letterpress printing (and more)
for the jet age (and beyond)
Integrating graphic design, letterpress printing, and bookmaking under one roof.
We are proud to announce the completion of two fine press titles.
Birdhouses: Photographs by Rob McDonald
"Rob McDonald's photographs are an affectionate response to the variety and beauty of birdhouses. The honesty and purity of his eye are to be savored."
--William Christenberry
"These images remind us that no two spots on this earth are the same, that every house comes with its own set of spirits, and that everybody needs a shade tree."
--David Wharton, Center for the Study of Southern Culture, University of Mississippi.
"Meditations on home. How else to explain the accumulation of nearly fifty photographs of birdhouses in the catalogue of a 42 year old photographer who is the only member of his family to have moved outside a thirty-mile radius?"--excerpt from Rob's essay
Rob's 22 photographs made across the Southeast between 2002 and 2006 were taken with a plastic Holga camera (known for its soft focus) and hand-printed and hand-toned by Rob in his darkroom. These images are preceded by an illuminating essay Rob has written about the project's origins from a larger body of work entitled Southern Places.
Rob McDonald grew up in South Carolina and has lived in Lexington, Virginia since 1992. Self taught as a photographer, he is a professor of English and has published books on Southern literature and culture, most recently Reading Erskine Caldwell (2006), and essays on photographers Jack Spencer and William Christenberry.
All text throughout the 60 page book is letterpress printed by hand on heavyweight, eggshell finish paper and the images were lovingly and faithfully reproduced on an Indigo press. This signed and numbered limited edition (135 copies) features a gelatin silver darkroom print enclosed in a translucent envelope adhered inside the book. A range of handmade paper covers and different colored endhseets were used throughout the edition to further the uniqueness of each book throughout the edition.
The first 25 copies are presented in a letterpress labeled clamshell box. This deluxe editions also feature a second, larger darkroom print unique to this publication.
Please click here for an order form (pdf).
All orders come with a one week guarantee. If you don't believe the book is a keeper for your library, you may return it for a full refund.
Song of the Line: Poems by Jack G. Gilbert, Engravings by Henryk Fantazos
"If art proves anything, one might say that this collection proves that art is fun, eccentricity abounds, love is complicated, good things exist. Henryk and Jack are artists in the school of Duerer and Horace."
--Annie Dillard, from her introduction
What is it all about?
In each engraving, in each poem, to capture in lines that sing the realities of the inner and outer eye....the ones found everywhere: love, beauty, hope, folly, the tears of things, the eccentric and surprising appearances of kindness and wisdom.
This 112 page collaborative book features over eighty of Jack's poems--written over the last twenty years--as well as engravings Henryk completed this past winter in response to his readings of Jack's work.
To see a small sampling of poems and engravings from the book, please click here: (Song of Line spreads pdf)
Jack G. Gilbert lives with his wife on a self-built flower farm in Orange County, North Carolina. In another life, he taught English literature at LSU (and assisted his wife in her rare book business) before retiring at age 46 to lead a simpler life--building, gardening, baking bread, writing poetry.
Henryk Fantazos was born in Poland and came to America in 1975. In spite of his Master's Degree in fine arts from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, he is essentially a self-taught painter and engraver. Central to his quest is the conviction that a loving observation of reality animated by poetical inspiration should bring relevant, enduring art.
The Best of the South issue of the Oxford American features a multi-spread collaboration between Jack and Henryk. The Fresh Eye of Henryk Fantazos details Henryk's current project of painting the Face of the South before it "is removed, rolled away, and rubbed out with an eraser as big as Sherman's army of bulldozers . . . replaced with generic anonymity. . . and the nightmarish happiness of Global Nowhere." The issue should still be on the stands; as well there is a three minute audio/visual piece on the OA website which can be viewed here...
Song of the Line was offset printed on eggshell finish, 80lb Mohawk Superfine text paper using Charles Ellerton's beautifully optimized version of the Bembo typeface. All copies are smythe-sewn and case bound with foil stamped linen cloth, and presented in a full color dustjacket featuring a reproduction of one of Henryk's paintings.
Two deluxe editions are available.
Copies 1-10 are signed by both artists and accompanied by the entire suite of ten signed and numbered copper engravings printed on 300g mouldmade paper.
Copies 11-100 are signed by both artists and accompanied by a single engraving (your choice).
Please click here for an order form (pdf).
All orders come with a one week guarantee. If you don't believe the book is a keeper for your library, you may return it for a full refund.
On the shelf
The Regulator, Durham's independent bookstore located on Ninth Street, has just created a special display area to house H&B goods. Expect to find letterpress cards and books here year round.
Bull City Arts Collaborative
Horse & Buggy Press is one of five members of the BCAC in the Central Park district of Durham, North Carolina.
Besides sharing studio space, the BCAC features two member curated exhibiton venues.
The foyer gallery is open every Friday from noon to 2pm, all of the BCAC is open to the public from 6-9pm on the Third Friday of every month as part of a neighborhood culture crawl.
Complete details here: www.bullcityarts.org
Upcoming Book Fairs
I will be hawking books and other letterpress wares...
Oak Knoll Fest New Castle, Delaware Oct 6 & 7
Small Press Center Book Fair NYC (44th St between 5th and Madison) Dec 1 & 2
South Carolina Literary Festival Columbia, South Carolina Feb 22-24
Maybe some day the great state of North Carolina will have a decent literary festival. We can dream right?
Remember, if you are in the area the best way to see recent work is to come to a Culture Crawl open studio (the third Friday of every month from 6-9),
We are also open every Friday from noon to 2.
You can check out the goings on here, including some pictures of the recent five person letterpress exhibition that just came down.
http://www.bullcityarts.org/
Our 16 page brochure (letterpress printing combined with four color offset), published in 2004, is still available. And still free.
Mailing address: 401-B1 Foster Street, Durham NC 27701
Phone 919 949 4847
a little ranting and raving
Horse & Buggy Press is an active service branch of
The Aesthetic Police, an emergency relief agency designed to prevent the ongoing destruction of worldwide aesthetic standards by reminding citizens across the globe of the tactile pleasures of handmade artifacts and the importance of beauty in our lives. Heading up the literary and printed matter sector, the press does its best to counteract the staid mediocrity we are forced to put up with in so much of our lives.
Commissioned work
Striving to create work that shows attention to detail and creativity within all phases from design to production, the press continues the time-honored tradition of the artisan-specifically the designer/printer-by utilizing methods of hand production, resulting in an intimate, tactile artifact that rewards users with a true aesthetic experience. This is in direct contrast to so much of what goes on in today's world, the settling for the lowest common denominator so prevalent in our increasingly prefabricated society. Unlike most work today, design and production are brought together in a holistic process by one person, instead of being divided into separate activities performed by persons who may not understand the whole scope of the project.
Over the past six years, the press has worked on posters, literary broadsides, books, catalogs, newsletters, music packaging, letterheads, store signage, business cards, custom photoalbums, journals, genealogy books and much more for a wide variety of clients including:
Carolina Wren Press
Center for Documentary Studies
Doubletake Books
Duke University Press
Duke University Medical Center
E-Squared (record label)
Holocene Publishing
Hudson Valley Writers' Center
The Independent Newsweekly
MAJIC (Mothers Against Jesse in Congress)
Mobile City Magazine
North Carolina Arts Council
North Carolina Literary Consortium
The Rockford Restaurant
6 String Drag
Son Volt
Special Collections Library of UNC-Chapel Hill
Special Collections Library at N.C. State
Special Collections Library at Duke University
WSHA 88.9 FM
Horse & Buggy Press Books
Good writing deserves good design,
which in turn deserves good bookmaking.
"At a time when many New York publishers are showing a stunning disregard for the book as an aesthetic object, Horse & Buggy Press reminds us that bookmaking is an art."
-Robert West, from a review of An Elizabethan Bestiary: Retold, 1999
The press publishes the work of important contemporary poets and authors using hand-fed letterpress equipment discarded by the printing industry. Handmade books are but one small way to reawaken our senses and this becomes more important each and every day, enriching our lives and reminding us what we are capable of when we do things the slow way-from the heart and with our own hands.
We (all two of us) here at Horse & Buggy Press are extremely grateful to the wonderful writers who continue to create narratives and share words that ring true, reminding us of the beautiful spirit inherent within us and the wonders that still exist in our world when we can make space for them. The publishing purpose of Horse & Buggy Press is to show that books designed creatively with an attention to detail and made by hand with a high level of craftsmanship become intimate artifacts to be treasured, helping the author's words sing off the page, and creating books with a strong presence to them and a visual form that reflects the content. Thankful to all who participate in this process by becoming readers of these books, all books are accompanied by a sheet of handmade paper.
City of Midnight Skies
Poems & Drawings by Stephen Gibson, 2001
City of Midnight Skies by Stephen Gibson is the ninth Horse & Buggy Press title and represents the evolution of the press in that a trade edition (machine printed and perfect bound) accompanies the hand-printed, hand-bound letterpress edition.
Our modern republic in its fading light. Tall buildings emptying out as the clouds glide by, the sun drops down, and the stars turn on. Cycles of movement among rhythms of earth. Goods transported, duties performed, transactions completed and the sights and journeys along the way. The workings of our urban machinery and the individual's dreams and desires, the search for a life understood, a life imbued with meaning. What's left behind, what's left within, and what is remembered. Questions, Poems, Drawings.
words of praise from tony hoagland:
"There is a lyrical, hypnotic purity in the poems of Stephen Gibson.
Where other young poets place on display their earnestness or their hyper-literary savvy, Gibson has been a longtime student of dream: of the dilated moment between day and night, dream and wakefulness, fact and imagination.
Very true to his surrealist lineage, Gibson's specialty is the city noir. In the haunted plaza of a Gibson poem, a giant rose blooms in the steam from a manhole cover, and an ordinary guy sees his face reflected in the fender of a passing limousine. There, in that most foreign place, we glimpse the human heart, still alive and wonderfully strange. I go back to these poems for their haunting physical clarity, for the way they withhold answers in honor of mystery; for how they are both intimate and impersonal -noir, original, mysterious and lovely."
Stephen is the co-founder and editor of
Mobile City, the literary magazine recently featured on NPR's Morning Edition. His poems have appeared in publications like
Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, the
Boston Review, and
Gargoyle. Born in Washington DC, where he currently resides, Stephen has also lived in Boston, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco working in a bookstore, at a winery, at a council for higher education, and as a bicycle messenger.
64 pages, large format 8" x 11"
31 poems
10 drawings and comics by the author
2 photographs
Trade edition, $13
Letterpress edition, signed and numbered in an edition of 200, $50
(comes with a free copy of the trade edition to give to a friend)
Read Stephen's poems "
Second Letter to M." (pdf,16KB) and "
Late City" (pdf,12KB)
In the Light from Stained Glass
Poems on Growing Up Catholic by Frank Ryan, Illustrated by Dave Wofford, 1998
48 pages, 31 poems, 5 biographical excerpts, 4 illustrations.
Five color title page, titling printed in metallic copper, poem bodies printed in dark violet, biographical excerpts printed in soft grey.
Read Frank's poem "
Autumn Vespers" (pdf,11KB)
Edition of 118, entirely hand-printed and hand-bound. $80
Complete listing of titles
(for a complete catalog or to be placed on the mailing list in order to receive future announcements please contact Dave at
horseandbuggypress@yahoo.com)
Eat Your Vegetables: The Noah's Co-op Grocery Cookbook, 1996, out of print
The Waiting, chapbook by Stephen Gibson, 32 pages, 1997, out of print
It Had Wings, illustrated short story by Allan Gurganus, 32 pages, 1998, out of print
Fine Lines: The Independent Poetry Chapbook Contest, 32 pages, 1999, $14
An Elizabethan Bestiary: Retold, by Jeffery Beam, illustrated by Ippy Patterson, 1999, $35
Oscar Comes to North Carolina, essay by Charles Millard, 2000
The Dead Father Poems, collaboration between poet John Lane and printmaker Douglas Whittle, 2000, $30, handmade paper covers, hand-bound
Journals, Photoalbums, Stationery, Address books
Journals and photoalbums are hand-bound in a coptic stitch binding, which is an exposed sewing in which no glue is used. The book is sewn into and through the cover with linen thread, so that the book lies open perfectly flat, making it easy to use the whole page, or to view the photoalbum without holding it open. Additionally, the photoalbums are created with a special tab along the spine to compensate for the thickness of the photos so the book will not warp or become wonky. The photoalbum paper is a black acid-free paper which is also buffered so it will not fade to grey over the years. The inside paper for the journals is a heavyweight recycled text sheet. Pages are torn down by hand from big sheets to have a soft, torn edge to top, bottom, and foredge of book. Covers are generally a collage of handmade, hand-painted papers wrapped around acid-free bookboard.
Journals: 128 pages, 7" x 10.5", hardcover, $65
Photoalbums: 42 pages, 11" x 14", horizontal or vertical, $120
Handmade Stationery: 5 sheets, 7.5" x 11", 4 envelopes, $10
Phone & Address Book: handmade paper covers, hand-printed, hand-sewn long-stitch binding, $32
If you have a project in mind or would like to receive work samples in the mail please contact us at
horseandbuggypress@yahoo.com. Many of the projects produced are a combination of letterpress printing by hand and offset printing in order to take advantage of the best qualities of each medium. We take pride in addressing the individuality of each project and work to come up with a unique solution which addresses everything from aesthetic issues to budgetary concerns.
