Tag: chandler & price

“the spiral at its very heart”

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Now that the launch date has been set for Euclid’s Orchard—September 8th, 7:00 p.m., at the Sechelt Public Library (desserts to follow reading!)—my husband John has just printed a little keepsake to hand out to those who buy books that evening (book sales courtesy of Bev Shaw at Talewind Books). If you think you recognize the spiral image, it’s because it’s the same one we used for one of our Christmas cards a few years ago. a linocut, created by me. I’m not an artist, obviously, but Euclid’s Orchard, particularly the title essay, has spirals (some of them featuring the golden or logarithmic spiral, though this isn’t one of those), so it seemed a good graphic element for this keepsake. Two runs through the press (the big Chandler & Price) because it’s two colours. For years I’d look out the blue-framed window at the north end of the kitchen and see him out in the print shop, leaning over the press or the table where newly-printed pages were drying and so it was nice to pause there again and see him. Because all the doors and windows are open, I could even hear the thumping of the press working away—it’s treadle-driven— and I thought of it as a pulse. A heart-beat, a printer placing paper against the friskets on the bed, bringing the inked type-filled chase down to the bed so that the type could meet the paper and impress itself into the fibers.

keepsake with linocut

Does it feel a little like we’re coming to the end of summer? I know there are weeks of it left but the weather has changed, the smoke’s gone, and there’s a cool thread running through the warm air. This coming weekend is the Pender Harbour Chamber Music Festival, something I’ve been involved with off and on for 13 seasons. It’s going to be a good one. We’re sold out and the excitement is high. Tonight is a dinner to welcome the musicians (who arrive early for rehearsals) and to thank their host families. I’ve made an apple galette and have picked a handful of nasturtiums to garnish it. The programme is spectacular this year, with many Canadian composers woven into each concert. The Harbour’s own mezzo-soprano, Rose-Ellen Nichols, is singing “Ships of the Night” from the Tobin Stokes opera Pauline; Rose-Ellen premiered the role with Vancouver City Opera and I’m looking forward to hearing her again. She’s part of our Rising Tide initiative where we invite young performers for an afternoon concert and it’s free (though with limited seating so only the first hundred people will be able to sit in the performance space, though others can sit on the grass outside).

 

High Ground Press

theresakishkan3 Comments

The other evening, John had the honour of speaking at the Alcuin Society’s Annual General Meeting in Vancouver. His topic: “The Printing of Poetry, the Poetry of Printing”. In 1980, he went with a friend to Prince George in a rented van and brought home an ancient Chandler and Price platen press which became the basis of our High Ground Press. John’s idea was to print poetry broadsheets in limited editions and for 30 years he’s done this in the belief that “poems warrant singular lives in the light, no less contemplative (and as compelling) as their lives in books, voice or imagination.”

It was interesting for me to watch as he showed images of our print-shop,

our presses (for the C&P was joined by a small Adana from England a few summers ago),

and a couple of the broadsheets he’s printed. This one was part of our second series of broadsheets and the image isn’t particularly crisp but the poem, by Jan Zwicky, is beautiful and I love the design:

And this broadsheet is from our Companions Series, for which we asked Canadian poets to respond to a poem in the canon. Sue Wheeler chose a poem by Don McKay (who had a poem in an earlier series so the sense of companionship extends into our printing history as well as in this series…):

In Mnemonic: A Book of Trees, I write about the history of printing and type in an chapter about my grandfather’s origins in Bukovina, and I say this about John: “My husband labours in our print-shop over type, chases, ornaments, and the unwieldy nature of ink. There are far more convenient ways to transfer texts to paper, this suits his meditative nature, and mine too, for I love to think of the slow work of poetry finding its way to a broadsheet. Paper impressed with ink, like a kiss, a tattoo.”