Early Proofing

Ordering my first proof of Entwined. Something I’ve learned is that you don’t need a completed manuscript to get important information from the proofing process.

This proof will test black and white illustrated elements and be a preliminary test of the cover art before diving into cover design and book formatting.

Typographic Ornaments

I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of typographic ornaments today.

Here are a few from the public domain I found through Wiki Commons.

Ornament from The History of Addison's Flat Gold Fields (1923) by Dan Moloney, a pamphlet on the gold-rush settlement on the West Coast of New Zealand, printed by the Westport News.

Rebière - Mathématiques et Mathématiciens (1898)

Ornament tipogràfic de Batiste Moscatell, ó, La mona de Pascua (1862)

Grossherzog Ernst Ludwig und die Ausstellung der Künstler-Kolonie in Darmstadt von Mai bis Oktober 1901

Ornament from the magazine Serões (1901)

Ornament from ''Le Masque,'' a Belgian magazine of art and literature (1910)

Ornament from the magazine Serões (1901)

Specimen of Printing-Types, and Ornaments, from the Letter Foundry of J. Howe & Co. (1830)

Weird Tales Volume 10 (1927)

L’Amour paillard, Bandeau Ch 5 (1923)

Leone Duodecimo e Pio Ottavo, (1829)

Stilfrid and Brunswik Stilfrid and Brunswik (1879)

Horto (1910)

Through a Glass Lightly (1897)

Bookmarking Compositor via University of Birmingham to browse through another day.

Learning by Doing

And then I found this video which linked Dewey and Freire in the progressive education movement.

Which ties nicely to this short video about handwork vs brain work.

And another Black Mountain College documentary. This one is dated, but has an interview from an actual student (Jonathan Williams), “What appealed to me immediately was that everyone was available to each other and time seemed to be no problem. I had left Princeton because time was very much a problem. It seemed almost impossible to reach the faculty who were set up to do their one lecture or two lectures a week. And then suddenly they disappeared.”

Johnathan Williams founded Jargon Press which is “predicated on this idea that there are voices and poetry being ignored which deserve to be heard.”

On his process editing / curating, “You have to do the doing.” “Being self initiating. I don’t sit around waiting for these people to materialize. I mean I go out and find them.” He ties this to walking and hiking and Black Mountain College.

Book Release

I’ve accepted that pivoting our school / childcare plans means my book release may shift, and that’s okay. It may take some time to find the right person to help out at home and we don’t want to rush it.

Rather than pushing myself into burn out I am taking things slowly.

I’ve been mindful of tending my own creative ecosystem through this process and observing what it needs.

Last weekend Nathan watched Davy while I fixed all of the images for my book. I tweaked saturation and brightness in photos that were printing too dull and standardized all of the crop ratios.

Slow progress is progress.

I’m going to continue making the final edits piece by piece and hope to order the next proof later this month.