Every other year in January Norddeutsche Handpressenmesse, a well established book arts fair, is held over one weekend. It is organized by Heinz-Stefan and Wiebke Bartkowiak, who also publish Bartkowiaks ForumBookArt, a review and yearbook of contemporary book arts. This is my first year as an exhibitor at the fair which is held at the Museum der Arbeit with its …
The ice age cave paintings give evidence that for thousands of years man has known that one can paint with earth. At university I was studying soil science. When we had field courses we would paint the colours of the horizons in the soils with a sample of that exact soil itself and writing explanatory notes beside them. The shades …
This year burnishing is again on the menu, so to speak. An elderly lady, a former art and biology teacher gets in touch. While studying in the early post-war years, she made a number of wood etchings, and, due to the lack of paper, she could only print the copies for handing in to her supervisor, never having printed any …
It is the year of the Second International Biennale for the Artist‘s Book at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt. My work „MenschenWürdeRechte“ is being accepted and will become part of the famous library. On a wonderful trip to the iconic North of Scotland in summer we visit the famous old bridge in Carrbridge, which will be one of the images …
A publishing house/printing office is giving up some of their type cabinets and metal type, in order to make space for a hightech printing machine. Gradually the new place is filling up. I go round measuring, and, yes, with a little reshuffling it can be done. Two members of staff transport the eight type cabinets to my place in a …
Paper is an ever so versatile material. Basically it is made from plant fibre. In Europe we can use linen, hemp, stinging nettles and cellulose from wood chips. Even asparagus peel and straw can be made into paper. Elsewhere on this planet other plants will be chosen. The underlying principle is the same: while taken from the mould the fibres …
In February the studio starts moving. At the time we thought it to be the Big Move, obviously not knowing that in 2016 moving would be on a much bigger scale. We consider ourselves lucky in that the company that had produced the KORREX printing press, Simmel in Pforzheim, got us in touch with a former member of staff. He …
In my childhood every now and then little boxes would surface from somewhere, which were in a special way fascinating for me. Inside the boxes there would be delicate fans artistically painted in Chinese style, wooden chopsticks beautifully decorated with mother-of-pearl, or tiny animals carved from jade. The boxes came from the Far East, most likely from China or Japan, …
Over the summer I meet Karl Kretschmer in Mosbach. He is moving his printing office and sells off leftover paper stock. I choose a few very nice qualities that will come in handy for a number of print projects in the course of the coming years. After all is loaded Karl states there is still space in the car boot …