A152. The Renaissance Pleasure Faire Broadsides
A152. Peter and Donna Thomas. The Renaissance Pleasure Faire Broadsides. Santa Cruz, California: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2014.
44.5 x 32 cm (17 ½” x 12 ½”), 12 folder pages, 25 copies.
Binding: “Folder Binding”; translucent pages with folder pockets stab sewn between handmade paper covers. Cover color varies by copy. Additional broadside inserted in slits on cover. Housed in a clamshell box covered in blue paper or cloth. Title on label inset on cover. Paper: Broadside paper handmade by Peter Thomas. Folder pages are Glama. Printing: Letterpress. Typography: Various hand set roman types. Illustration: Linocuts and watercolor rubrication by Donna Thomas. Notes: An introductory broadside and a photographic history of the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, The Faire (1988), are included, along with the following broadsides:
1. The Man Who Was Born in the Spring, 1980.
2. Rags Make Paper, 1980.
3. “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer Day,” Sonnet 18, 1980.
4. The Story of Word Pictures, 1981.
5. Prayer, 1981.
6. A Fairy Tale, 1982.
7. Ballad of the Bog, 1985.
8. It Shall Come to Pass, 1985.
9. The Good Book Press, 1985.
10. Desiderata, 1988.
“This is a collection of ten typographic broadsides that we made in the 1980s–‘90s when working at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire (RPF). We had previously made several attempts to configure the broadsides into a fine press or artist’s book presentation without success. After we came up with the transparent folder-like pocket binding concept for the Wandering Book Artists’ Collaborative Broadsides [A146], it was clear that we had also come up with a solution for presenting the Renaissance Faire Broadsides.
We made the additional offset printed book, The Faire, in 1988 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the RPF. Digital technology did not really exist for the layman at that time and so we produced it through a yearbook company using the systems they had for students to make yearbooks. We printed 2000 copies and saved 50 copies, imagining the time would come when we would make something that would need them as documentation.”