E15. Excerpts

E15. William Everson. Excerpts. San Francisco, California: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2011.

18 x 21.5 cm (7” x 8 ½”), 12 pages, 10 copies.

Binding: Full-bound in tan linen cloth over boards. Part of a linocut by Laura Lago inset on cover. End sheets marbled. Paper: White rag, handmade by Peter Thomas. Printing: Letterpress. Typography: Text is hand set Centaur. Titles are Weiss Titling II. Text in black, titles in red. Illustration: Three linocuts by Laura Lago. Printer’s ornaments in red.  Notes: Printed on a Vandercook Press using point registration with the second color hand-inked and dropped in. The illustrations on the title page were done in the style of Mary Fabilli, who illustrated many of Everson’s books of poetry.

“This book was printed at the San Francisco Center for the Book while Peter was teaching a class titled, ‘The Fine Press Aesthetic of William Everson.’ The text is excerpts from William Everson’s essay ‘The Poem as Icon – Reflections on Printing as a Fine Art.’ We carefully employed Everson’s rules for typesetting and mimicked his classic aesthetic decisions like spare typography and the limited but strong use of color and illustration.

We also used his printing techniques, but on a Vandercook rather than a hand press: the text was printed damp using point registration to achieve perfect back up of the type. The second color was hand-inked and dropped in the press. One of the students, Laura Lago, was a printmaker. Struck by the simplicity and power of Mary Fabilli’s cuts that Everson used in his early books, she went home after the first day of class and made a cut in the same style for us to use in the class project the next day.”