One of a Thousand Fires, 2006. Poems by Cissy Ross, book design, images, printing and binding by Inge Bruggeman.

Inge Bruggeman‘s talk began by focusing on the relationship between ink on paper and questioned our culture’s confidence in its permanence in our environment. Given advances in technology and the ways in which we interact and communicate, she asked how long will paper and text last? Will it stay forever? The printed page can be seen now as a nostalgic place to hold ideas. Paper and printing are being pushed towards objectification and art rather than everyday events and objects. What is the relevance of paper in general and the relevance of paper in artists’ books? There are still elements of culturally relevant paper, such as a receipt roll from a grocery store, as well as ramifications of shifting away from paper based environments. Inge noted her concern about the future of the archive. Will there be an impact on the scholarly record when studying or doing research from disc or flash drives? [Read more]

Detail of an illustration by Arthur Rackham for Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (Hodder & Stoughton, 1906), reproduced for the book by the Hentschel Colourtype Process.

Matthew McLennan Young began his talk by discussing Jacob Christoph Le Blon’s Coloritto, or, The Harmony of Colouring in Painting (1725). Le Blon invented tricolor printing in the primary colors (blue, red, yellow), occasionally adding black or another color to improve the result. In order to break down the colors into primary components much trial and error was required. Because Le Blon was self-taught, he looked at the printing “accidents” to help guide and refine his methods. [Read more]