I met Gaylord Schanilec at CODEX, an annual conference for the book arts in the Bay Area. CODEX gathers together an international community of exceptional craftspeople working in print, letterpress, papermaking, binding, and other book-adjacent media. As Midnight Paper Sales, Gaylord publishes richly illustrated fine press editions of his own and others' work. I was interested in his color woodblock engravings.
In thinking about my own work, I tend to toggle between the dual impulses to loosen up or double down on the detail. This apprenticeship with Gaylord at his home studio outside of Stockholm, Wisconsin was an exploration of the latter; same press, smaller tools, harder endgrain wood, magnifying goggles, absolutely exacting registration between multiple blocks and reductions. Needless to say I loved this process, though the tools initially felt profoundly unfamiliar in my hands.
In exchange for engraving lessons, I set type, justified lines, reset ellipses, and made innumerable other stylistic alterations for a fine press edition of Patrica Hampls “It’s Come to This”, a manuscript developed by the Minneapolis based author during Covid isolation and the Black Lives Matter protests which erupted in the Twin Cities following the murder of George Floyd by police. These were long satisfying days of preparation and printing. Being self-taught, it was gratifying to feel the breadth of my ability to assist in a professional job shop. I returned to my Santa Cruz studio with a far greater appreciation for the possibilities of the tools at my disposal. I found being involved in the daily operation of the shop gave me access to idiosyncratic tricks and problem solving strategies I can't imagine coming by in other educational contexts.
The hours I spent typesetting have also fueled new approaches to composition and variable formatting that I am eager to apply, especially in conjunction with handmade paper.
Gaylord maintains a home studio in Wisconsin and a cooperative studio in Saint Paul. I was able to move between the two during my month's stay, giving me access to various opportunities in the Twin Cities. I took a two day papermaking and natural dye class at the Minnesota Center for the Book Arts with Hanna O’Hare Bennett and made visits to several museums and galleries. I closed out my time in Minnesota with an artist talk at Saint Benedict's University in Saint Cloud.
The mussel engraving I made at Midnight Paper Sales was shown in the 2024 “Art of Nature” exhibition of scientific illustration at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.
