Keynote

Ricky Jay

Collecting the Enigmatic: Ricky Jay in conversation with Alan Jutzi | recap

Scholar, historian, actor, and preeminent sleight-of-hand artist Ricky Jay is a serious collector of books, broadsides, prints, photographs, and ephemera on the history and practice of magic, deception, unusual entertainments and remarkable characters. Mr. Jay is a member of the American Antiquarian Society and the former curator of the Mulholland Library of Conjuring and the Allied Arts. Jay’s Journal of Anomalies was originally published in a letterpress-printed edition by Patrick Reagh from 1994 to 1998. The author of a number of books on related subjects, Ricky Jay’s most recent publication, Matthias Buchinger: The Greatest German Living, was produced to accompany the exhibition “Wordplay: Matthias Buchinger’s Drawings from the Collection of Ricky Jay” at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art on view earlier this year.

Alan Jutzi recently retired as the Huntington’s Avery Chief Curator of Rare Books after 45 years at the library. 

Plenary

david brafman, rhiannon knol, & marcia reed

The Art of Alchemy | recap

David Brafman is Associate Curator of Rare Books at the Getty Research Institute. Before joining the Getty in 2002, he was a visiting professor at NYU in Classics, and resident-expert at H.P. Kraus, Rare Books and Manuscripts in NYC. His Ph.D. is in classics and Arabic from Duke University.

Rhiannon Knol is a research assistant in the curatorial department at the Getty Research Institute. She holds an MA in classics from UCLA. Her interests are the history and materiality of the book, Latin literature, epistolography, and palaeography.

Marcia Reed is Chief Curator and Associate Director for Special Collections and Exhibitions at the Getty Research Institute. Her exhibitions and publications include China on Paper: European and Chinese Works from the Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Centuries (2007) and The Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals (2015)

Presenters

michaela rae ryerson baca

Blood Book: The Magic of Henry Cornelius Agrippa’s De occulta philosophia libri tres | recap

Michaela Rae Ryerson Baca is a master’s student in medieval studies at Texas A&M University. Her primary interests lie in medievalism and adaptation, and in book history. 

george barnum & james t. cameron

Making the Invisible Visible: Wartime Wonders at the U.S. Government Printing Office | recap

George Barnum is Agency Historian and Congressional Relations Specialist at the U.S. Government Publishing Office. He has written extensively on rare and valuable government documents, electronic dissemination of government information, and the history of the GPO. He presented at the 2014 APHA conference and is President APHA’s Chesapeake Chapter.

James T. Cameron is retired Publications Marketing Specialist at the U.S. Government Publishing Office. He served as GPO Historian from 1982–1984, and currently is Managing Editor at Cameron Editorial Services. 

pamela barrie

Emblem & Mechanism: George Clymer’s Columbian Press as Neoclassical Hieroglyph | recap

Pamela Barrie teaches literature and writing at the School of the Art Institute, Chicago, where she is an associate adjunct professor of liberal arts. She has been involved in the book arts in Chicago for many years, both as a teacher and maker. She taught letterpress printing at Artists Book Works and the history of the book at Columbia College Center for Paper and the Book. She was a member of the Green Window Printers, and produced limited edition broadsides with the Poetry Center of Chicago, in addition to small books and ephemera under her own imprint, Hellbox Press.

robert cagna

“Secret” Engraving Marks and Other Mysterious Printing on Postage Stamps | recap

Robert Cagna is  Library Director at West Virginia University’s Charleston Division. He formerly was the Department Head of Access and Document Delivery Services at the University of Pennsylvania Biomedical Library. Rob was on the Board of SHARP, the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing. He has spoken at the ALA’s Rare Book and Manuscript Section preconference and at the American Philatelic Society.

jesse r. erickson

The Magical and Mysterious Faces of Ouija: The Aesthetic History of the Ouija Board | recap

Jesse Ryan Erickson received his doctorate in information studies in 2016 from UCLA. He earned his MLIS in 2014, specializing in book history and librarianship, and obtained his certification in descriptive bibliography in 2009 from the California Rare Book School. His publications include “The History of Malleus Maleficarum: A Bibliographic Study” (2009) and “Revolution in Black: Black American Alternative Press and Popular Culture at the End of the Twentieth Century” (2013). His current research is focused in the areas of ethnobibliography and print culture studies.

laura forsberg

Magic and the Miniature Book | recap

Laura Forsberg will be a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the Huntington Library for the 2016–2017 academic year. She recently received her PhD from Harvard University with a dissertation entitled “The Miniature and Victorian Literature,” and currently teaches at Concordia University Texas. Her articles have been published or accepted by Victorian Studies, SEL: Studies in English Literature 1600-1900, and Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America.

e. haven hawley

William Berry, Publisher, Scoundrel, and Spiritualist | recap

Elizabeth Haven Hawley, PhD, is chair of the Special and Area Studies Collections Department at the George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida. She is a historian of technology who specializes in artifact analysis and socio-political aspects of print culture. She has taught history of science at the University of Minnesota and was program director of the Immigration History Research Center. She served as lab instructor for descriptive bibliography classes and as printer-in-residence for summer courses at Rare Book School (University of Virginia) for more than a decade. She is an APHA board trustee.

sally hildreth

Electric Mysticism: Astrology and the Gutenberg Galaxy | recap

Sally Hildreth is a native of St. Louis and worked in the documentary film industry in New York City before beginning graduate studies in psychology at the University of West Georgia (UWG). For nearly two years she has been a graduate research assistant in Special Collections at UWG, processing the papers and rare book collection of New York psychic spy and artist, Ingo Swann. Ms. Hildreth holds a BS in film/television production from Boston University. Her research interests include astrology, ecopsychology, and the relationship between consciousness and technology.

mary catharine johnsen

From Magic to Science with Johannes Müller von Königsberg | recap

Mary Catharine Johnsen shares Copernicus’s and Regiomontanus’s books with students as a generalist Special Collections Librarian at Carnegie Mellon University. 

william kiesel

Printers Devices in Esoteric Publishing | recap

William Kiesel is publishing director at Ouroboros Press, host of the international Esoteric Book Conference, (est. 2009), as well as an ongoing participant in the antiquarian and scholarly book trade since 1991. His role also includes independent scholarship, art curation and public speaking in the complex and intriguing world of esotericism. William is co-editor at CLAVIS; Journal Occult Arts, Letters & Experience. His book Magic Circles in the Grimoire Tradition was published by Three Hands Press.

rachael scarborough king

Samuel Johnson and Spectral Evidence | presentation was not delivered

Rachael Scarborough King is assistant professor of English at UC Santa Barbara, and a member of the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Critical Bibliography at Rare Book School. She holds a PhD from New York University and a BA from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in Book History and Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, and she has an article forthcoming in Huntington Library Quarterly on the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscript newsletter. She recently completed a book manuscript on the role of letter writing in the formation of new genres of print in the long eighteenth century.

grendl löfkvist

The Devil is in the Details: Conjuring the Spirit of the Book (The challenges involved in printing a 21st-century Grimoire) | recap

Grendl Löfkvist is an instructor in the visual media design department at City College of San Francisco, where she teaches the history of graphic design, book arts, calligraphy, and letterpress printing. She also offers courses at the San Francisco Center for the Book, and she is a core instructor at Type@CooperWest, an institution whose focus is on lettering and type design. Löfkvist does letterpress and printmaking work under the imprints of Cloven Hoof Press and Red Star Media/Design, and she is currently the President of the APHA NorCal Chapter.

steve matteson

Black Art to Blackletter: Frederic Goudy’s First Foray into Print and his Last Word in Type Design | recap

Steve Matteson is the Creative Type Director at Monotype. He is a type designer who discovered a passion for letterpress printing and typography as a student at Rochester Institute of Technology. Steve has designed dozens of bespoke typefaces for customers such as Microsoft, Google, IBM, Citrix, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. An admirer of the work produced by Frederic and Bertha Goudy, he has produced a number of digital revivals of Goudy’s types including Bertham, Friar, and Village. Studying the types, and the printing and personalities of the Goudys is an ongoing passion that fuels enthusiasm for his own work. Steve resides in Louisville, Colorado. 

myra mossman

Sacred Scribes, Profane Publishers, Unfortunate Mystics |  recap

Myra Mossman, Esq. is a hand bookbinding and paper restorer, having worked at the Public Archives and National Library of Canada. A Kabalistic tarot reader and teacher for over thirty years, she is also a black belt martial artist. Mossman has law degrees from Canada and the United States. A Federal Criminal Appeals Attorney, she practices in Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and has appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States. She is the legal advisor to a non-profit, which includes the area of copyright law. Myra Mossman is a Professional Trustee, who manages sizable trusts.

derek christian quezada

Angelic Alphabets: Their Origin, Function, and Influence in Early Print Culture | recap

Derek Christian Quezada is the incoming Outreach and Public Services Librarian for Special Collections & Archives at UC Irvine (previously Librarian at the Getty Research Institute.) He received his Bachelor’s degree in comparative literature and religious studies from UC Irvine before receiving his MLIS from UCLA. While at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library he curated the exhibition, The Invisible World Revealed: Selected Works of the Occult From the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. He has a longstanding interest in esotericism in visual culture and new media.

john risseeuw

Alloy Analysis of Historic Metal Printing Type | recap

Arizona State University professor emeritus John Risseeuw taught book art, printmaking, and papermaking for 40 years. He founded the Pyracantha Press, book art imprint of ASU, in 1982 and his own Cabbagehead Press in 1972. His prints, books, and collaborative works have been shown in over 450 exhibitions in 26 countries and have been widely collected. The Library of Congress purchased an archive of John’s work on paper and all books from his Cabbagehead Press. He was founding president of the College Book Art Association, has chaired the board of Hand Papermaking magazine, and served the Southern Graphics Council International.

dianne l. roman

The Devil Wore a Dress | recap

Dianne L. Roman is a doctoral candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University in the Media, Art, and Text program. A printer and graphic designer, she has researched the lost and absent-from-history women in the print shop of America’s past. Her interest in printing grew from her involvement with typography. In a print shop one can actually handle the letter. When she is not deep in an old book or behind a press, she can be found stroking the type in type cases. “a” is her favorite letter, especially large and upside down.

todd samuelson

The Alchemy of Erasure: Book Waste as Evidence | recap

Todd Samuelson is  assistant director for Special Collections at the Marriott Library, University of Utah. Before that he was Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at Cushing Memorial Library, as well as the Director of the Book History Workshop, where he remains on the teaching faculty. He received his PhD from the University of Houston in 2005. His publications about issues of book history, digital humanities, and rare book librarianship have appeared in Printing History, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, and letterpress printed under his own imprint, Fat Matter Press.

art seto

A Tale of Chinese Oracle Bones, Emperors, Superstitions, the Invention of Paper and Printing, and their Relation to Playing Cards | recap

Art Seto worked in the printing industry from 1981 to 2004 in a various of positions starting as a bindery apprentice, then as a prepress apprentice, before becoming an estimator, production manager, general manager, Chief Operating Office and finally self-employed as a operations consultant. He has been teaching in post secondary since 2001 in various business and technical courses, and in 2004 joined Ryerson University’s School of Graphic Communications Management, where he  teaches bindery and finishing, and a course called The Art of The Book. He is faculty sponsor for the student letterpress club. His research interests are in the area of book and print history. He has published in local wayzgoose anthologies for several years. In his spare time he works in his home letterpress and bookbinding studio.

casey smith

Ibbett Did It: Piquerism, Poetry, and Letterpress Printing | recap

Casey Smith is a professor at The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University, where he teaches courses in book history, poetry, Victorian Studies, and related subjects. He currently serves as the Vice-President of the Chesapeake chapter of the American Printing History Association.

leslie smith

Reports of Private Wonder and Public Astonishment | recap

Leslie Smith makes drawings, prints, and books based on her interest in early modern natural philosophy and translation. She holds an MFA in book arts from the University of Iowa Center for the Book, and a master’s degree in library science. Her interest in language and translation has lead to collaborative work with Portuguese author Patricía Portela. She is currently working on a project, exploring early modern ideas about wonder and curiosity.

karen wahl

Printing developments in Malleus Malificarum, “The Witches’ Hammer” | recap

Karen Wahl is the reference/legal history & rare books librarian at The George Washington Law School’s Jacob Burns Law Library. Ms. Wahl obtained her MLS from the University of Buffalo and her JD from Fordham Law School. She is the incoming Chair of the Legal History and Rare Books Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries.

philip j. weimerskirch

Leonhard Thurnheisser (1531-1596): Alchemist, Astrologer, Printer, Typefounder, and Papermaker | recap

Philip J. Weimerskirch has been a member of APHA since 1981, and has given talks at seven APHA conferences. He has a doctorate in library science from Columbia University, and has published a number of articles on the history of printing. He is a retired special collections librarian.

nicholas yeager

Ciphers and Secret Codes in Writing Manuals | recap

Nicholas Yeager studied calligraphy and bookbinding in Chicago. His University of Texas BA thesis focused on medieval vellum making. He received his MLS from Columbia University in 1991 in rare books. Yeager is a former rare book librarian at New York Public Library. He has recently traveled North America by motorcycle to research writing manuals at 13 institutions. He handled 527 manuals, 42 of which were editions of Palatino’s various titles. As a scribe, scholar, woodblock cutter and printer, his observations are well grounded in these crafts.