Solmentes

Resistance by Simon Armitage, a poem about the war in Ukraine – preview in New York – April 23, 2022

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Fri, 15 Apr 2022 19:55:00 +0000

Solmentes Press will preview Resistance by Simon Armitage at
the Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair on Saturday, April 23, from 10 am to 5 pm at St Vincent Ferrer Church, 869 Lexington Avenue at 66th Street, New York, NY

David Esslemont responds to Simon Armitage’s poem written in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. "It's war again", writes the British poet laureate. Esslemont's illustrations reflect the recurrent and ubiquitous nature of war: he combines contemporary and archive photographs with his own drawings and images from some of his previous books, and weaves calligraphic words drawn from not only the poem but also transcripts of Pathé newsreels, a list of wars spanning three thousand years, Putin’s menacing declaration of his mission (written in Russian), the Ukrainian national anthem, news headlines, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech to the British parliament.

The poem is set in Genau, a typeface designed by Aleksey Popovtsev.

Edition of 30 copies, 13.5 x 8 ins, paper covers, in a cloth-covered drop back box – $800.Publication: May 2022

Solmentes Press will donate 10% of net sales to Ukraine TrustChain, a group of volunteer teams helping families in Ukraine.

Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair 2019

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 15:14:00 +0000

Saturday March 9, from 10 am to 5 pm
St Vincent Ferrer Church, 869 Lexington Avenue at 66th Street, New York, NY

Solmentes will be showing his Descriptive Bibliography, a work-in-progress and Pizza from Scratch together with other titles such as Taxi Driver Curry – come and meet the Pizzaiolo!

The Fine Press Book Association
in collaboration with the Manhattan Vintage Book & Ephemera Show is pleased to announce the sixth annual
Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair
on Saturday, March 9, 2019.

This is an addition to the Vintage Book Fair, known colloquially as the "Shadow Fair." It is a less-formal, less-expensive fair held during the same weekend as the New York Antiquarian Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory. This year, as it was last year, it will be located right around the corner from the main fair at the Park Avenue Armory. However, it will take place only one day: Saturday, March 9.

Exhibitors:

Central Booking, Brooklyn, NY
Ann Covell, Brooklyn, NY
Double Elephant Press, NYC and Northampton
Edition Schwarze Seite, Scheer, Germany
Elies Plana, Barcelona, Spain
Fox Ash Press, Cambridge, UK
Leslie Gerry Editions, Gloucestershire, UK
Patti Harden, Linthicum, MD
Heavy Duty Press, New York, NY
Intima Press, Mindy Beloff, New York, NY
Charles Jones, Nacogdoches, TX
Sal Taylor Kydd
Lead Graffiti, Ray Nichols + Jill Cypher, Newark, DE
Leopard Studio Editions, Rochester, NY
Nancy Loeber, Brooklyn, NY
Luminice Press, Philadelphia, PA
Russell Maret, New York, NY
Midnight Paper Sales, Gaylord Shanilec, Stockholm, WI
Mixolydian Editions, Petaluma, CA
Petrarch Press, Oregon House, CA
Pied Oxen Press, Hopewell, NJ
Sarah Plimpton Artist Books, New York, NY
Port Press, Sherman Oaks, CA
Prototype Press, Oakland, CA
Maddy Rosenberg, Brooklyn, NY
Seymour Press, Minneapolis, MN
Sherwin Beach Press, Chicago, IL
Solmentes Press, Decorah IA
Starshaped Press, Chicago, IL
Tideline Press, [no website], West Sayville, NY
Titan and Weald, New York, NY
Turtle Light Press, Rick Black, Arlington, VA
Two Hands Press,, Los Angeles, CA
Two Ponds Press, Rockport, ME
Wolfe Editions, Portland, ME
Woodcraft Press, Tonbridge, Kent, UK
Vladimir Zimakov, Boston, MA

A Visual Feast - Bromer Gallery, Boston, MA

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 15:03:00 +0000

21 February – 3 May, at the Bromer Gallery, 607 Boylston St, Boston, MA

Here's a selection of my books, fine bindings, linocuts, woodcuts, digital prints, calligraphy, and a watercolor you'll find on display.

Pizza from Scratch

"Burning Weeds" linocut from Pizza from Scratch

"Wheat – July" linocut from Pizza from Scratch

"Pepperoni Pizza" linocut from Pizza from Scratch

"Stock/1" woodcut from Chili: a recipe

"Stock/2" woodcut from Chili: a recipe

"Yellow Blackberryleaf flower" digital print from Florilegium Solmentes

John Keats poem "To Autumn", calligraphy (9 x 6ft) – also available in book form

"Grasmere", watercolor – details were used to illustrate William Wordsworth's The Prelude

Wordsworth The Prelude

For more information visit solmentes.com

The Bromer Gallery is a new gallery within Anne Bromer's bookstore at 607 Boylston St. in Boston, MA.

Dimitry Sayenko wins a Pepperoni Pizza at the Codex Book Fair

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 15:06:00 +0000

Solmentes Press is delighted to announce the winner of the prize draw at the Codex Book Fair in Richmond, California was fellow artist, printer and bookbinder, Dimitry Sayenko from Saint Petersburg, Russia. Поздравления Dimitry!

Dimitry Sayenko (Nikodim Press) with David Esslemont (Solmentes Press)

Dimitry won a signed copy of the limited edition linocut "Pepperoni Pizza" by David Esslemont from his book, Pizza from Scratch.

Prize Draw

To win a copy of the print, visitors to the Solmentes Press table at the Codex Book Fair (February 3–6) put their business card or name and email address in a bag from which a winner was drawn at the end of the fair. Read more about Pizza from Scratch and buy copies of the print ($300), visit solmentes.com.

Thanks to everyone who entered to win the print and for their interest in Solmentes Press.

Win a Pepperoni Pizza Print!

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Sun, 03 Feb 2019 14:43:00 +0000

Here is your chance to win an original limited edition signed print by David Esslemont – "Pepperoni Pizza" a multi-color linocut from Pizza from Scratch.

To enter the draw you must visit the Codex Book Fair in The Craneway Pavilion, 1414 Harbour Way South, Richmond, CA 94804 between Sunday 3 and Wednesday 6 February.

Go to the Solmentes Press (table #5 - in the front row opposite the main fair entrance) and place your business card in the box provided (or write your name and email address on a slip of paper). One winning entry will be drawn by an exhibitor from the book fair at the Codex Gala Dinner in the Berkeley City Club on Wednesday 6 February.

Good luck and enjoy what is sure to be a spectacular book fair. Full details of the Codex book fair and Symposium can be found on the Codex Foundation website.

Booked for the Evening – A fundraiser to benefit the Newberry's collection

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Sun, 21 Oct 2018 15:33:00 +0000

Help The Newberry, Chicago's independent research library since 1887, acquire a copy of Solmentes Pizza from Scratch.

Ruggles Hall, 6–8 pm on Thursday October 25, 2018 Open to the Public

From the Newberry's website:

"Booked for the Evening will give you a one-of-a-kind opportunity to interact with our librarians and curators, learn about the often unseen work they do, and raise important funds to support the growth, processing, and preservation of the Newberry’s world-class collection.

The Newberry’s curators and librarians have carefully selected a wide array of materials to be presented at Booked for the Evening, representing many areas of the collection. Guests will enjoy cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, view and learn about the rare materials on display, and bid to “adopt” the items, enabling their acquisition, processing, or preservation.

We hope you will support our efforts to build and care for our collection."

Click here to see the items available for bidding at Booked for the Evening.

For more information, contact Jo Anne Moore at (312) 255-3556 or moorej@newberry.org

The Winners of the Solmentes Prize Draws in Oxford and New York

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Tue, 24 Apr 2018 21:00:00 +0000

Solmentes Press is delighted to announce the winner of the prize draw at the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair was fellow printer William Bentley from Califorina. Congratulations William!

William Bentley of The Petrarch Press, winner of
the Solmentes Press prize draw at the
Oxford Fine Press Book Fair

William won a signed copy of the limited edition linocut "Heirloom Tomatoes" by David Esslemont from Pizza from Scratch.

***

The winner of the Prize Draw at the Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair on March 10 was John Snyder from Philadelphia. Congratulations John!

Jon Snyder (left), winner of the prize draw at the Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair
being presented with his print, "Heirloom Tomatoes"

Prize Draw

To win a copy of the signed original print “Heirloom Tomatoes” a hand-colored linocut by David Esslemont from Pizza from Scratch, visitors to the Solmentes Press table at the book fairs put their business card or name and email address in a box from which a winner was drawn at the end of the fairs. Copies of the print can be purchased for $200 (£148) at solmentes.com.

Thanks to everyone who entered to win the print and for their interest in Solmentes Press.

Heirloom Tomatoes

Oxford Fine Press Book Fair

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 12:17:00 +0000

Saturday March 24, and Sunday March 25
The Kassam Stadium, Grenoble Road, Oxford, OX4 4XP, tel; 01865 337600

Solmentes will be showing the new book Pizza from Scratch together with other titles such as Taxi Driver Curry and Ink on the Elbow – come and meet the Pizzaiolo and . . .

Jon Snyder (left), winner of the prize draw at the Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair
being presented with his print, "Heirloom Tomatoes"

Enter the prize draw to win an original signed print by David Esslemont from Pizza from Scratch (see Terms and Conditions below).

Organized by the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association in conjunction with The Fine Press Book Association. Three lectures are planned for Sunday:

11.00am: Alexandra Franklin and Richard Lawrence on the Bodleian Library’s Sonnets printing project
12 noon: Peter Lawrence on ‘William Morris and Wood Engraving: The Earthly Compromise’
2.00pm: Ferdinand Ulrich on ‘Hermann Zapf, Jack Stauffacher, and the birth of a type’

Exhibitors include presses, specialist book dealers, trade suppliers, and related organisations.

1	Incline Press	49	Caliban Press
2	Janus Press	50	Solmentes Press
3	Ken Ferguson	51	Book Arts Center Halle
4	Stella Press	52	Susan Allix
5	Studio House	53	Bonnefant Press
6	The Hedgehog Press	54	AlbertoTallone Editore
7	Walking Bird Press	55	Linda Landers Fine Books
8	Yew Tree Press	56	Alexandra Frohloff Prints (13)
9	Grapho Editions / Parrot Press	57	BABEL
10	Reading Room Press / The Blue Print Press	58	Inky Parrot Press/Artist Choice Editions
11	Private Libraries Association	59	Altazimuth Press & Tom Paine Press
12	Society of Wood Engravers	60	Hand & Eye Editions
13	Old School Press	61	Elies Plana
14	Old Stile Press	62	Editions Verdigris
15	Parvenu Press	63	Strawberry Press
16	The Fork and Broom Press	64	St James Press
17	The Lytlewode Press	65	Paekakariki Press
18	Whittington Press	66	MKB Editions
19	Woodcraft Press	67	Petrarch Press
20	Andy English (The Isle Handpress)	68	Sherwin Beach Press
21	Evergreen Press	69	Nomad Letterpress
22	Fleece Press	70	Lone Oak Press
23	Foolscap Press	71	Maria Veronica San Martin
24	Greenboathouse Press	72	Julian Smith
25	Oxford Scribes	73	Cheltenham Rare Books
26	Oxford Guild of Printers	74	Boxwood Rare Books & Prints
27	Ludlow Bookbinders Ltd	75	Bond Books
28	Leslie Gerry Editions	76	Ballantyne Way
29	ottoGraphic	77	Ariadne Books
30	Russell Maret	78	Vacant
31	Midnight Paper Sales	79	Veronica Watts
32	Salvage Press	80	Blackwell's Rare Books
33	Kate Holland Bookbinding	81	Michael Taylor
34	Paper Resources	82	Maggs
35	John Purcell Paper	83	Michael Morris
36	Andy Moore Calligraphy	84	Scott Brinded
37	Designer Bookbinders	85	Tracey Bush
38	Harmatan Leather Ltd	86	Woodbridge Rare Books
39	Harmatan Leather Ltd	87	Wykeham Books
40	J Hewit & Sons Ltd	88	Jennings Fine Art / Fine Press Poetry (A Moorhouse)
41	J Hewit & Sons Ltd	89	Valeria Brancaforte Prints
42	Illouz	90	Leopard Studio Editions
43	Mixolydian Editions	91	Shirley Sharoff Editions
44	Impress	92	Rickaro Books
45	Design for Today	93	Reed Contemporary Books
46	Nikodim Press	94	Sophie Schneideman Rare Books
47	Chevington Press	95	Lux Mentis
48	p's and q's Press

Prize Draw

To win this signed original print (£148 value), “Heirloom Tomatoes” a hand-colored linocut by David Esslemont from Pizza from Scratch visit the Solmentes Press table (#50, first floor) at the Book Fair and put your business card or name and email address in the box provided. A winner will be drawn at the end of the fair.

Heirloom Tomatoes, linocut

Terms and conditions

1. By submitting your personal information you agree to receive emails from Solmentes Press containing offers and developments that we think may interest you. You will be given the opportunity to unsubscribe on every email that we send. 2. The closing date of the Prize Draw is 5 pm on March 25, 2018. 3. One winner will be chosen from a random draw by an exhibitor at the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair. The draw will take place on March 25, 2018, at 5 pm. 4. The winner will receive the original signed print, “Heirloom Tomatoes” a hand-colored linocut by David Esslemont. 5. The winner will be notified on March 25, and if not present must provide a postal address to claim their prize. 6. Only one entry per person.

Pizza from Scratch preview in New York

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 23:55:00 +0000

At the Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair, Saturday 9 April

Pizza from Scratch

Pre-publication special offers: Deluxe ~~$4800~~ $2400, Regular ~~$2400~~ $1200

Heirloom tomatoes and basil are raised from seed; ground is cleared to plant organic wheat; and clay is mixed with sand to make a wood-fired oven.

The wheat will be ground into flour for a sourdough crust; the tomatoes made into sauce; milk into cheese; and pork becomes salami. Eventually the oven is fired up, the pizzas assembled and cooked, magically, in less than a couple of minutes.
This is a picture book – woodcuts and lino cuts document every stage of making pizza from scratch including scale drawings for the adobe clay wood-fired oven.

edition details

Hand printed in an edition of fifty copies from the original wood and lino blocks, approximately 10 x 12 ins, landscape, with around forty illustrations.

Five deluxe copies bound in white alum-tawed goatskin with a design based on one of the pizzas painted in acrylic ink, with gold tooling. Sewn on linen tapes with hand-sewn headbands and leather-jointed Italian handmade-paper end leaves, in a felt-lined cloth-covered drop-back box. $4800 (pre-publication subscription price: $2400)

Forty-five regular copies in printed cloth-covered boards, presented in a drop-back box. $2400 (pre-publication subscription price: $1200)

Publication – February 2017

The Fine Press Book Association in collaboration with the Manhattan Vintage Book & Ephemera Show on Saturday, April 11, 2015, from 8 am to 4 pm at St. Vincent Ferrer parochial school on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 65th Street. Featuring thirty presses from across the US, UK, Canada and Russia.

This is an addition to the Vintage Book Fair, known colloquially as the "Shadow Fair." It is a less-formal, less-expensive fair held during the same weekend as the New York Antiquarian Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory. This year, for the first time, it will be located right around the corner from the main fair at the Park Avenue Armory.

Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 23:51:00 +0000

Saturday March 10, from 10 am to 5 pm
St Vincent Ferrer Church, 869 Lexington Avenue at 66th Street, New York, NY

Solmentes at the 2016 Manhattan Book Fair showing the prototype for Pizza from Scratch

Solmentes will be showing the new book Pizza from Scratch together with other titles such as Taxi Driver Curry and Ink on the Elbow – come and meet the Pizzaiolo!

The Fine Press Book Association in collaboration with the Manhattan Vintage Book & Ephemera Show is pleased to announce the fifth annual Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair. This is an addition to the Vintage Book Fair, known colloquially as the "Shadow Fair." It is a less-formal, less-expensive fair held during the same weekend as the New York Antiquarian Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory. This year, as it was last year, it will be located right across the street from the main fair at the Park Avenue Armory. However, it will take place only one day: Saturday, March 10.
Admission is $15 for Adults, $7 for ages 13–21, and free for under 13 with a paid adult.

Exhibitors

Alice Austin, Philadelphia, PA
Atelier-Galerie A. Piroir, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Booklyn, Felice Tebbe + Tracey Ober, Brooklyn, NY
Anne Covell, San Diego, CA
Caliban Press, Mark + Gregory McMurray, Canton, NY
Gerald Cloud Rare Books and Manuscripts, San Francisco, CA
Flying Paper Press, Jody Williams, Minneapolis, MN
Foolscap Press, Lawrence G. Van Velzer + Peggy Gotthold, Santa Cruz, CA
Harsimus Press, Jersey City, NJ
Hesterberg Press, William + Barbara Hesterberg, Evanston, IL
Hirundo Press, Caroline Saltzwedel, Hamburg, Germany
Intima Press, Mindy Beloff, New York, NY
Alexandra Janezic, Iowa City, Iowa
Sara Langworthy, Iowa City, Iowa
Lead Graffiti, Ray Nichols + Jill Cypher, Newark, DE
Nancy Loeber, Brooklyn, NY
Luminice Press, Thomas Parker + Mary Agnes, Philadelphia, PA
Russell Maret, New York, NY
Emily Martin + Tess Varney, Iowa City, IA
Two Hands Press, Kitty Maryatt, Playa Vista, CA
Midnight Paper Sales, Gaylord Shanilec, Stockholm, WI
Sarah Nicholls, Brooklyn, NY
Ninja Press, Carolee Campbell, Sherman Oaks, CA
Radha Pandey, Iowa City, IA
Papeterie Saint-Armand, David Carruthers + Denise LaPointe, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Sarah Plimpton + Robert Paxon, New York, NY
Pied Oxen Printers, David + Kathleen Sellers, Hopewell, NJ
Purgatory Pie Press, Esther Smith, Dikko Faust, New York, NY
Robin Price Publisher, Middletown, CT
Maria Veronica San Martin, Brooklyn, NY and Santiago, Chile
CB Sherlock, + Jim Polakowski, Minneapolis, MN
Sherwin Beach Press, Robert McCamant, Chicago, IL
Solmentes Press, David Esslemont, Decorah, IA
Starshaped Press, Jennifer Farrell, Chicago, IL
Tideline Press, Leonard Seastone, West Sayville, NY
Two Ponds Press, Kenneth Shure + Liv Rockefeller, Rockport, ME

Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Sat, 20 Jan 2018 20:00:00 +0000

A great pitch by my friend Russell Maret:

Podcast: David Esslemont on the history of the Gregynog and Solmentes Presses

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Fri, 19 Jan 2018 23:20:00 +0000

Gregynog Hall

Nigel Beale aka The Literary Tourist, came to visit and recorded our conversation in which he asked me about the history of the Gregynog Press, my time there as the Controller (artistic and managing director, and printer) of Gwasg Gregynog from 1985–97, and the evolution of Solmentes Press. Listen to the podcast at The Biblio File (link below).

Waxing lyrical about the the press's setting amidst the rolling hills of Montgomeryshire, I talk about its founders, the wealthy Davies sisters, some of the key players such as Blair Hughes-Stanton (coincidentally one of my tutors at the Central School of Art), and some of the outstanding books produced there up to 1945, when the press closed.

Encouraged by John Ryder and Ian Mortimer, among others, I joined the press from Newcastle upon Tyne where I had been printing and publishing since 1978. It was a significant move, I learnt to speak Welsh, and delighted in the literary and artistic traditions of Wales. Over the course of 12 years I was able to re-open the bindery, re-install hot metal typesetting and Heidelberg cylinder presses, and grow the operation substantially. I enjoyed the opportunity of working with some of Wales' leading literary figures and commissioned many wood engravers to illustrate a wide range of subjects. My favorite book of those I designed and printed was Wrenching Times: Poems from Drum-Taps by Walt Whitman. It was illustrated by Gaylord Schanilec an engraver I met on my first visit to New York in 1990.

Leaving Gregynog was a painful affair. For example, at one point I was ridiculed (by a political scientist nonetheless) for embracing a vision for the future of the press – an account of my time there has yet to be published. Nevertheless, I began to make books again and achieved a noticeable success with The Wood Engravings of David Gentleman. This led to Inside the Book and the birth of the Solmentes Press; the seminal Ink on the Elbow (another collaboration with Schanilec), and my move to the United States. The conversation concludes with some enthusiastic talk about food – I had just published Chili: a recipe – and was wondering what to publish next, would it be curry or pizza? [Recorded in December 2013]

Many thanks to Nigel Beale for hosting this conversation on his Biblio File podcast.

Englishman makes pizza from scratch and sells recipe for $$$$

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 15:04:00 +0000

It all began with a dream of establishing a self-sufficient “Pizza Farm” business.

Decorah, IA – Artist David Esslemont dreamt of establishing a “Pizza Farm”. He grew wheat and tomatoes and built a clay oven – but it just wasn’t feasible. However, he had another idea: a limited edition hand-printed book.

Pizza from Scratch, a visual narrative in woodcuts and linocuts, tells the story of how he literally grew a pizza on his farm in Iowa. With orders from distinguished institutions such as the Library of Congress and the British Library the book promises to be quite a success, and with copies selling for up to $4,800, it will help pay the heating bills this winter.

Weeds, fire, cultivating, seeds, seedlings, broadcasting, harrowing, harvesting, threshing and construction details are all depicted together with a diagram proving Pythagoras's theorem (used to make a right angle when laying out the foundation for the walls).

Esslemont grows the oven from scratch. Cement block walls support a reinforced concrete plinth and a layer of firebricks. He then makes adobe bricks with clay dug from his farm, and forms the oven around a mound of sand. After adding a layer of insulation, more clay bricks, a chimney, and a roof, it's ready to fire up.

As the oven takes shape, the artist appears in a number of self-portraits that reveal his growing obsession with the project. The book concludes with instructions for making the dough, cheese, and tomato sauce and cooking the pizza.

Finally, there is an extraordinary multi-color print of a pepperoni pizza.

Pizza from Scratch is published by Solmentes Press in a limited edition of 40 copies, 10.5 x 15 inches, landscape, 68pp. Thirty-six images together with a separate plan, printed from the original blocks. Five deluxe copies bound in white alum-tawed goatskin – $4,800, and thirty-five copies in cloth-covered boards – $2,400.

Full details and images on solmentes.com
Read the story behind the book here

Bio
David Esslemont is an artist, designer, printmaker and bookbinder who makes books from scratch, most recently about food, and published under his Solmentes Press imprint. He was Artistic Director of the University of Wales Gregynog Press from 1985–97 and has won many book design awards including the Felice Feliciano International Award in 1991. Esslemont’s work can be found in both private and public collections worldwide. (His archive to 2005 is held at the University of Iowa.)

###

Contact David Esslemont 563 419 8882 david (at) solmentes.com
Solmentes Press, 1990 Fox Hollow Road, Decorah, IA 52101

Pizza from Scratch – The story of a visual narrative

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Tue, 09 Jan 2018 15:41:00 +0000

I have an interest in food – okay it’s a passion – actually it’s an obsession: I am obsessed with food and cooking, today it's pizza cooked from scratch in a wood-fired oven. Some of my earliest memories of cooking date back to when I was a Boy Scout: delicious, smoky, crispy outside, soft inside “benders and twisters” – simple wheat flour dough balls stretched around a stick, cooked over a campfire.

Later, travels in Italy and the revelation that the Holy Trinity was in fact garlic, tomatoes and olive oil, and the best pizzas where cooked in wood-fired ovens, helped fuel this passion for cooking that become an obsession.

I want to know where my food has come from. If the food is processed, what are the ingredients and where did they come from? How were they grown/raised? I want to taste natural flavors, not chemicals; naturally ripened tomatoes, not bland, anemic imposters – I don’t want to worry about pesticide or herbicide residues. So, I grow fruit and vegetables following organic methods, and preserve as much as possible.

In the first year after moving to Iowa we raised over a hundred tomato plants from seed, all heirloom varieties from Seedsavers Exchange (conveniently located just a couple of miles away). Before long we were supplying Seedsavers with seed. We grew peppers and cucurbits and learned what it felt like to be a peasant – my mother’s comment was, “well it’s in your blood you know!” But I am not a farmer, I’m an artist who makes books.

The garlic and basil thrived and I learned the rituals of canning – processing hundreds of pounds of tomatoes and other produce and preserving them in glass jars. This gave me the idea that I could grow all the toppings for pizzas and make and sell them, say, once a week.

Pizza farms are not uncommon in the Midwest and my main inspiration was Robbie Bannen and Ted Fisher’s AtoZ Bakery in Wisconsin that hosts a now famous "Tuesday Night Pizza" on their farm. I considered the feasibility of a pizza operation at our farm.

Learning the art of the Pizzaiolo

In July 2011 I built a wood-fired oven and began making pizzas, little knowing how the project would evolve. I dug clay from a corner of a field and mixed it with sand to form Adobe bricks; then built a dome-shaped oven on a plinth constructed from heavy oak beams left over from our barn resizing. The hearth was made with reclaimed firebricks from a demolished school. Just days later we hosted a pizza party and cooked over a dozen pizzas – learning “on the job” the art of the pizzaiolo –forming the dough, preparing and applying judicious amounts of toppings and cooking at high temperatures in a wood-fired oven.

There is something magical about the wood-fired oven: the rolling flames, searing heat and tantalizing aromas are quixotic. If you’ve grown the ingredients, and harvested the tomatoes and basil that afternoon – the flavors will be out of this world.

Disaster strikes

On Saturday, May 12, 2012, the firebrick hearth was unusually hot and I noticed the 8 x 8-inch oak beam at the mouth of the oven was smoldering, again. The pizzas were unremarkable and the base of the crust, burnt.

The next morning, our son Tom ran into the kitchen: “the pizza oven has collapsed, it’s burning!” He was right . . . my pride and joy was reduced to a heap of white-hot burning oak beams among which lay the hearth of recycled firebricks, topped by sherds of the shattered hard-baked adobe clay dome from which jutted the chimney flanked by the tin roof. Thank goodness I didn’t build it near the house. I was devastated.

Breaking ground for a new oven

In May 2014 I burned a field of weeds to clear it ready for planting spring wheat, and dug the foundations for another pizza oven. Cement block walls would support a reinforced concrete plinth, an insulated bed of new firebricks and the clay oven. As I documented its construction and the emerging wheat and tomato seedlings I conceived the idea for a new book.

Pizza from Scratch: the story of how I literally grew a pizza on the farm in rural Iowa. Wholly embracing the farm-to-table movement, I grow hard red wheat and Amish Paste heirloom tomatoes; design and build an adobe clay wood-fired oven (scale plans included); give instructions on how to make the dough, tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese; fire up the oven, assemble the pizza and cook it, in less than three minutes.

Following the success of my book Chili: a recipe this new book would also be a visual narrative in woodcuts and linocuts. My first image was a series of woodcuts, that together formed a panel six feet long, the subject: weeds. In due course this was reduced to just one page, fifteen inches wide and I settled on a landscape format chiefly to accommodate the subsequent twenty-four inch wide print of burning weeds as a double-page spread.

I made thumbnail sketches for a storyboard, and began detailed studies and drawings from life and from photographs documenting the construction of the oven and the progress of the wheat and tomatoes. Then I began cutting blocks. [see blog post Pizza from Scratch – Part 2]

As a bookbinder, I approach book design with the book’s final structure in mind and the best construction is a sewn gathering of folded sheets with the grain direction of the paper running parallel with the spine. I wanted most of the images to “bleed off” the trimmed page. Consequently the sheet size had to allow for a substantial margin around the prints (to hold the paper in place while printing) and was thirty-four inches long by fifteen inches high. This required a cunning set-up on the Ostrander Seymour “Extra Heavy” iron hand press as its platen is only twenty by seventeen inches and demanded extra care when handling such a large sheet.

Printing began in April 2017 and continued into June. While some images are just black and white, others are complex multi colour prints from three blocks that were cut and printed several times (reduction cutting). Printing fifty copies yielded an edition of forty books. All told I pulled 5,600 prints, not counting proofing and set up. The larger prints required double pulls and the more solid images were “hard pulls” that required an extension tube on the bar!

Binding

With the sorting, folding, gathering and collating I was able to clear some bench space in the workshop as the books were consolidated into three small piles. The book is offered in two variant bindings a “regular “ case binding and a “deluxe” full leather binding. Both bindings involve sewing by hand and each is presented in cloth-covered drop back box with the title printed on the spine and lid. Inserted into an envelope on the inside of the lid is a large folded print of the scale drawings for the oven.

I am pleased to report that “regular” Pizzas have been shipped to collectors in the US and the UK and I am particularly proud that both the British Library and the Library of Congress now have their copies. The deluxe bindings are almost finished.

Where to see Pizza from Scratch

A travelling exhibition is planned together with presentations and demonstrations and the book will be shown at book fairs in 2018 including the Manhattan Fine Press fair and the Oxford Fine Press Fair in March, and at the Oak Knoll Fest in Newcastle, Delaware in October. Full details of the book and all the images can be seen at solmentes.com

There is something magical about cooking in a wood-fired oven: the rolling flames, searing heat and tantalizing aromas are quixotic. If you’ve grown the ingredients, and harvested the tomatoes and basil that afternoon – the flavors will be out of this world.”

***

How to get your books bound by the best bookbinders in the world

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 23:00:00 +0000

How serendipity led to Inside the Book playing a leading role as the set book in a new bookbinding competition. The Open•Set bookbinding competition is now a traveling exhibition and opens on Wednesday, March 8, 2017 in the University of Iowa Special Collections galleries, Iowa City (details below). I was one of the jurors and I am pleased to offer you an overview of the competition together with some insight into how my book came to be bound by some of the best bookbinders in the world.

Sol Rébora, 1st place, SET book, Inside the Book
📷American Academy of Bookbinding

I was pleased to meet Lang Ingalls, the chief organizer of Open•Set at a party in New York following the 2015 FPBA Manhattan Book Fair. She asked if I had any books in unbound sheets for a new competition . . . coincidentally I still had almost half the edition of Inside the Book.

"The OPEN • SET competition is a NEW triennial competition that formed in response to the burgeoning interest and palpable momentum in finely crafted design book bindings in the United States. Sponsored in part by the American Academy of Bookbinding, it is designed to encourage both new binders and professionals. OPEN • SET offers prizes and acknowledgement in two categories: Participants may choose to bind the SET book or a book of their choice, the OPEN category. Entries are limited to one book per category. Binders from all levels and cultures are invited to participate, as the competition is not limited to citizens of the United States nor to students or affiliates of the AAB. All entries will be reviewed by a blind jury of three professional binders. The three-member jury for the competition is: Eleanore Ramsey, David Esslemont, and Cathy Adelman."

Eleanore Ramsey, David Esslemont, and Cathy Adelman at
San Francisco Center for the Book Open•Set opening 📷Laine Tammer

My fellow jurors Cathy Adelman and Eleanore Ramsey both revealed an acute sensitivity and perspective in their appraisal and judgment – it was a pleasure to work with them, and we reached a consensus of opinion without recourse to distasteful argument.

Patricia Owen, 2nd place SET book, Inside the Book
📷 American Academy of Bookbinding

I am grateful Lang Ingalls and the American Academy of Bookbinding for not only choosing Inside the Book for their first competition, but also inviting me to be one of the jurors. Lang's vision, hard work, management skills and generous hospitality are unequalled and I congratulate her and the Academy for curating and presenting the Open•Set exhibition. It is, I think, quite simply, a stunning display of contemporary bindings.

The competition attracted entries from around the world from both professionals and new binders. We selected fifty books for the traveling exhibition including three prizewinners in each category and nine highly commended bindings.

Benjamin Elbel, 3rd place SET book, Inside the Book
📷 American Academy of Bookbinding

In the SET category we chose first: Sol Rébora (Argentina); second: Patricia Owen (USA); third: Benjamin Elbel (The Netherlands). We highly commended for tooling: Samuel Feinstein (USA); onlay and inlay: Susan Hulme (USA); use of materials Adeline Koh (Singapore).

In the OPEN category we chose first: Mark Esser (USA); second: Sofía Mendizabál (Argentina); third: Zigor Anguiano (Spain). We highly commended for titling: Jan Camps (Belgium); onlay and inlay: Coleen Curry (USA); endbands: Sol Rébora (Argentina); unusual materials [scalpel blades]: Sialia Rieke (USA); design: Dominic Riley (UK); unique structure: Luke Hornus (UK).

I doubt if anyone here knows the work of the dour and eccentric Scottish poet Ivor Cutler. His stories, such as ‘Gruts for Tea’ and ‘The Soup Tureen’ have long been favorites of mine. I met him once, at a book fair, and do you know what I said? "Hello, Billy, tea time, Gruts for tea" – I began reciting his poems, to his utter horror!

An ardent socialist, his own books were the most humble and unassuming productions you can imagine – more like chapbooks. At the time I was working for the Gregynog Press and suggested we might publish his work and showed him our finely-printed, leather-bound books – he was horrified and walked away muttering “this is so embarrassing, so embarrassing, I don’t understand . . .”

I tell you this story because when I saw the Open•Set exhibition in San Francisco, besides the pleasure of seeing the bindings again, now old friends so to speak, it was so embarrassing to see my name displayed alongside every single set-book binding. I’ve grown used to that now and feel honored and humbled to be bound by some of the best bookbinders in the world.

The opportunity to handle the books was an honor itself. How few people will enjoy that privilege? The best bindings in my view are those that are thoughtful, that function well and are appropriately dressed – bindings that stimulate both the aesthetic and haptic senses. In many cases the best bindings are happy books and this exhibition is full of happy books.

Inside the Book tells you how to make and publish a book in the twentieth, not the fifteenth century. Unlike the University of Iowa Special Collection’s Scriptores Historiae Augustae (the model for Greg Prickman's "Atlas of Early Printing"), only ten copies were offered in sheets. As a bookbinder, I knew there was a small market for unbound sets.

I did not intend the books to be kept in barrels under bookseller’s counters gathering grimy schmutztitels. My book was issued in a regular cloth binding together with ten copies in my own special “design” binding. However, due to my pecuniary state in 2002, I bound only half the edition – no wonder I was pleased to meet Lang Ingalls.

The lesson here is: although serendipity may intervene, you would be wise to bind the whole edition at once. This is even more important for those who are binding themselves, not only does it makes economic sense but also avoids that unfortunate circumstance where one asks, “how did I do that?" or "what am I to do now my chosen endpaper or book cloth is no longer available?”

Special binding by David Esslemont

But the curious thing is, Inside the Book and the Agustin History now have more in common than you would think. For example, both books can be found in many different bindings – in the case of Inside the Book, at least one hundred copies. Admittedly this is a far cry from the number of variant bindings of Lucile of which there are literally thousands, albeit from different publishers.

Also, there are questions surrounding the authorship of the History, with suggestions the authors were all fictitious. The careful reader will discover too that Inside the Book contains a work by a fictitious author. Like Lucile's author Meredith, Desmond Levista is in fact a pseudonym, just whose is up to you to find out.

The University of Iowa Libraries' copy of Scriptores Historiae Augustae,
printed in 1490, with a contemporary binding and foredge decoration from
the Pillone Library. 📷UI Special Collections

No coincidence either that I quote Thomas Carlyle in my Introduction: "The best effect of any book is that it excites the reader to self activity". In Sartor Resartus he reviews the fictitious Diogenes Teufelsdröckh. Sartor is a fascinating book and a long-term Solmentes project.

The idea for Inside the Book came about in 1998 following a panel discussion at an Oak Knoll Book Fest, in New Castle, Delaware at which Joel Silver, now director of the University of Indiana’s Lilly Library explained what kind of book he wanted to buy for his library. I noted he wanted a book that would be of interest to faculty, staff and students. During the flight from Philadelphia to Minneapolis I mapped out the contents of such a book and drew a sketch of the binding.

If anyone can cook, anyone can make a book is the premise that underlies the text.

At its simplest all you need is some kind of stylus and a substance on which to make marks, perhaps a pen and some paper. Raw materials, raw vegetables and fish or meat will make a meal. You can fry an egg on a hot rock. Food will cook in hot embers. The form of the book is constantly evolving and today there are many different ways to make a book. Although the digital book bears little resemblance to the medieval manuscript, they do in fact have a lot in common, they are still perceived as marks on a surface even if they are pixels. Maybe books of the future will be transmitted directly to our brains as data bits, bypassing the visual necessity of reading, who knows?

Inside the Book aims to inspire and offer the basic ground rules or tenets for making a physical book but it is not just concerned with designing and making the book. I also introduce the reader to the dirty world of commerce. I believe, if you offer multiple copies of a book for sale, then you are involved in publishing and publishing is a noble profession and it requires both editorial expertise and business acumen. Marketing and financial planning are essential parts of the publishing process and these topics are covered also, and I believe should become a standard part of the curricula of Book Arts courses.

Since Inside the Book is out of print, and the revised second edition and e-book are not yet available I encourage you to look for it in a library. I hope you’ll read it and enjoy the first chapters of the biblio novel by Desmond Levista that I used for specimen page settings. If you’re interested in reading about more about the creative process of writing and producing Inside the Book, take a look at another book: Ink on the Elbow, where in the course of our daily email correspondence over a period of four years, Gaylord Schanilec and I talk in detail about the books we are making. I still have a handful of bound of copies for sale.

I hope you enjoy the exhibition, and remember, if you want to get your book bound by some of the best bookbinders in the world: put aside 100 copies in sheets.

From March 8 to April 19, the exhibition will be at

Special Collections and University Archives
The University of Iowa Libraries
100 Main Library (LIB)
125 West Washington Street
Iowa City, IA 52242-1420
(319) 335-5921

Then travels to:

TELLURIDE • April 24 to May 20 AhHaa School of the Arts
117 North Willow Street, Telluride, Colorado
BOSTON • June 8 to July 19 North Bennet Street School
150 North Street, Boston, Massachusetts
AUSTIN • July 26 to August 26 Austin Public Library
710 West César Chávez Street, Austin, Texas

Links
Open•Set exhibition opening at UI Special Collections
Open•Set competition and exhibition (American Academy of Bookbinding)
Inside the Book, David Esslemont
"Gruts for tea", Ivor Cutler
The Atlas of Early Printing, Greg Prickman
The Lucile Project, Sid Huttner
Ink on the Elbow, David Esslemont and Gaylord Schanilec

Pizza from Scratch – Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 17:34:00 +0000

January 28–February 9: 'Burning Weeds', a hand printed, five-color lino cut, 24 x 12 inches. At this stage neither the logistics of printing and binding or the format of the book have been resolved, but a page size of 10 x 12 inches (landscape) would accommodate this image as a double-page spread if trimmed to bleed.

Red, on orange on yellow, and orange on yellow, 'wet on wet ink' proofs.

'Wheat Field', early morning, lino cut with watercolor wash, 24 x 12 inches. These double-page spreads convey the breadth of the landscape but printing them presents a challenge. Perhaps single-page images would make more sense . . . .

How about 12 x 7.5 inches? Here a close-up of the key block for a three-color lino cut, 'Cultivating' with the Massey Ferguson tractor.

This print of the key block is offset onto two other blocks, one each for red and green.

Obviously the Massey is red and the leaves and grass are green, where the two colours overlap they will produce a brown, ideal for the soil and tree trunks.

A first color proof shows how the red/green makes a brown, but it still needs work.

The wheat seeds viewed close up. This shows how the lino cut progresses, first cuts are rough outlines, followed by detailed hatching to add light and shade.

The finished block. For the book I might add a color wash or print black on a colored background.

Ten pounds of Glenn organic Spring wheat from Johnny's Selected Seeds in Maine where broadcast by hand.

To cover the seeds and compress the soil around them I drove around the field on the Kawasaki Mule dragging a vintage spike-tooth harrow. Two scarecrows and a totem pole will keep watch over the crop. (Key block)

Three-color lino cut with hand coloring. Now I wait for the seed to germinate and turn to the tomatoes which were planted earlier and may appear first in the book . . . . Read more in Pizza from Scratch – Part 5

Pizza from Scratch – Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 20:23:00 +0000

January 12, 2015: Making adobe clay involves 'puddling' – the mixing of clay, sand and water with your feet, hence this pencil study. Drawing is an important discipline for the artist – daily practice is worthwhile. This post includes detailed studies as well as sketches for the illustrations to the Pizza book.

One of the main goals is to grow wheat for flour to make dough for the pizza. Here is a pencil drawing of an ear of Glenn organic Spring wheat grown on our farm here in Iowa.

The first step in preparing the field for planting was to burn last years weeds, with the hope that many of the weed seeds were also incinerated. At this point I began to think the book should be landscape format and this subject will become a double page spread lino cut.

Mixing cement and building concrete-block walls is hard, thirsty work, especially in the heat of the summer and the builder deserves a well-earned beer at the end of the day, especially when an important stage is completed. These walls will support a concrete plinth on which the oven will be built.

Wire mesh and tubing in place to reinforce the concrete slab.

Firebricks in position on top of an insulation layer, ready to build the sand dome around which the oven will be formed.

Drawing the sand dome to achieve the desired lighting was tricky.

My clay-covered hands forming the Adobe bricks.

Sharp-eyed viewers will observe the sand dome is covered with the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper is dampened and the hand-formed Adobe clay bricks are placed around the dome to form the first layer of the oven wall.

Preferred fuel: well-seasoned oak.

After almost three weeks drawing, it is time to embark upon a lino cut. Read more in the next post: Pizza from Scratch – Part 4

Pizza from Scratch – Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 03:47:00 +0000

January 2016: Return to Pizza . . . a year later . . . the wheat has been harvested, a new pizza oven built and pizzas cooked, so the time has come to make the book. Working with colored markers I make storyboards of three-inch-square thumbnail sketches charting the progression of events.

Weeds, burning, charred remains, and cultivating

Since I began with the notion of clearing a field of weeds, and weeds are the subject of the woodcuts already completed (see Pizza – a work in progress) this will be my starting point. In these thumbnails I envision a portrait-format book, with tall narrow pages, that opens to form a square – a useful frame for pizza.

Sowing seed, seedlings, scarecrow, harrowing

The organic Glenn spring wheat came from Johnny's Select Seeds in Maine. Next, I chart the cultivation of heirloom Amish Paste tomatoes. The tomato seeds were planted before the wheat, so if the book is to progress chronologically these images should be first.

How to build the adobe clay wood-fired pizza oven will be explained with scale drawings and illustrations of key stages starting with gathering of all the necessary materials. This is the second pizza oven I have built, the first is documented in a post on September 2011: 'Recycling the East Side School – in a wood-fired clay pizza oven' and again on May 2012: 'Disaster – Wood-fired oven burns down'. Consequently it's construction will be considerably more robust!

Loading Iowa sand into the Dodge Ram 1500

Finished oven, blueprints, digging clay, puddling clay

The oven is formed, brick by brick, around a dome of sand covered in dampened newspaper.

Now the ideas are coming together, it is time to make more detailed drawings and studies for the prints. Follow the progress in Pizza from Scratch – Part 3

"Making Books, Chilli and Curry"

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 06:50:00 +0000

An illustrated talk on Thursday 5 November, by David Esslemont to The Bewick Society: Newcastle City Library, Charles Avison Building, 33 New Bridge St W, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, at 6.30 p.m.

"There is much here in the Northeast that is relevant to what I want to talk about tonight. I have an interest in books. You have an interest in books. Actually, I find many people have an interest in books of some sort.

I also have an interest in food – and I’ve found that everybody has an interest in food. I think chefs and book designers have a lot in common. We are designing, creating, directing – orchestrating – a wide range of different elements, and overseeing their production, often as multiples. Aren’t we both obsessed with detail, with the quality of the materials or ingredients, the production, the presentation . . .? Aren’t we looking for that perfect balance?

Tonight I am going to talk about creativity, inspiration, and how our heritage, and our traditions, hindsight and insight help shape the work we create . . ."

Google Calender – Newcastle City Library The Bewick Society

To book a FREE ticket: Telephone 0191 277 4100 or book online

Printing, Type and Typographical Design

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 09:00:00 +0000

Oxford Bibliographical Society, Taylor Institute
Monday, 2 November at 5.15 p.m.
An illustrated talk 'To my bibliographer: notes, observations & anecdotes about books I have printed (or intend to), pertaining to Bewick, Carlyle, Chili, Curry, Keats, Levista, War and Wordsworth.'

" . . . Minutiae are the bread and butter of both bookmaker and bibliographer. A myriad seemingly trivial and mundane details all need careful consideration. I’m interested those details, those decisions that ultimately coalesce into books, books that function, books that are not only a joy to read, but also a delight to all the senses and in Carlyle’s words “excite the reader to self activity”. I’m interested in publishing too, because a book without a reader is worthless, isn’t it? And, like Philip Gaskell I believe the techniques of printing are key to understanding how a text comes into existence.

My bibliographer is compiling a descriptive catalogue, so let’s see if I can help with a few crumbs from the table, so to speak, by considering some of the books I’ve printed since first becoming acquainted with the caduceus of Hermes.

To flesh out these mundane details I’m including some anecdotal evidence, which, I hope the bibliographer will find useful and you will find entertaining. . . . "

Taxi Driver Curry at the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 08:13:00 +0000

On Saturday 31 October and Sunday 1 November 2015, at Oxford Brookes University, Headington Campus, Gipsy Lane, Oxford, England

Solmentes at the 2015 Oxford Book Fair

Taxi Driver Curry is now published and available in regular and deluxe bindings (see above, displayed together with New York Revisited). The book is described in a previous post

The Oxford Fine Press Book Fair is organized by The Fine Press Book Association in collaboration with the Provincial Booksellers Association
Saturday, 31 October 11am to 6pm, and Sunday, 1 November 10am to 5pm.

Featuring 98 exhibitors including private presses from the UK, the Americas, Russia, Asia, and continental Europe, as well as dealers in fine press books, suppliers of fine printing materials, and related societies:.

InsideOut show in New York includes Esslemont binding

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 13:35:00 +0000

Bonhams, 580 Madison Ave., New York, NY, from Friday 10–19 April, 2015

My binding of New York Revisited by Kenneth Auchincloss is part of this touring exhibition organized by Designer Bookbinders UK. "InsideOUT celebrates the art and craft of contemporary bookbinding and private press printing. This ambitious project is a collaboration between thirty-four binders based in the United Kingdom and twenty-five based in North America."

New York Revisited was designed, illustrated with colour wood engravings and printed by Gaylord Schanilec, and published in 2002 by The Grolier Club, New York. 7 x 12 inches. 44 pages. Edition of 250 copies (this copy ex-edition), 9 full-page color wood engravings and 2 vignettes by Gaylord Schanilec. Type composed in Emerson Monotype. Printed on Zerkall mould-made paper.

The binding uses white alum-tawed goatskin, inkjet, acrylic ink, blind and gold tooling, and is inset with diamonds and other gemstones. The main image on the cover is a detail of a view looking down Fifth Avenue – the view extends inside the front and back covers where it faces views of Lexington Avenue.

In these images we see a contrast between the rich and poor, exemplified by the stocking feet jutting out from a shop doorway, and the bustle of pedestrians. These are paste-grained and form the leather-jointed endpapers.

The polished leather on the front cover, embedded with real gemstones, again highlights this contrast.

The book is presented in a drop back box together with an extra set of Schanilec's engravings and prints from the original blocks engraved by Rudolph Ruzicka for the book New York, published by the Grolier Club in 1915.

This binding is now in a private collection.

Designer Bookbinders
Bonham's

Taxi Driver Curry previews in New York City

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 13:23:00 +0000

At the Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair, Saturday 11 April

Indian curries were voted Britain’s favourite dish for many years. No surprise then that curry is the subject of this new book from Solmentes Press.

There are many different ways to cook curry – this transcript of a conversation with a taxi driver describes just one approach and was recorded at 4.30 a.m. while traveling between terminals at London’s Heathrow airport.

The illustrations are woodcuts based on kolam, Indian designs that are created outside homes to bring prosperity and ward off evil spirits.

"Roaming London in the early 1970s, English art student David Esslemont tastes his first Indian curry – he likes it.
Today a professional artist, book designer and printer, Esslemont lives in rural Iowa, a Midwestern American state so vast that England would fit comfortably within it’s borders. Unfortunately Iowa has just twenty-four Indian restaurants – a mere shadow of England’s thousands. Where, Esslemont wondered, can I go to get a decent curry?

Always a lover of good food, Esslemont began experimenting with his own recipes. His love of cooking became a passion – in 2013 he turned the recipe for his prize-winning chili recipe into an award-winning limited edition book.

Now Esslemont focuses his attention on curry as he explores the culture and cuisine of South Asia, experimenting with herbs and spices to transform not only his evening meal, but also lunch and breakfast. In his quest to understand the gastronomy of South Asia he scours cookbooks and food media and . . . talks to taxi drivers.

There are many different ways to cook curry – this transcript of a conversation with a taxi driver describes just one approach and was recorded at 4.30 a.m. while travelling between terminals at London’s Heathrow airport.

Kolam 06 – 7-colour woodcut

The woodcuts are based on Indian Kolam, designs traditionally created outside homes to bring prosperity and ward off evil spirits. Order now to take advantage of a special pre-publication subscription price at solmentes.com.

Title page

Fifty copies hand printed from the original wood- blocks, the text from polymer plates, bound as follows: forty-five copies in cloth-covered boards, presented in a drop-back box – $460 ($360 pre publication) and five copies in a deluxe binding. 175 x 254 mm ( 7 x 10 ins) landscape, 24pp, 10 woodcuts. To be published in May 2015 by Solmentes Press." (Edited by Robert Wolf)

The Fine Press Book Association in collaboration with the Manhattan Vintage Book & Ephemera Show on Saturday, April 11, 2015, from 8 am to 4 pm at St. Vincent Ferrer parochial school on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 65th Street. Featuring thirty presses from across the US, UK, Canada and Russia.

This is an addition to the Vintage Book Fair, known colloquially as the "Shadow Fair." It is a less-formal, less-expensive fair held during the same weekend as the New York Antiquarian Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory. This year, for the first time, it will be located right around the corner from the main fair at the Park Avenue Armory.

Taxi Driver Curry Preview in California

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:46:00 +0000

At the Codex International Book Fair in Richmond February 8–11

Indian curries were voted Britain’s favourite dish for many years. No surprise then that curry is the subject of my new book:

Video transcript: "Taxi driver curry. – Roaming London in the early 1970s, English art student David Esslemont tastes his first Indian curry – he likes it.

Today a professional artist, book designer and printer, Esslemont lives in rural Iowa, a Midwestern American state so vast that England would fit comfortably within it’s borders. Unfortunately Iowa has just twenty-four Indian restaurants – a mere shadow of England’s thousands. Where, Esslemont wondered, can I go to get a decent curry?

Always a lover of good food, Esslemont began experimenting with his own recipes. His love of cooking became a passion – in 2013 he turned the recipe for his prize-winning chili recipe into an award-winning limited edition book.

Now Esslemont focuses his attention on curry as he explores the culture and cuisine of South Asia, experimenting with herbs and spices to transform not only his evening meal, but also lunch and breakfast. In his quest to understand the gastronomy of South Asia he scours cookbooks and food media and . . . talks to taxi drivers.

There are many different ways to cook curry – this transcript of a conversation with a taxi driver describes just one approach and was recorded at 4.30 a.m. while travelling between terminals at London’s Heathrow airport.

Kolam 06 – 7-colour woodcut

Title page

Pizza (work in progress)

noreply@blogger.com (solmentes) — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 21:15:00 +0000

From weeds to wood-fired pizza

A montage of six woodcuts (72 x 18 inches)

This ambitious project begins with weeds and fire as the ground is cleared to plant wheat – clay is mixed with sand to make adobe bricks, and concludes with the magic of cooking in a wood-fired oven, with ferocious heat, rolling flames, and the tantalizing aromas of home-grown pizza.

A from-scratch recipe in woodcuts for making your own pizza.

Four woodcuts

The sand dome "form" for the adobe clay bricks

Follow progress in the next post: Pizza from Scratch – Part 2