve-wracking, to
say the least. I'm very proud to have printed something that will have
the Lieutenant Governor's signature on it.

The second rush job was binding the exhibition catalogues for Sandra
Brownlee's show at the Mary E. Black Gallery. The show is called
Departures and Returns and is on right now, so if you're in Halifax be
sure to check it out. It's textiles, but her notebooks are also on
display, so there's something there for book people, too.

A few of the 72 softcover catalogues had already been sewn, but I did
most of them. Then I had to glue on an inner cover--it's like a
wraparound cover you'd see on a paperback, but instead of being the
actual cover, it's what the dustjacket wraps around. Then I had to tip
in a plate to each copy and fold and install the dustjackets. It took
me two full days of work to do all 72--good thing I sew fast. And I was
very happy that the books all had their sewing holes punched already,
which saved me some time.

On Monday afternoon as I was sewing the catalogues, I got a slightly
panicked call from Sandra. She'd decided she was really unhappy with
the cover size of the deluxe edition of the catalogue (which I wasn't
working on), and wanted to know if I'd be able to help put them
together if she changed the size. So Wednesday I drove to Joe's studio
where Joe and I and a couple textiles friends of Sandra's worked on
covering and attaching the new boards. The originals had been made
larger to accommodate some weavings Sandra wanting to include. She
decided to re-do the weavings at a smaller size, so the covers could be
made to a size that fit the pages of the catalogue. We completed 12 of
the 30 in the deluxe edition, which was plenty for the show's
opening--Sandra can finish the rest at her leisure now that the show is
installed and opened.

So today I was meant to be in the printshop, printing, but am not.
Instead, I'll get the files ready to send to film to make the polymer
plates for this year's calendar (flying machines! wood type! days of
the week!), and I'll start on the next batch of tiny book jewelry (the
Japanese-style binding, as I have to get more materials for the
European-style ones) for the Halifax Crafters fair in early December.
And perhaps I'll make some paste and get to work backing some suede
with kozuke for another batch of mini SteamBooks. Maybe I'll even make
a couple of larger ones this time.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll get a bit of work done on the website and
do some writing. but that is probably wishful thinking. Oh hey, it's
almost November. I have to decide if I'm going to attempt NaNoWriMo
this year. Now that I'm not in school, it might be an achievable goal.
And I really need to get writing fiction again.

[Anagram for Ink] Moving tot he Country

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:51:45 GMT

I meant to have a nice detailed blog about the house--I even took a
bunch of pictures--but since we have less than two weeks now to finish
packing everything and get it to the house, and I'm working on a print
job (meaning I have to be back and forth to the printshop), and the
usual writing work, I haven't had time. Plus when I have had a moment
free, we've been at the house, where there is no internet yet. So
you'll just have to wait for the big house post. In the meantime,
here's the outside.

It doesn't look like much, but oh do we have plans. It's solid, and
that's the main thing (well, except for that deck, which needs jacking
up and new boards). What we really fell in love with was the
property--four acres of trees and meadow. And a cave.

It's a small cave in the gypsum bedrock, but a cave nontheless. Water
trickles out of it, and cool air even in the heat of summer. And I met
this lovely fellow there:

Naturally, I didn't get too close. I was close enough, though, that I
learned porcupines talk to themselves as they trundle along.

[Anagram for Ink] Latest Writing: Flying, Books, Words

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 15:42:29 GMT

- Leaf By Leaf: The Beauty of the Book Form (HandmadeNews.org)

Can the way a book looks (and feels and smells) influence your
experience of reading it? I think it can, and in this installment of my
column, I tell you why. (Books and photo by GILD Bookbinders on
ArtFire.)
- Sunday Word Find: Painterly Pursuit (HandmadeNews.org)

I use BillyZ's easel in the living room as inspiration for the latest
word find. Because the puzzle has switched from Wednesday to Sunday, I
made a new graphic. It's still not ideal, but just changing the text
from Wednesday to Sunday actually makes it work a bit better.
- Leaf by Leaf: It's What's Inside that Counts (HandmadeNews.org)

So after using one column to talk about the outside of books, this time
I talk about the insides, and include a bit about my process of
artist's-book-making. (Photo and artist's book by AnnaHawthorne on
ArtFire.)
- Sunday Word Find: Drawing Dreams (HandmadeNews.org)

My latest word find is all about drawing, since a lot of art and craft
beings with sketches and jotting down ideas. Of course, drawing is also
an art of its own.
- Complete Guide to Flying Games for PSP (AboutPSP.)

I love to fly, and I like to play video games. There aren't all that
many flight sims for PSP, so it was a reasonable goal to make a guide
to them. So I did.

[Anagram for Ink] Best Promo Video Ever

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 19:04:51 GMT

What a great way to promote your work this is. (I have one of his
rings. It fell behind my desk and I'm going to have to move the whole
desk to get at it. Grrr.) I could totally see Dr Shallowgrave in
something along those lines, though I'm not sure how I'd work my
art/craft into it . . .

[Anagram for Ink] Recent Writing

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:27:24 GMT

It looks like I got a bit behind with my writing updates. So here's
what I've been up to for the past few weeks:

- Leaf by Leaf: Hi, I'm Niko, and I'm a Bibliophile (HandmadeNews.org)

This is the introductory article for my new column at Handmade News. In
which I introduce myself and the column. Not much else to say about
that. (Books and photo by Niko Silvester.)
- Leaf by Leaf: Getting Started With Bookbinding (HandmadeNews.org)

The second installment of my column addresses the difficulties for
people wanting to start making books, when there aren't many resources
around. I provide a few links to get people started, and suggest a
simple pamphlet binding to start off with. (Pamphlets and photo by
Hannah on ArtFire.)
- Leaf by Leaf: It Starts With the Paper (HandmadeNews.org)

This is the third article in my regular weekly column on books and
paper. As you probably figured out from the title, it's about
paper--how wonderfully inspiring it can be, how easy it is to buy too
much just because it's nice, and how to choose paper for a project.
(Handmade paper and photograph by paintingpam on ArtFire.)
- Glorious Gemstones Word Find (HandmadeNews.org)

This time, the word find was inspired by my rockhounding trip to Scots
Bay (which you can read about in the archives. I included all the names
of gemstones I could think of, and naturally thought of a whole bunch
more really good ones after the puzzle was finished and submitted. I
also made a quick little graphic to use with every word find. As you
can see, it's not the height of design, but it'll serve its purpose
until I can make or find something better.
- Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II Review (About PSP)

Niko tackles flying games. And despite the mediocrity of this game, I
think I miht be hooked. Flying is fun! (Alas, no image for this one--I
didn't even have screenshots to post with the review.)

I'm also working on some articles for Suite 101, but I'm trying to do a
set of related articles and post them together. I really need to get
going on that, though, as I'm several weeks behind.

[Anagram for Ink] Bookbinding Etsy Street Team Back to School Sale

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:10:00 GMT

Woo! One of the Etsy Teams I belong to is BEST: the Bookbinding Etsy
Street Team, and this week--Sept 1 to 7--we're having a sale. I'm
offering free worldwide shipping, plus if you buy two or more items,
you get a free Dawson Printshop wood type letterpress calendar.

Here are all the shops participating in the sale:

- Anticovalore: free world wide Shipping

- Swirling Tree: free world wide Shipping

- notubóc: free world wide Shipping

- LizzieMade: free world wide Shipping

- flurrsprite: free world wide Shipping

- Re:Paper: free world wide Shipping

- Anagram for Ink: free world wide Shipping

- BadonHill: free world wide Shipping

- its all just menagerie: free world wide Shipping

- Nina Judin Books: free world wide Shipping

- Kristin Crane: free world wide Shipping if you mention BESTbooks in
the notes to seller

- BoomBoxBindery: free world wide Shipping

- SusanGreenBooks: free shipping on all ready-to-ship items

- OliveArt: free Shipping in US and Canada

- UsefulBooks: free Shipping in US and Canada

- MyHandboundBooks: free Shipping in US and Canada and half off
shipping everywhere else

- KarleighJae: BOGO 25% off

- Subu, Inc.: 15% off total order if you mention BESTBooks

- Parkside Harmony: 20% off

- PrairiePeasant: 20% off

- Robyn's Art: 20% off

I wish I had a bit of extra cash so I could buy a few things myself.
There are a couple of books I've had my eye on, and a few I just
discovered.

[Anagram for Ink] There Goes The Dust Jacket

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:09:35 GMT

I found this interesting article at The New York Observer via Richard
Minsky's new book cover blog: The New Thing: Books Without Jackets.
While I don't totally agree with the idea that dust jackets are
completely disposable--for one, they protect the boards (which was
their original function, I think)--I find it encouraging that
publishers have realized that a dust jacket doesn't have to be the only
way to decorate a book.

Of course, as the article points out, this isn't really a new trend.
Aside from the fact that way back in the early days of publishing
pretty much all books had decorated boards (with dust jackets to
protect them while on the shop shelves), some more recent publishers
have been experimenting with dust-jacket-less books. McSweeney's is the
one the article points out, but I've seen it from time to time from
other publishers. The one that comes to mind is The Ladies of Grace
Adieu by Susanna Clarke. In a world of flashy dust jackets, this grey
jacketless book with its simple floral design stands out as elegant.
Graceful, even.

And something else that's brought to mind: Every time I bring home a
new book, one of the first things I do is peek under the dust jacket.
Usually, there's nothing much there, except maybe the title stamped in
gold on the spine. "We’re used to the jacket covering something that's
ugly," as they said in the article. But every once in a while,
especially on older books, the dust jacket hides treasure. Take the
battered dust jacket off the facsimile of the Kelmscott Chaucer (World
Pubilshing Company edition) and you'll find the blind stamping from the
original Doves Bindery binding reproduced on the front cover. For a
(slightly) more recent example (1986), carefully fold away the jacket
from Merlin's Booke by Jane Yolen, the SteelDragon Press edition, and
you find Tom Canty's cover design beautifully stamped in gold and blind.

It's a lovely thing that publishers are bringing back books with
printed and stamped boards instead of dust jackets, but what I'd really
love is to have them bring back that excitement of discovering what
lies under a dust jacket. Bring back books with plain jackets hiding a
nicely-designed cover underneath. Bring back the anticipation of
discovery. That's what I'd like.

[Anagram for Ink] Rockhounding in Scots Bay

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:28:19 GMT

Not this past weekend, which was a combination of working Saturday
because Friday was a day off and watching Hurricane Bill blow past
(with probably a few too many "look, sweetie, you're causing three
metre storm surge" type comments directed at the boy), but the weekend
before, we continued our Nova Scotia explorations with a rockhounding
trip to Scots Bay, and a lazing-on-the-beach trip to Brule.

To get to Scots Bay from Halifax, you have to drive through the lovely
Annapolis Valley, where they grow all sorts of crops and make my
favorite hot day beverage, Stutz Cider. (Actually, Merridale Cider is
better, but it's waaaay expensive and you can't get it here.) From the
Valley to Scots Bay, you have to drive over a mountain, or what passes
for a mountain in Nova Scotia. Just before you go over the top, there's
a fantastic view, appropriately called "The Lookoff":

We hadn't been to this part of NS before, and actually drove right
through Scots Bay without seeing the sign for the beach. We did find
the start of the Cape Split hiking trail (that's for another day,
perhaps), and a really tall pier. As planned, we arrived as the tide
was still on its way out, so the boats were waaaay down below.

I'm not sure you can quite get the idea of how high above the ground
the pier was, but let's just say that Bill wouldn't get too close to
the edge.

At the beach itself, there was one of the tiniest Provincial Parks I've
ever seen with a couple of picnic tables and outhouses, then a rickety
high-arched wooden bridge over a stream to the beach.

Closer to shore, the beach was all water-smooth rocks varying from tiny
pebbles to head-sized cobbles. There was all that's left of the Scots
Bay Wharf, from shipbuilding days (for more on the archaeology of Scots
Bay, go here).

Farther out to sea, and only revealed at low tide, the beach was an
amazing red sand/mud. So before settling down to the serious business
of picking up rocks, we headed straight out to sea to dabble our toes.
I couldn't tell how far out the mud went, but there were people
splashing in the shallows much farther out than we were. Because of the
shallow water, it was quite warm, but there was an awful lot of red
silt suspended in there. I could only imagine how that would feel
seeping into every crevice, so I wasn't too crushed that I hadn't
brought my bathing suit.

After wandering back in from the mudflats, Bill settled down to watch
the water and take more photos, while I got down to rockhounding. Due
to its location in relation to the various sources of rocks and the
prevailing tides, Scots Bay Beach has a little bit of just about
everything you could hope to find along the Fundy Shore. I didn't find
any fossils or amethysts, but I did get some very nice agates (though
quite small), and quite a bit of pink and white jasper. And some grey
stuff that I haven't identified yet, because I seem to have left all my
rock books in BC and the websites I've looked at are mostly focused on
the spectacular.

Of course, I also picked up a lot of rather ordinary-looking specimens
that had interesting aspects, like some greyish cobbles with little
deposits of quartz crystals, and this greenish coarse rock with specks
and spots of the loveliest glowing white and green stuff. My favorite
piece is a small cobble of ordinary coarse grey with a thin (ca 8mm)
band of translucent yellow and grey agate through it.

I'll keep a few of the rocks as-is, but most of them will go in the
tumbler. The larger ones will have to be broken up, I think. As for
what I'm going to do with them, some will go into a jar of pretty
rocks, some will be sent to friends and relatives, and some will be
used in my work. I'm thinking of incorporating polished stones into
wooden book covers, and maybe wire-wrapping some smaller ones to use
with the book jewelry. Maybe.

I did wish I had my rock hammer with me, as I seem to have completely
lost the knack of busting open rocks with other rocks. Once upon a
time, I knew how to flintknap and, though I was never particularly good
at it, I could at least get a rock to break so I could see what it
looked like inside. I'll have to work on that, and maybe get Mum to dig
though my stuff in BC and send me my rock hammer.

Sunday we headed out to Brule, which is on the North Shore of the
province. I didn't take any photos because I didn't want the sand to
get into the camera lens. I'll have to charge up the little
point-and-shoot for occasions such as this, because when I wandered
back away from the shore, there was a really pretty saltmarsh complete
with fishing heron. The beach was a little on the crowded side, though
much less so than one closer to Halifax would have been. We sat on the
sand for a while, then wandered along in the water, carefully stepping
over the multitude of hermit crabs scuttling along the sandy bottom.

On Monday we had to run an errand all the way out in Pictou, but it was
a quick run and not a siteseeing trip, so no photos or much of anything
to talk about.

[Anagram for Ink] Another Curious Contest

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:05:12 GMT

I mentioned this on Twitter/Facebook a few days ago, and have been
meaning to blog about it. Another blog contest I'm entering is over at
TotusMel's Wunderkammer, which is a really good place to find fantastic
things for sale on Etsy. I have found a tonne of things I intend to buy
once I'm making good money again. Anyway, read about the contest on
this post--it's another one that ends today. But even if you read it
too late, check out the blog and the Etsy shops of the prize donors
(and the shops of people mentioned in other blog posts). This really is
some of the very coolest stuff Etsy has to offer.

PS. I really, really want prize #6:

[Anagram for Ink] Steampunk Rings Contest

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:50:46 GMT

I've long admired the rings by Catherinette Rings, and managed to snag
a garnet one on sale once, and now they're have a blog contest! It ends
today, so if you want to enter , you have to do it quick. But even if
you don't enter, go check out the jewelry. It's really cool, and there
are a number of pieces on my wishlist.

[Anagram for Ink] Latest Writing: Groucho, Knockoffs and Words

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:13:28 GMT

Here are the things I've published in the last week or so:

- Quotes for Craftspeople: Groucho Marx and His Dog (HandmadeNews.org)

I often have that Marx quote "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best
friend . . ." stuck in my head, and I thought it would be fun to see if
I could turn it into an article for Handmade News. It was fun. I think
I'll do more Quotes for Craftspeople articles in the future, and maybe
even make some of them more serious.
- Wost. PSP Knockoff. Ever. (About PSP)

I found this fantastically awful dollar store toy made to look like a
PSP, and of course I had to buy it. I photographed the thing from all
angles and made an image gallery / mini review. As terrible as the "Fun
Tech Water Toy" was, I had a blast, and am going to keep my eyes open
for more PSP knockoffs to review. Anyone seen any they want to send my
way?
- Bookbinding Bonanza Word Find (HandmadeNews.org)

I thought it would be fun to try my hand at making a word find, and
bookbinding seemed a natural topic to start with. Turns out, it's
harder to make a word find than I thought. I could buy software to do
all the hard work, of course, and if I do very many of these, I might.
In the meantime, though, figuring out how to fit the words together
is--I think--more fun than doing the actual puzzle.
- PSP Blue Raspberry Sours and PSP Cherry Sours Review and PSP Sours
Novelty Candy Tins Image Gallery (About PSP)

My fascination with things that look like PSPs but are not PSPs may
have started with these PSP novelty candy tins I found at Freak
Lunchbox. I also have a Nintendo NES controller tin and Nintendo magic
Mario mushroon tin made by the same company. What can I say? I like
videogames, and I like candy.

My goal, I've decided, is to get two significant pieces of work done
each working day, one in the morning, and one in the
afternoon. "Significant" is subjective, of course. Some items, like
small image galleries, might only take an hour to do. Some articles
will take four hours or even more. (Anything that takes more than four
hours counts as two things, at least). Any time left in between morning
and afternoon jobs will get used for things like promo blogging (like
this) and tweets, tweaking my online shops or adding product, business
emails, and miscellaneous tasks that don't take very long.

So far today, I've accomplished my morning task (the PSP knockoff toy
thing, above), and am currently doing the promo blogging stuff. In a
few minutes, I'll get myself a cup of tea and a snack (possibly even
lunch, though I'm not that hungry yet). Then I think this afternoon's
task will be wrangling some tiny book earrings. I was intending to do
some more writing--I have a number of articles to knock out for Suite
101 to get caught up--but my desk seems to be located in the warmest
part of the house, and the heat is making me sluggish and headachey.
Bleah. Plus, I intend to add some "what I did on the weekend" stuff to
this blog later today, so I need a break from the computer.

[Anagram for Ink] I'm A Columnist! About Books!

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:44:29 GMT

Yes siree, I am now officially a columnist at Handmade News, in
the "Inspiration" department. I'm writing a column about books and
paper called Leaf by Leaf. I sort of borrowed the name from Joe's
company, Leaf by Leaf Book and Paper Conservation. After spending more
than a week trying to come up with a good column title and not being
able to come up with anything that didn't sound stupid, and after
almost going with "Bookish," I chose Leaf by Leaf partly because the
word "leaf" can refer to both a single sheet of paper and a page in a
book, partly because it sounds nice, and partly as a tribute to Joe,
who has been a fantastic teacher.

My first article is called "Hi, I'm Niko and I'm a Bibliophile," and it
introduces me and the ideas I have for the column. Next week I'll have
something on how to get started when you really want to make a book but
have never done it before.

In other news, the boy and I have continued our exploration of Nova
Scotia. Last weekend we drove down the Southern Shore as far as
Kejimkujik Park Seaside Annex. Because we meandered along and stopped a
few times along the way, we didn't really have time to get out and
hike, but we took the highway on the return trip and it's only about an
hour and forty-five minutes, so nest time we'll drive straight there
and spend the day exploring the park.

I took an awful lot of photographs, but didn't really end up with very
many I liked. Sometimes it happens that way, I guess, but it was a bit
disappointing, considering the fantastic scenery. Maybe I just need to
pay more attention to framing pictures, instead of snapping everything
that looks pretty.

Interestingly, most of the pictures I end up liking are close-ups. I
rarely like the wide-angle landscape shots. Whether that's because I
take more time composing the closer-up shots than I do the landscapes,
or whether it's because that's just the kind of photograph I happen to
like, I don't know.

Anyway. That was Saturday. On Sunday, we went up to Truro to spend some
time in Victoria Park, and I didn't end up taking a single photograph,
though I carried the camera around. We also wandered around the town
(or city--I think it's actually a city) and had lunch. We peered in the
windows of a couple of Real Estate places and found some
interesting-looking houses. Yesterday we went back up and tried again
to find one in particular--a cottage, really, but two bedrooms on four
acres--that we had tried to find last week. This time the office was
open, so we went in and got directions.

It's definitely a cottage sort of property, but it might work fine as a
year-round house, too. It's rural, but about half and hour's drive from
supermarkets and such, and actually only forty-five minutes from where
we live now in Halifax. Also, the price is very good. Whether we'll
take the plunge and make and offer, I don't know. We didn't get to see
inside the place, but hope to get back on Monday to do that. We'd have
to get my mom to co-sign the mortgage, too. But it sure would be nice
to be paying into our own place instead of paying rent every month.

I took a couple of photos, but haven't uploaded them yet, but the
listing is here:
http://www.realtor.ca/PropertyDetails.aspx?PropertyID=8478831

[Anagram for Ink] Testing, Testing

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:13:06 GMT

One of the people whose work I follow on deviantART posted something
today that got me thinking about Livejournal again. I haven't posted on
Livejournal in ages. So I've decided to see if I can get both
Livejournal and Blogger set up so that my Blogger Blog posts
automatically show up on Livejournal. This here's the test to see if I
got all the setting right.

Next, I'll see what I can do with MySpace.

No, Not Dead. Not Even Busy Really

Sun, 27 May 2007 18:59:19 GMT

Just entirely out of the habit of posting here. I finally posted something on my blog, Anagram for Ink, explaining how terribly busy I was last semester, and how I barely emerged unscathed from it. I'm hoping to get some art scanned and posted at some point. Maybe get around to updating my deviant art page, which has exactly 3 not very good things on it right now.

Now I think I'll go eat an early supper, because roommate the younger has been making things on the grill and it smells good. Then I will probably read something for a while.

Today I did not go to Chapters even though they were having a 20% off everything sale, because I discovered that everything I was thinking of buying was actually discounted even more online. So I ordered stuff from Chapters instead. Yes, Chapters is evil, but I am poor and they have cheap books.

See How Smrt I Am

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 18:19:52 GMT

You paid attention during 91% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
Create a Quiz

I Wish I'd Made These

Sat, 14 Oct 2006 13:12:14 GMT

Well, not really, but the photographs (ambrotypes, specifically) and camera obscura installations that Stephen Berkman makes really fit in with some of the stuff I've been playing with. (Via Brass Goggles and crossposted to Anagram for Ink, my blog.)

Madness, Shapechanging, Art

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 16:12:27 GMT

The Journal of Mythic Arts Summer /Fall 2006 issue is now up at the Endicott Studio website, and my paper "The Artist as Shaman: Madness, Shapechanging and Art in Terri Winding's The Woodwife" is included. You can scroll down the page to find it (but be sure to look at the other wonderful stuff too), or if you must, skip straight to it here.

This was originally written as an assignment for a workshop/seminar I took at SUNY New Paltz in . . . 2003, maybe, or was it 2002? So it's really Heinz Insu Fenkl's fault that I wrote it in the first place. And, of course, Terri Windling's for writing a book that made me ramble on at such length. (The mistakes and the stupid things are all my own fault of course). The paper was first published in the Mythic Passages web journal.

(X-posted from my blog Anagram for Ink.)

Steam-Powered Poetry (1)

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 18:56:31 GMT

zeppelins

a flock
of dirigibles
like fat
stratospheric cetaceans
sleek silver-skinned airships
shining

air singing
on envelopes
in rigging
keeping time
with air-churning engines
spinning props

not balloons
these vessels
but craft
too dignified
to be called
blimps