East London Line & The Whitechapel

Here is a limited edition typographical print which I've been producing to launch my new poetic photobook The East London Line at the Whitechapel Art Book Fair at the end of September (last weekend: Thursday 23rd to Sunday 26th). The large-format softback book, under my imprint Altazimuth Press, will be in a limited edition of 100.

I've been producing the print on my wooden 'common press', a replica of an 18th century press (see my Tom Paine Printing Press blog and website), and as the press is a two-pull press and therefore has a small platen I have to pull and wind on two or three times to obtain one print.

The print is composed in metal type and wood letter on the stone bed of the press. I will have some for sale at the Whitechapel, along with the book, and also a few copies of my limited edition typographical map, printed in black, red and blue, also entitled the East London Line. An image of this map is on my Tom Paine Printing Press blog.

East London Line - Shoreditch

From my East London Line poetic photobook: Spitalfields Goods Depot, Shoreditch, 10 December 2008.

New letterpress and artist's book work

I've been working hard at the Tom Paine Printing Press with some new wood and metal type which I've recently acquired, and I'll be posting images here within the next few days. Just sorting and cleaning the type takes ages, and of course the typeseeting, locking up the forme, and printing on the hand press is a slow business.

New images of Lewes Railway Land, and a painting

A new version of an oil painting I did in 1986. It's interesting that many of the preoccupations of my recent poetic photobooks (Kings Cross, The Euston Arch, Thames - The London River, The East London Line, etc.) are demonstrated here - the landscape and skyscape, the mixture os urban and rural, the impact of the railway, the steam locomotive as image, my own memories, etc. This scene has long been submerged under new housing developments. I actually travelled on a steam train from Uckfield to Lewes (they used to run from London Victoria to Brighton using this route - a great alternative to the Brighton main line), through this landscape, in 1962.

The photo at the top is one I took leaning out of the train window as it approaches Lewes Station, in 1962, having just crossed the River Ouse (by the Phoenix Iron Works, or East Sussex Engineering as I think it was known by then) and the western end of Cliffe High Street, and run down from the viaduct over the railway land.

The middle image is one of a series of photos I took in the winter of 1985-6 to form a 90-degree panorama of the Railway Land.

The East London Line: Artist's Book 2010

Above: Shoreditch Station and Brick Lane, October 2008.



Watch this space for the developing story of my new East London Line artist's book. This has been in gestation for a year or two, but it's getting there!

Isaac Rosenberg & More Creative Typography

Here are more images of recent work I've been doing on my wooden hand press (Common Press). The second is Variations on a Capital 'E' (including one lower case 'e'), using my own hand-cut 17th Century character (4.5 inches high) taken from Moxon. Red was frequently used for titling in early printed books.

The first and third are the wood block and first progress proof respectively of a woodcut I'm doing for my Rosenberg book (Isaac Rosenberg, the artist and poet). This block, which I cut and proofed today, is about 12 x 18 inches and is thin plywood so I will have to build it up to type-height if I print it with a page of text.

New & Other; Creative Typography

Two photos of type-cutting, typesetting and printing work I've just done at my Tom Paine Printing Press in Lewes High Street. Printing was done on the wooden 'common press' which I use all the time. The Valentine is printed using wood type on Khadi hand-made paper from India, and is about a foot (i.e. 30cm) square. The large capital 'E' print is from a woodcut which I'm in process of working on. I traced a large 17th Century capital 'E' (mine is about 4.5 inches high; or approx. 324 point, or 27-line pica) from Moxon's book, transferred this tracing to the wooden block, and cut out the character using a Stanley knife and wood-carving tools (gouges and chisels). It's very soft and grainy plywood, and clearly I'd get a much better result from a typographic point of view by using fruit wood. The three smaller 'E's (two caps and one l/c) above it are from different founts; the caps show very distinct differences from Moxon's, particularly in the serifs.