As a printer and art historian, I am interested in the ways that techniques within the allied trades of bookbinding can be used to create art in our contemporary world. I spent the last year of my Bachelor’s degree working as an assistant in the Dawson Print Shop and Bindery in Halifax, Nova Scotia (Kjipuktuk, Eskikewa’kik, Mi’kma’ki). During my time there, I was able to develop my letterpress printing skills, as well as practice the bookbinding techniques that I have been doing for the past few years.
This year for Print Day in May, I will be making a limited edition run of letterpress printed books, which will be bound and finished by hand. These will feature the same overlaid poetry techniques that I have previously used in my lithographic work, but on a smaller and more intimate scale. The typesetting will be done with antique sorts of varied sizes, depending on what is being covered and what is being left legible. With this series, I hope to draw viewers into my art and invite them to pick it up, look at it from different angles, try to read the obscured words on each printed page. In this way, the work will explore the theme of mental landscapes, and how a person’s psyche is woven from complicated, often overlapping, realities.
I am honoured to be part of Print Day in May’s 16th anniversary celebration, and cannot wait to see what everyone else makes.
To watch the progress of my Print Day in May project, visit my Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/odysseanpress/.
thank you for all of this info!