Youtube has proved an invaluable resource to show students how other people approach letterpress in this modern world. Here are two videos worth watching:

Black Swan features a Russian poem about Australia, written in 1912 by Konstantin Dmitrievich Bal’mont (1867-1942). The Russian text was translated into English by Sasha Grishin, and both versions were set in Times on a Mac computer, cast in photopolymer plate and printed using a letterpress process by Caren Florance.

With linocut illustrations cut and printed by Bot herself, there were 19 books produced, although it is not known at present how many will be in the final edition.

The paper used is a Magnani partially formed from wool fibres. The binding, by Caren Florance, is a traditional sewn hard case binding using Tapa cloth laminated onto black Chelsea bookcloth (there is a detail of the cover at the foreground of the image below).

The British Library and the National Library of Australia have both bought copies, and there is an article featuring Black Swan in the Winter 2007 edition (vol 42, no. 4, p. 18) of Imprint, the Quarterly Journal of the Print Council of Australia. The copy of Black Swan in this article is a hand-written version, sent to be part of Noreen Grahame’s group exhibition Lessons in History Vol. 1 (24/3/07–28/4/07, in Brisbane). The printed copy of the book was meant to be finished in time for the exhibition, but due to various setbacks, it could not be competed at that point.

For further details on the book, please contact the Book Studio. Any purchasing enquiries will be directed by the Studio to the artist.

They have just been profiled on triplej, and you may catch them talking on the radio over the next few days. If you are in Canberra it is worth a trip to the gallery to see the real thing and to see the video footage the Australian team shot whilst travelling through the region. The exhibition is on until 5 June 2007.

In the meantime, if you would like to see a small informal artist’s book that reflects the streets of Brisbane sticker culture, go to this post by Byrd, a Canberra graffiti artist who has documented 12 months up north in his own special way. He’ll be back by May, and Canberra will start to look colourful again…

By the way… this blog has been inundated with spam, and in an attempt to avoid it, comments have been turned off. If you would like to say something in relation to the site, please use the blog email address and contact the studio directly. All feedback is very welcome.

For an overview of some pretty amazing bookbinding work, check out this post at Bibliodyssey.

• Robert Sabuda’s pop-up cards with instructions and templates
• John Patience’s pop-up book resource page
• Peter Callesen’s paper engineering
• Paperform paper design & engineering
• Chinese paper folds & cuts
• Tarquin books on paper engineering and pop-ups
• A reference page on Chinese papercuts of all kinds

Ron McBurnie, Townsville printmaker and book artist, has an exhibition opening soon at the Impressions on Paper Gallery in Braddon. Ron is a regular Printmedia visiting artist. The exhibition, called Chasing Palmer: etchings influenced by Samual Palmer, runs from 28 Sept to 22 Oct 2006, with the opening at 5.30 on Friday 29 September.

If you’re interested in more of Ron’s work, he has a website and an infrequent but interesting blog.