I’m procrastinating on two (already overdue—why rush?) freelance projects by catching up on reading teh entire intarweb. It was thus that I saw Ampersand Duck’s two fascinating, awesome, very thoroughly illustrated posts about rebinding a beat-up Georgette Heyer novel: part 1, part 2. So. Very. Cool.
Mistress Duck lives in Canberra, Australia, so if my visitor logs are correct, most of us can’t go take a class with her teacher, who sounds like a treasure. But if you’re in New York, the Center for Book Arts offers tons of delicious-sounding classes. Those near Boston can go to the Massachusetts College of Art , and you Bay Areans can go to the San Francisco Center for the Book. I’m planning to take French at FIAF this fall, but maybe in the spring I’ll try to get into Bookbinding I.
Mmm. Have you ever taken one of CBA’s classes on type or typesetting? They sound fabu. Best class name ever goes to “Spinal Bling: The Transformative Magic of Link Stitch” though. Who’s chubby? Me too. So many dreamy places (and things) to learn. One of Penland’s instructor’s website http://www.geocities.com/oldways_id/ reminded me of Ampersand Duck’s experience. More classes and book news here as well: http://www.futureofthebook.com/workshops/
And then there’s Linotype University http://www.linotypeuniversity.com/ Wow. Pig pouring. “A model 5 Linotype will be dismantled as far as the students want to go with it, moved, re-assembled and make to cast again.” Yes.
Linotype University! Oh, my!
I have not ever taken a class anywhere on type or typesetting, and I’m sure it shows. I’ve been eyeing your friend T. Samara’s class at NYU, though. Anybody got any classes to recommend? Comments re SVA vs. CBA vs. Cooper Union vs. Parsons vs. NYU?
Oh, lord. I have been whining that I need a sabbatical but Now I Have a Place to Go! Linotype University will do very nicely. Then a week with the fine folks at Saturn Press in Maine. Do you think my boss will notice? I look flushed, right? A fever is definitely coming on…due September 24.
But Bridget, “prospective students . . . must desire to own a line casting machine, or else they must work for a company where they will be able to operate a caster.” Can you get the library to buy one, maybe?
Oh, you with the details! The library had a print shop for many years and some of the equipment is still there…I’ll just need to poke around a bit. If not, I can always try to submit a vaguely worded PO. (But, unfortunately for me, the person who’d need to approve the PO happens to be married to the old print shop manager. She might very well figure it out.)
I do think Vertigo has always needed a publishing arm…we are full of ideas. This might be a business expense!
Did you notice that Larry Raid of Linotype U. teaches a class at U. of Iowa (listed on futureofthebook.com)-also home to the cARTalog project? I never realized Iowa was home to so many book geeks.
Keep in mind that the University of Iowa Center for the Book has two line casting studios for those interested. Our Historical Printing Studio is a joint project with the Printing department and the Amana Print Shop & Bindery is a joint project with the Amana Heritage Society. Both have working model 31 Linotypes as well as other interesting presses. We are located in east central Iowa in the same region as the Linotype University and the Printers Hall in Mt. Pleasant. The big Babcock newspaper press in working at Printers Hall.
Thanks, Gary. Iowa is, clearly, the place to be. And thanks for drawing my attention back to the Future of the Book site. Love the Book Drop vending machine! Someone who has real whuffie should get that BoingBoinged. And this:
And the glossary would be quite at home in a certain poetry magazine I have something to do with.