the paper trail

Decorative Traces Launch

2012-01-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

Friends and former domino-ettes, Jessica Stambaugh and Danielle Mastrangelo, launched Decorative Traces this past week. The site will fill an academic and practical void in the densely populated and often superficial cosmos of design sites and blogs. Decorative Traces will be, according to Mastrangelo and Stambaugh, "an evolving online manifesto and formal design practice, uniting historical precedence with contemporary style. Featuring alluring spaces, creative impresarios, notable exhibitions, and an ever-expanding glossary of design history, DT is both muse and guide to the world of decoration."

I was honored to have my former apartment featured for the launch of their site. I look forward to seeing where the women, below, take DT. It is so refreshing to talk about design in the context of the larger spectrum of history and culture, abandoning the too often superficial appreciation of style for something a bit more eternal and relevant. Hats off to Danielle and Jessica for recognizing just that.

Bernard Maisner Designs E-Card for ELLE DECOR

2012-01-02T13:06:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite stationers and calligraphers, Bernard Maisner, designed our ELLE DECOR holiday card for us. Bernard told me he was "delighted to have been given free reign to design an email greeting" for the magazine. I asked him about the process behind designing an e-card as opposed to his eponymous paper art, and he enlightened me on the just as laborious steps:

"The text had been supplied by ELLE DECOR, and the words I picked up on to become the theme of the graphic was “...for a flourishing new year,” particularly the word "flourishing", which I am sure was no coincidence when selected by the writers of the text. They had also requested that some type of pictorial graphic go along with the calligraphy created for the card, so I decided to use my calligraphic drawing of a holiday stocking and throw it into the mix. The original calligraphy created for the card was scanned into my computer, and the design and layout was then done in Photoshop (which goes on for endless hours of positioning and tweeking). I had also created additional flourished calligraphic designs, and blended them into the layout, along with the stocking drawing. The ELLE DECOR logo had been e-mailed to me, and I took that graphic and added it to the top of the design."

Thanks to Bernard for designing such a chic greeting, albeit of the online variety, and a happy, healthy 2012 to all!

The Portable Writing Desk and Winslow Homer's Maine Coast

2011-12-04T11:00:00.001-08:00

Winslow Homer's "Artists Sketching in the White Mountains", 1868

Last summer, on one of my beloved Maine antique store scavenger hunts, I spotted a handsome mahogany box with brass detailing amidst the stockpiles of typical New England bric-a-brac objets. On closer inspection I realized it hinged open into a portable writing desk, replete with a green felt lined interior and delicately carved ivory knobs gracing the lids of each compartment inside.

"That writing desk belonged to Winslow Homer," the owner knowingly confided. Well, i was enraptured. I had just finished reading Catherine J. Golden's book on the advent of the penny post, detailing the ways in which the democratization of communication had shaped 19th century British culture. Aside from the implicit social changes that an inexpensive mailing system prompted, a proliferation of new decorative accessories quickly followed suit-- and moreover, were not only accessible but requisite for a growing middle class. The American desire to emulate the styles of English society meant that the taste for personal desks made its way across the pond.The portable writing desk became a significant accoutrement in an age of burgeoning correspondence, travel, and industrial growth; I am loathe to draw the obvious parallel-- but the writing desk served a function (albeit much more elegantly) somewhat like our laptops do. They offered a personalized space to write, a means to communicate, and a safeguard for private letters, thoughts, and business affairs.

Smythson's secrétaire recalls the conducting of business and personal affairs from another era

I contemplated investing in this important paper relic, but by the time I called the antique store to inquire about purchasing it, the box had been sold. I vacillated from frustration to glee when I found out that the buyer was none other than my boyfriend, Tyler. Needless to say, it made the best birthday gift. Now the desk sits on my great grandmother's monogrammed Louis Vuitton trunk in our living room, as though it had always been there. It hasn't, however, and I revel in imagining its previous life as the intimate confidante in an esteemed artist's life. In fact, it's that often invisible patina of a former existence, spanning owners and ages that perpetually has me enraptured with old furniture and relics of another era.

Photographs of Winslow Homer from Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine

I grew up in a family where Homer's work was considered canonical. My grandmother, a Bostonian, painted and collected in a manner that reflected the landscape that her ancestors lived in for centuries. She periodically spent time on Monhegan Island, painting and honing her ability in the studios of artists like Don Stone.

Don Stone's Heavy Seas

The sauvage, unpredictable, and ethereally beautiful Maine coast has been a source of endless inspiration for some of America's most prolific artists, from the Wyeths to George Bellows and Childe Hassam. Due to the ever changing and brooding nature of the rocky coast, thousands of iterations of the same scenes are never redundant, and rather elucidate what makes that particular segment of the American landscape so evocative and powerful. Arguably the most prolific of these artists, Winslow Homer's studio was (and still is) but a twenty minute drive from where I spent all my childhood summers.

Homer's Prouts Neck studio; image credit: Chris Ramirez for the NY Times

I visited his studio as a child, a pilgrimage-like trip that my mother and grandmother towed me begrudgingly along; in typical ten year old fashion, I remember being bored. I didn't realize at the time that Homer's life and works reflected what my family saw as a shared cultural history. The studio is now owned by the Portland Museum of Art, one of my favorite small, jewel-like museums in the world. Their collection boasts one of the best ranges of Maine landscape painting through the eras, enriched by collectors like Elizabeth B. Noyce who bequeathed coastal tableaux from the likes of Fitz Hugh Lane to Robert Henri.

Contemporary yet unchanged view from Homer's studio

Winslow Homer spent the last 25 years of his life living and working from his shingled studio, where he translated literal vistas into brooding oils; walking through the paths he painted on, the lover of Homer will find his best works live in reality, too.

"Weatherbeaten", 1894

I am fascinated thinking about the historical trail this writing desk took: social reforms in Victorian England conferred open communication amongst its citizens, resulting in the development of new a culture bolstering correspondence, commerce, and design. It is an example of style being pushed forward as a result of an evolving social and political landscape. This 19th Century "revolution in letter writing", as Golden puts it, was a paper revolution on a superficial level-- but really was a revolution of the human condition. It articulated our profound need to connect and communicate with others on a written level. While our beloved contemporary laptops will most likely end up in a landfill, I marvel at the life of my portable writing desk.

Discovering Dufour's grisaille Psyche

2011-05-31T13:27:00.000-07:00

Friend and colleague Quy Nguyen hit the flea market paper jackpot. Serendipitous it was not, since he scours the New York City markets religiously every Saturday and Sunday mornings. Last weekend, he dropped by an estate dealer on 25th Street and spied a Dufour grisaille panel framed and stretched across canvas, leaning inauspiciously against the garage's whitewashed brick walls. Surrounded by brightly colored glass and ceramic ware, it would have been more easily obscured to a set of lesser attentive eyes.

Dufour et Cie is no longer in existence. I wrote about arguably their most well known set of wallpaper panels in my article on panoramic wallpaper for Felt & Wire, Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique. Sauvages was a colorfully ethnocentric interpretation of the exotic new worlds being explored and exploited by western Europeans vis a vis the "interpreted" adventures of Captain Cook. The subject matter is evocative of the Rousseauian ideals that were infiltrating the European psyche, just as the desire for simplicity and reaction to the decadence of the Baroque in design and the arts fueled Neoclassicism and Biedermeier.

The idealization of Greco-Roman ideals reflected the political upheaval of post revolutionary France. This particular panel of Psyche was created after a 1785 design by Lafitte and Blondl. Though it is partially damaged, it is in quite good shape. The dealer discovered it in an old Queens estate (which also contained a good deal of Wedgwood Jasperware, not surprisingly, in obvious keeping with the estate owner's tastes in Neoclassicism).

The dealer divulged little else, though the same panel has been auctioned with the rest of its sequence in recent years by both Sotheby's and Christie's for handsome sums.

One thing is for sure: I need to start hitting les puces with more regularity.

Delinquent Blogger

2011-03-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

Hello, paper trailers. I am ashamed at the recent and severe lack of attention I have paid to my little beloved paper blog. Life's momentum has swept me up, but no excuse! Paper, as ever, has been on my mind. I was honored to write a post for brilliant British design site, Atelier Tally, on the Morgan Library's The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives, which you can peruse here.

I also curated a little spring time paper collection for my favorite paper site, Felt & Wire Shop. If you're in the mood for some floral levity in the midst of a winter that seems to be overstaying its welcome, take a tour of my paper garden.

More to come soon, I promise.

xx,
M

Calling Cards, Past & Present

2011-01-05T15:02:00.000-08:00

Consider me old fashioned, but I find the thought of being called upon just delicious. I'd love to receive a calling card in the wake of someone's departure and certainly in lieu of a text message.

I just meditated on designing my own blog calling cards in my third article for Felt & Wire. They couldn't possibly be as chic as their inspiration, above, which belonged to my great grandparents, but I'm still very happy with the way they came out! Peruse my article here.

Pratt, Paper, & Ralph Pucci

2010-12-14T16:01:00.000-08:00

Last week I went to the famed Ralph Pucci Gallery Nine to see their latest exhibit-- one which I knew would surely resonate with me-- titled Pratt + Paper & Ralph Pucci. Pratt students were invited to design clothing for Pucci's Girl 2 mannequins-- entirely out of paper.

Mohawk donated white stock for the design students to fashion into sublimely frivolous garments; the monochromatic theme lent the sculptures an unexpected amount of gravitas. Strangely, many of the people at the opening were dressed in black, so the overall effect was quite striking.

I think what made the collection so fantastic was the way in which the rigidity of the paper paralleled the structure of the mannequins. Both materials lack the softness of fabric and flesh; they made appropriate, if unexpected bedfellows.

Furthermore, my penchant for outlandish mini dresses made many of these elaborate paper fashions enviable. I would be happy sporting the floral one-strap below, and could easily see myself in the cubist, armor-like shift above! Paper and fashion, could it be the next frontier? Perhaps not, but in that white-washed gallery, nothing could have seemed more fitting.

If you find yourself in Chelsea, Gallery Nine is located at 44 West 18th St.

Paper Profile: Connor Fine Engraver & Stationer

2010-11-26T11:10:00.000-08:00

Image credit: Connor Fine Engraver & Stationer

I've celebrated exceptional individual stationers before-- Nancy Sharon Collins and Bernard Maisner specifically-- but I've never profiled a larger company. I've finally discovered one, though, incomparable enough to merit a gushing feature on the Paper Trail. Tori Mellott, a friend keenly aware of my passion for fine paper, passed along a press release from Connor Fine Engraver & Stationer. This release caught my attention as the gentleman behind the operations came from the late lamented Mrs. John L. Strong; I had to see what these men were up to, so I paid them a visit at their boutique in the Plaza.

Image credit: the paper trail

Henri Richter-Werner and Justin Felber, the creative and business forces behind Connor, welcomed me with binder upon binder of vintage monograms and crests, some of which date to the 1800s. Old plates are extremely rare and difficult to come by-- entire sets are even harder to find, for replacements simply do not exist. Essentially, they have catalogued a museum-worthy collection of vintage monograms that represent several hundred years of the finest typography and graphic design.

Image credit: Connor Fine Engraver & Stationer

Connor (name hails from John Connors, the famed engraver who designed stationery wardrobes for some of the most influential people of 19th century New York City) appropriated their extensive collection of vintage dies from a descendant of another prominent 19th century engraver, Gustave Mercier. Mercier, born in Paris in 1858, garnered such renown as a prolific engraver that an American oil tycoon brought him over from Paris to New York as his personal stationer. I lust after these early proofs of Mercier's work; so many divergent styles, many of which herald the forthcoming Art Deco trend in paper.

Mercier also created engravings for books, such as this print he made in collaboration with American artist William Magrath:

This print, from the book Courtship in Ancient Times, was published by Charles Klackner in 1889. Engravers had relevancy and, more importantly, currency in the 19th century. The 21st century's near total loss of this preeminent profession is profoundly lamentable-- Connor deserves praise as a preservationist as much as it does as a stationer. They are, however, not bound by their illustrious past: "As fine engravers in a digital world, we have to try and remain relevant to the younger generations," Felber explained to me as he showed me one of their latest collections, Write Again, in collaboration with J. Crew's Jenna Lyons.

Image credit: Connor Fine Engraver & Stationer

The "xoxo Guns" and "Snake" have an obviously more contemporary, playful style than most motif stationery you'll find-- and certainly at a higher level of quality and detail. All Connor papers are engraved in Paris on thick-stock paper, more impressive, however, are the motifs and monograms themselves. The relief of each motif is strikingly deep. Several personal sets featured just the owner's initials without any color-- the relief is so profound and pronounced, color is far from a prerequisite (the colorless samples are some of the most understated and chic stationery sets I've ever seen). You'll also notice a distinctive detail particular to their work-- in lieu of a watermark, each page has their signature dot or circle; you can see it above in the bottom middle of the page. This dot is also part of their logo.

Image credit: Connor Fine Engraver & Stationer

Connor's deference to current trends is not limited to their "Write Again" collection; they work with their clientele on personalized designs, from a specific icon to a family's coat of arms. Henri and Justin showed me samples from several famed editors and actors (remaining unnamed) who, with the aid of Connor, designed their own motifs. As for me, I am too enamored of their 19th century collection of monograms that I wouldn't even think of designing my own. I certainly know where my next stationery outfit splurge will hail from-- until then, I thought I'd satiate my Connor craving with their gilded beetle set, which reminded me of several trips I recently took to Egypt.

Image credit: the paper trail

(Not to obsess over packaging, but the fabric box it comes in is gorgeously presentation and display worthy.)

My trip to Connor was a bit like sifting through personal correspondences within a Gilded Age writing desk; while I am impressed with their contemporary collections, I really laud their safeguarding of a written, aesthetic tradition. They are custodians of a finer age in personal discourse. In my mind, being able to send a part of that history is an enchanting thought.

Image credit: the paper trail

Connor Fine Engraver & Stationer is located in The Plaza, One West 58th Street, New York City.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T09:53:00.000-08:00

To all my Paper Trailers, Happy Thanksgiving. I have many things to be thankful for, but being the aesthete I am, I'd like to take a moment to thank my mother, who always sets the most resplendent dining table. Her love for design was inherited from her mother, who in turn inherited it from hers. The study and appreciation of interior style-- I include paper in this cadre-- has brought me much joy and fascination in life.

Now it's time to stuff. Cheers!

Collier's Letter Rack

2010-11-12T07:10:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday, trailers! I was reading the New York Times Arts section this morning, which reported that a large collection of early American furniture and Dutch old master paintings (including van Ruysdael and Cuyp) has been bequeathed to the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Hubba. Edward Collier's sublime trompe l'oeil of a letter rack is included in the collection.

If there were ever a reason to trek to DC, this exhibit would be it.

My obsession with trompe l'oeil aside, I am inspired by Collier's letter rack. I love writing my friends, several of whom I've developed a bit of a pen pal relationship with, though it would be easier to pick up the telephone. My friend Anne, who is in her second year of law school at UVA, sends me thoughtful notes on her burgundy letterhead notecards. Her hand writing is delightfully familiar to me now-- we've been writing each other since we went off to separate boarding schools--how many friends can you say that of?

Phe Phe, a dear friend in Boston, can be counted upon to send me Linda & Harriet postcards (my favorite was a print of cut-out paper dolls) and notes which generally herald a visit, or bestow a kind word.

Of course, I keep every letter that arrives in the mail. They pile up on my bedside table, accumulate on my too-small desk, and stuff my already tight drawers. They make me incredibly happy-- so it is with Collier's inspiration that I've decided to create my own letter rack.

Don't underestimate the simple joy a personal letter portends-- and write your friends, even if it's just to say hello.

World of Interiors Chronicles Viennese Paper Find

2010-11-08T19:37:00.000-08:00

Image credit: Fritz von der Schulenburg for World of Interiors

I just got into bed with the November issue of World of Interiors, a publication that never fails to leave me in visual raptures. To my delight, I turned to page 102 to find a wallpaper story by Michael Huey titled "Viennese Whirls" about a collection of Biedermeier wallpaper recently discovered in an Austrian flea market:

"All rolled up and looking like a pile of ancient proclamations in the bottom drawer of a late Biedermeier commode in Vienna lies a collection of block-printed wallpaper and border samples from the same period. The provenance of these flea market finds is unknown, although the character of their designs point to an origin in the Austro-Hungarian world... Kept out of sunlight for the better part of the last 180 years, their colors survive in surprising richness and startling combinations."

Michael Huey, you had me at "all rolled up".

This, my friends, is the stuff of flea market fantasy; it is precisely this type of tale that incites my endless thirst to hunt les puces, perhaps a bit like a beachcomber with a metal detector (though hopefully not as absurd looking).

Image credit: Fritz von der Schulenburg for World of Interiors

Huey relates that Vienna came late to the wallpaper party that was so effervescent only a short carriage ride away in the Alsace Lorraine region, instead preferring frescoes. Fascinatingly, this trend finally arrived in the Austro-Hungarian empire via the brother-in-law of Michael Jean Zuber (in my mind, the consummate patron saint of painted papers). Johann Michael Sporlin (umlaut over the "o"), was an apprentice in Zuber's Rixheim factory and brought his trade with him when he emigrated to Vienna in 1808 with another brother-in-law, Heinrich Rahn. The two introduced the region to the Neoclassical hand block printed paper frenzy that had so ingratiated itself in French society.

Image credit: Fritz von der Schulenburg for World of Interiors

By 1813, a mere five years after establishing their Viennese-by-way-of-Alsace firm, Sporlin & Rahn were appointed "purveyors to the royal and imperial courts". I tried to do a little research on the pair, and found a report from the Great Britain Royal Exhibition of 1851 citing the two names, though surprisingly not in connection to one another:

Is it possible that the company disbanded, with Hienrich Rahn establishing his trade in Warsaw? Huey goes on to say that Sporlin pioneered several techniques for color manipulation that garnered him further renown, which one might deduce to be the makings of a sibling-in-law rivalry. Whatever the circumstances, I relish thinking that Zuber's contribution to the decorative arts found a deservedly enthusiastic reception throughout Europe.

This array of discovered paper of unknown provenance is a bit like a gold mine for preservations and wallpaper restorers. Its isolation from light and dust is nothing short of a historical coup. I am immediately reminded of the work that Adelphi Paper Hangings does, though the worn and weathered samples they often contend with leave room for interpretation of color (at the very least) and overall effect (at the most). Here is a sample which they reconstructed:

Image credit: Adelphi Paper Hangings

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we need more Adelphis in this world. Their devotion to hand crafted paper with a reverence and appreciation for the practices and aesthetics of the style pioneers before us doesn't have nearly the currency it ought to in our contemporary decorative arsenal.


Image credit: Adelphi Paper Hangings

Huey's conclusion summarizes the appeal of these papers far better than I could; "In many cases, the naivety and inexplicability of their motifs seem a plea for a kind of thinking-- and living-- in which the rational and logical do not hold sway. This, perhaps, is the truly lost code of these wallpapers."

Image credit: Fritz von der Schulenburg for World of Interiors

Fortuny: the notebook (and fabric) of any aesthete's fantasy

2010-10-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

I'm in love with my new Fortuny fabric covered notebook. Last Tuesday, I attended their showroom opening at the D&D building- it left me dreaming of Italian palazzos swathed in decadent brocades. Fortuny has an incredible history; Mariano Fortuny began designing fabric at the turn of the 19th century and garnered renown with the creation of the Delphos gown.

Actresses and dancers, such as Sarah Bernhardt and Isadora Duncan, admired his fabrics and garments which best exalted the female form in motion. This movement is precisely what makes Fortuny a superior fabric designer-- there is an incredible depth of color and texture to each design. The color has a rich, almost mottled quality to it; when light passes over it seems to move.

In recent decades, the company lost some its iconoclast cache, until two young brothers, Mickey and Maury Riad, took over the management of the fabric house from their father in 1998. As the late Countess Elsie Lee Gozzi requested before selling the company to the Riad family, "should the quality or standard of the production of Fortuny's fabrics diminish below that which is deserving of the Fortuny name, the company should be terminated and the machines destroyed."

Image from their New York showroom

Needless to say, the Riads have given Fortuny a much needed injection of innovation-- while maintaining the illustrious standards and brilliance Mariano set a century ago. I was so enchanted with their showroom, I went back and shot it for Through the Keyhole. Take a tour of their new showroom here.


The Countess surveys their exquisitely appointed showroom

While I haven't a Venetian palazzo papered in Fortuny fabric, I have my notebook. For a paper lover, it still titillates.

John Derian for Dempsey & Carroll

2010-10-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

Master of decoupage, John Derian has set his sites on paper- this time, unfettered by glass. Partnering with Dempsey & Carroll, Derian has created six lovely designs. Having been a fan of his decoupage trays, cache pots, and paperweights for years now, I am very familiar with Derian's look. Interestingly, these cards- with the exception of the letters, below- wouldn't necessarily have struck me as his work.

I like seeing a designer working with a new medium, particularly when the result ends up being somewhat of a departure from the expected. The cards themselves are incredibly simple- it's the vibrant envelope liners that make them delightful. My two favorites are the maze, top, and the sea urchin, below.

All images credited to Dempsey & Carroll.

What's in a Paper Portrait?

2010-10-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

While at my family's country home in Maine, I made my ritual stop at Gurley's Antiques in Yarmouth. Gurley's represents a number of independent dealers, and I always find something there that I must have. Recent purchases include a fashion print from the mid 19th century in a gilded frame and a 1788 print by John and Josiah Boydell of "Hector rebuking Paris" (while I clearly appreciate the classical theme, I admit I bought it mostly for its gorgeous reverse glass black and gold frame). So, it was of little surprise to my mother when I walked out on this occasion with what I consider to be a very special black paper cut silhouette of a young woman boasting a white ruffled collar, and perhaps more surprisingly, a provenance written on the paper backing of the frame:

The script, if you can't decipher it, reads "Harriet Whitney, Grandmother of Charles L. Hutchinson"; obviously this Hutchinson character was so important that his grandmother's image was defined in reference to him. I had to do a little googling. I found several Charles L. Hutchinsons, including Charles Lawrence Hutchinson. Born in 1854, CLH (as the man is referred to on the back of the silo) was the son of a wealthy entrepreneur from Boston and would become president of the Chicago Board of Trade at the tender age of 34, just 8 years after being named president of the Art Institute of Chicago. Indeed, he was also one of its founders and accrued a collection consisting of Rembrants, van Eycks, Monets, Renoirs-- to name but a few canonical artists. He was, by all accounts, a type of Renaissance man who used his wealth to promote and champion the arts. I just adore this vintage 1907 postcard of Hutchinson's home! Well, I was very excited to have discovered a connection between the portrait and the personage, but I was worried I had perhaps put the cart before the horse-- I couldn't find explicit support that Harriet Whitney was indeed his grandmother.

Wychwood, Charles Lawrence Hutchinson's home

I was distraught to find, three days after I started my research, that Charles Lawrence Hutchinson didn't have a grandmother named Harriet Whitney. After the initial devastation of researching for naught set in, I decided to set aside my search and meditate on just how lovely the portrait was. Paper Trailers know my penchant for the black and white austerity, which I celebrate in my review of Emma Rutherford's tantalizing compendium of the medium. And really, part of the reason I love silhouette portraits is for the sense of mystery they imbue. They offer a trace of a person who once was, and the rest is up for you to imagine. In a time when everything we see is so categorized, documented, and dissected, I rejoice in the unknown. Silhouette portraits provide an easel onto which we can project our own ruminations and desires, our thoughts on the intangible.

To me, this isn't just another silhouette. Most portraits I find in my antique store searches are painted. If they are cut out, they generally date to a later revival period. There is something folkish about this but also so aspirational. The detail of the headpiece and the collar astound, even if the execution isn't entirely refined. Was the collar lace? What color was the hairpiece? I can't help but reference a grandiose Verspronck portrait at one of my favorite museums, Frans Hals in Haarlem:

While centuries separate these two works, a controlled cultivation is emphasized in both. In the silhouettes and the grand Verspronck, signs of prosperity are tempered with a heavy Protestant austerity manifested in the use of black and white. While Verspronck's sitter, Willemina van Braeckel, wears lace, pearls, and holds an ostrich feather fan, she is not seated in a palatial space. A coat of arms on the wall points to her family's lineage (which, apparently, was not even added until the 18th century). But despite the signs of wealthy and status, the portrait is still a restrained masterpiece, reflecting the social and religious mores of 17th century Holland just as my miniature Whitney reflects those of 18th and 19th century New England. The silhouette portrait, of course, was a trend of the times. But it was a trend of the times for a reason.

I've been thinking about continuing to research the provenance or identity connected to my portrait; I could follow up with the dealer, contact the Maine Genealogical Society, troll through some more birth records. I could probably decipher my young lady's identity without too much ado.

I think, though, I'll let her be, just as she is.

Crazy for Cruikshank

2010-09-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

My second article for Felt & Wire just came out! In it, I express my profound proclivity for the the Victorian illustrated book (quelle surprise, n'est-ce pas?). If engravings are your thing, do take a look.

Paper Profile: Nancy Sharon Collins

2010-09-12T19:02:00.001-07:00

All Images credited to: Collins, LLC.

I am obsessed with the paper work Nancy Sharon Collins does, which I first discovered when I called her monogrammed cards in for a Vogue shoot. Her work is incredibly refined-- nothing over the top or too cute to stomach. The closest to cute, in fact, is "Hello Darling", above, which is a very far cry from the kitsch-fest so many letterpresses seem to think is the only way to sell paper. Indeed, it is the type of paper for the ages-- time would not shake the command of style her stationery holds. I discovered her "Petite Suite" line on Felt & Wire, and shortly thereafter Laura Shore suggested I get in touch with her concerning my vintage paper collection. Well, I was very happy to be in touch with NSC-- she is one of America's true stationers-- and I insisted she must let me pry her gifted graphic design oriented brain for her inspiration and history in the industry.

Paper Trail: Do you believe there will be a resurgence in interest in the letterpress and custom stationery?

NSC: There has been a resurgence for many years now. I think the main reason for this, or, what inspired and has nurtured it is Briar Press . This is the go-to resource for all things letterpress. it was created by a former Curator of Graphic Arts in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. Also, many larger cities in the US now have book arts organizations, most or all are bricks and mortar establishments where anyone can sign up to learn and use letterpress equipment. Sadly, I was told, that only 5% of members actually set type (the old fashioned way, one little letter at a time), which is actually the beauty of letterpress printing. That being said, I am delighted to note that many small press shops are constantly springing-up across America who DO set type by hand. It is something that women are drawn to for the nuance and hi-touch, low-tech aspect of it, similar to the resurgence in other crafts such as knitting, crocheting, weaving and the textile arts. Conversely, I also think men are attracted to it because they can monkey with real machines, take them apart, fix them, print with them and get all messy with dirty hands. Real guy stuff, like tinkering under the hood of an old car. There's nothing like the satisfaction of this in our modern world. It was something that was important to my late husband, who reveled in restoring two old (over a century old) engraving proofing presses before he passed.

Paper Trail: What do you consider to be the relationship between script, calligraphy, and engraving?

NSC: Script is concurrent with history and reflects different periods and even fads in our culture. Penmanship, for example, was an extremely important part of an education and was considered paramount in demonstrating ones inclusion in polite society. Victorian Americans had the notion that proper penmanship was a European "norm" and acted as a common language, or way to identify education levels. The wonderful thing about engraving is that it actually does justice to calligraphy; it is the art of the craftsman understanding how the tools work, how the paper resists in the ink; there is an incredible synchronicity to it.

Paper Trail: What is your favorite style of script?

NSC: I make them up so don't have a favorite I can name; I collaborate with a typography and lettering master here in New Orleans, Yvette Rutledge. She is also a master engraver and director of the center for lettering arts on Magazine Street in the Crescent City. part of what she does (what we do) is to promote scholarship in the lettering arts. This means taking a little time with the history of type and letterforms, trying your hand at all the various tools that create gorgeous scripts and non-cursive based types. It's fascinating. Right now the center is housed in Mystic Blue Sign Shop that, over time, is being re-purposed as the lettering arts center.

Paper Trail: For many years, you had your own graphic design firm in New York; why did you transition from graphic design to letterpress printing?

NSC: Graphic design used to be done on paper, which is what drew me to it in the first place. When computers became the only medium in the industry, I had this soul searching moment. The romance of it disappeared for me, so I turned to what made me happy-- engraving. It is, of course, a slow growth business, but the physical act of putting letters to paper gives me so much pleasure.

Paper Trail: You make some of those most divine stationery around. Which stationers inspire or inspired you?

NSC: Pineider-- the colors, finishing, and quality of Pinieder papers is absolutely exquisite. I also was a great fan of the eponymous Mrs. John L. Strong.

Paper Trail: What is your favorite stationery set?

NSC: My dad traveled literally around the world for business, even before I was born-- this was pre-jet air travel, propellor planes (think old movies) when men wore full suits, long sleeve shirts and ties and newly shined shoes. he traveled everywhere with the exception of South America (except for Juarez, Mexico) mainland China, Russia and Cuba and sometimes my mom would go along. They used to bring me back these beautiful "sets" of stationery in cleverly assembled, be-ribboned, die-cut folders. they were lovely. and, i loved these precious little kits containing prettily decorated letter papers, even though i was dysgraphic.

I'm also quite fond of the cubby little boxes that our "Petite Suite" engraved monogram sets come in. The box is made from re-purposed board and we construct the boxes entirely by hand here in the studio.

Paper Trail: Are there any graphic designers, stationers, calligraphers, or artists (past or present) that inspire or in some cases inform your work?

NSC: I think my biggest heroes are Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar, most notably their mid-century work with type and branding. Their firm, Chermayeff & Geismar, was to me the best example of the American/Swiss style of graphic design. When I was first trying to get a job as a graphic designer in New York City, I wanted desperately to work for them. To me, their work was the bee's knees.

Well, Nancy Sharon Collins, the Paper Trail thinks you are the bee's knees. Her stationery is lust-inducing-- but it is her impressions of the "evolutionary-road" design, paper, and script have traveled-- and are poised to travel to-- that is truly fascinating. She is part of a band of artists reviving what could very well have been a doomed relic of our history, were it not for paper-lovers of her ilk. Her insistence on fusing high design and paper is to be celebrated.

For more on all things NSC, do peruse her website and her blog, which recently featured her take on modern mourning stationery (not to be morbid, but I think it would be a good set to have in any complete paper wardrobe!). And please, don't miss her article that left me totally tickled, "If Edith Wharton had Facebooked".

Feel the paper love: Feedback Loop Project

2010-09-08T13:42:00.000-07:00

Image credit: Mohawk Fine Papers and Missing Q

Yes, it's back to no-more-summer-Fridays work for many of us; as depressing as that prospect may seem, I like to alleviate my forlorn-fall attitude with some neat new office accessories. Labor Day must revive some sort of "back to school shopping" ritual in me, as every September I feel the irrepressible urge to find the notebook. Mohawk Fine Papers, fortunately, have made that task much easier for me.

In conjunction with Design Ignites Change, Mohawk has donated paper to 25 letterpress printers, each of whom has designed notebooks to benefit a youth mentorship program, School: by Design. 100% of the notebook proceeds will go to School: by Design, who is offering a $10,000 prize to the underprivileged or "underserved" high school, after school program, or community organization whose students create the most innovative project to "redesign their school".

The focus is on sustainability in the loosest sense of the word-- and the project can be interpreted in a myriad of ways. It's a fantastic way to engage students and communities who wouldn't otherwise have very many opportunities to think conceptually about design and sustainability.

Shall we see the notebooks???

Notebook designed by Visual Chemist


Notebook designed by Praxium Press


Notebook designed by Igloo Letterpress

Notebook designed by Lunalux

So, you see, buying one of these lovely notebooks wouldn't be an entirely selfless,altruistic endeavor. This is just a sampling, so do check out the entire Feedback Loop collection on the Felt & Wire Shop.

An envelope's envelope: a favorite from thomaspaul's new collection, Luddite

2010-09-07T11:13:00.000-07:00

Image credit: thomaspaul

Apologies, trailers, for my lack of attention. I won't make excuses for my lackadaisical contributions as of late (though I have a fantastic interview with Nancy Sharon Collins that will go live on Friday, plus an article on Cruikshank for Felt & Wire that will come out next week!) but I wanted to share with you the latest from one of my favorite home designers, Thomas Paul, whom I am interviewing for mydeco. He sent me images from his latest collection, Luddite, which represents an homage to the early 19th century movement in its rendering of simple, common items in an iconic fashion. I am enamored of the canvas "envelope" for envelopes, as you see above and below, which is silk screened on a heavy-weight cotton. This trompe l'oeil envelope isn't paper, but I do believe it's the perfect paper holder. It'll be available at Velocity Art & Design; keep an eye out for my interview with Thomas Paul on the mydeco blog.

Image credit: thomaspaul

Otto Dix's War on Paper

2010-08-16T13:39:00.000-07:00

Self Portrait with Nude Model

I finally made it to the Neue Galerie's retrospective on Otto Dix, the first ever to come to America. I am an ardent Dix fan; his work makes me uncomfortable, nervous, paranoid, and scared-- everything a Neue Sachlichkeit artist ought to accomplish. I hugely enjoyed the Metropolitan's Glitter and Doom exhibition of German portraits from the 20s several years ago; the demi monde that existed in the brief Weimar Republic entranced the artistic community, who aimed to visually destabilize and satirize conservative German culture through the canvas.

It is little wonder why Hitler destroyed so many works of art from Die Brucke, Neue Sachlichkeit, and Der Blaue Reiter movements (Ironically, his degenerate art exhibit of 1937 drew some of the largest crowds to date; repression and control of the arts will inevitably backfire, no matter the regime). Arguably, each of these profoundly rich movements were born out of the tumultuous political climate in Germany-- and as a silent demonstration against the perils and damage of war.

To that end, Dix's work is the most vitriolic. Having served in WWI, his experience deeply affected and changed his views on war, nationalism, and the state. The Neue Galerie exhibit devoted a good amount of space to the drawings he did on paper while serving; paper allowed him to exorcise the massacre he witnessed on a daily basis. Many of the drawings he produced-- such as this drawing of the Card Players, would later translate to canvas. Their initial paper renderings, however, are incredible things to contemplate. They are not retrospective impressions of what Dix saw and felt, internalized and expressed years later-- they are the immediate mental facsimiles of his experiences.

Nearly 2 million young German men perished in World War I; Dix's images of the war wounded sans limbs with mechanical instruments in lieu of flesh are haunting. Just as haunting-- perhaps more so-- is his depiction of women. Dix visually expressed the tacit resentment that men had for women's absence in WWI; while the men went off to slaughter and be slaughtered for the state, the women stayed at home. His Lustmort series-- while nearly now all destroyed-- depicted the sexually charged murder of women, often at the hands of soldiers.

Lustmort

Generally featuring prostitutes, these remaining works most likely survived the Nazi's artistic carnage because they were on paper-- and escaped their notice. I remember studying Lustmort in college; it's something I have never forgotten, for it expresses the monstrous capacity of humanity-- the rage, the resentment, and the violence precipitated in the name of country. I was shocked to see it in person.

The work Dix produced in his years as a soldier is scathingly nightmarish-- Bosch but earthly-- and reminds us that art can't always exist to be beautiful. It must narrate both the good and the bad of the human experience with veracity.

If you're in New York, hurry to see Otto Dix at the Neue Galerie. The exhibition ends on August 30th.

Portrait of Anita Berber

Off the Wall: A Preview Peek of Farrow & Ball's Latest Collection

2010-07-29T12:39:00.000-07:00

One of the strange things about working for a website as opposed to a magazine (apart from the irony of my paper and print obsession) is that everything happens in real time. There is no planning of a Christmas gift guide in August, or covering product launches and previews three months before they actually are available to consumers. So when my friends over at Farrow & Ball sent me a Fall preview of their latest wallpaper collection which launches in September, I decided that even though I couldn't post it on mydeco, I could give the latest painted paper breaking news to the Trail!


Image credit: Farrow & Ball

The announcement of this new collection came with a wallpaper covered box, which was filled with stationery of the latest patterns from the Baroque collection. It made me swoon on a Monday morning, which is a rare event indeed.

Of the three new patterns, the Acanthus (above) is my favorite, though the Orangerie pattern (top) is pretty lovely too. For those of you who know Farrow & Ball as a paint company (they are, I must add, my favorite paint company; the complexity and depth of their paints is superior), they make a range of subtle and beautiful wallpapers using their own paints. My favorite design is their Rosslyn in blue:

It feels naive and cultivated at once, and makes me think of early American stencil art (though of course, Farrow & Ball is the most English of companies). All of their papers are hand block printed in Dorset, England and all of the work is done on the premises. It's nearly impossible these days to find a company that doesn't outsource, and aside from the caliber of paper and paint they produce, it's one of the reasons I am a loyal lover of Farrow & Ball.

Getting back to their latest collection, the Baroque papers were inspired by early 18th century patterns, which is when the English really mastered new techniques for wallpaper production and started creating patterns that didn't just emulate architectural elements. Wallpaper didn't need to necessarily fool anyone's eye anymore-- it could just be a beautiful thing to look at, in and of itself.

The box they sent me demonstrates the fantastic texture they achieve with their block printing method:

You should all note that I do not have a professional camera, which only serves to validate the immense depth they produce in their papers. The texture is off the wall (pardon the pun, but it literally is!).

My wallpaper box has found a happy home on my coffee table next to another favorite paper box-- my pink Ladurée, which is intended for macaron storage. The macarons are long gone, but the box is here to stay.

Decadent Decay

2010-07-23T11:23:00.000-07:00

Image credit: Piotr Redlinski for the New York Times

I was overcome by the beauty in Penelope Green's article on the Hudson River Rokeby house in the New York Times Home section. When I spied the article in bed yesterday morning, I believed the crows mural above to be aging and decaying wallpaper-- and decided I had to share it on the Paper Trail for any who may have missed it. When I looked for it online, I discovered it was actually a mural painted by Robert Chanler in the 1890s.

It gave me pause to write about it, but I woke up this morning thinking about that mural-- you'll pardon me, loyal Paper Trailers, for making this paperless exception on the Trail, for much of what I love about paper is its delicacy, and the balance of the ephemeral and the eternal that certain artistic mediums-- like paper and frescoes-- tenuously strike. As my readers know, it's a theme I constantly return to.

I have a fascination with aesthetic excess in decline. It's one of the reasons I have a romantic relationship with the city of Naples. The ornate city in total disrepair inspires sadness, vibrancy, and a nostalgic yearning in me for something I can't identify. It is the Baroque Pompeii, with its people, pollution, and economic deterioration serving as its slow-moving Vesuvius.

Photographer Robert Pollidori has addressed the subject of architecture and state in decline in several of his books, including Havana, Chernobyl, and Versailles.

Image credit: Robert Polidori

Polidori navigates the extreme juxtaposition between opulence and decay; the visual richesse of his images lead the viewer to consider the legacy of art, the wealth of state and society, and the ultimate relationship each has with time.

Americans, citizens of a new country, rarely seem to allow grandiosity to fall apart-- for better and for worse. There are some rich pockets, especially in old sections of New England, that have accidentally distilled that rapturously morbid beauty. Photographer Brian Vanden Brink seems to share my appreciation for this strange love. His book, Ruin: Photographs of Vanishing America, chronicles those particular vestiges that remain--for the moment-- preserved by the trappings of time.

While many of the subjects in Vanden Brink's book are by no means ornate or decadent, its photographs preserve the remnants of the architectural America that was. Part of our national identity is preserved in Ruin.

Perhaps the sight of something once so resplendent in its proud but crumbling end parallels our own experience with the passage of time, and for that reason we recognize its poignancy.

Image credit: Piotr Redlinski for the New York Times

Trail Sleuthing-- Mystery Crane's Cut Monogram Stationery

2010-07-19T08:35:00.000-07:00

I sent a letter to Felt & Wire contributor, Alyson Kuhn, using my Crane's oxford blue cut out monogram stationery. She told me she had no idea how someone could have made a cut out like that so long ago, which piqued my interest. I knew it was sold through Bigelow, Kennard & Co. and made with Crane's paper, and that it must have been made in 1922 or later, though I supposed it dated to the 1930s.

Here is the original Crane's box

I decided to email Crane & Co.'s historian, Peter Hopkins.

Here was his response:
Hi Mieke:

So good to hear from you, and what a wonderful collection of stationery you have! I don't know a lot about Bigelow, Kennard except they were a very high-end retailer in Boston, founded in the 1840s. I'm not sure when they went out of business, but it would appear to be somewhere around the Depression?

The papers from Bigelow, Kennard all appear to be Crane papers. You might check the watermarks to see. Bigelow would have had its own stationery department, similar to others like Bailey Banks & Biddle and Shreve Crump & Low. They either did the engraving themselves or had a local shop do it for them. The cut-out monogram is very interesting. I have not encountered one like that for the time period we're looking at.

Gorgeous stuff!

With best regards,
Peter

It turns out that the set was made in 1922-- the year my grandparents married-- and the same year it possibly could have been sold through Bigelow, Kennard & Co., as they went out of business as well in '22. This endears this paper to me even more, as perhaps it was the first stationery set my grandmother received with her new monogram.

The only thing left to crack, really, is how they made the cut out? Peter suggested that it might have been made by die cutting; if anyone has another supposition, I'd love to hear it!

Art Deco stationery: did the flapper or the paper come first?

2010-06-28T05:54:00.000-07:00

The stationery wardrobe is more or less a thing of letters' past, save for a few steadfast paper aesthetes. Half a century ago, however, a varied collection of stationery was compulsory for people-- and women in particular-- of a certain social milieu, with personalized papers setting the standard. Everyone, it seems, had a collection of nameplates residing at their favored stationer. (This is where I wistfully sigh, in Remembrance of Things Past).

I have a collection of stationery, nameplates, and calling cards (a.k.a. Edna Pontellier's fateful repudiation of Victorian duty-- this is where I do not wistfully sigh) from my grandparents and great grandparents, and I can easily group them in sequence of stylistic era. For example, I have a calling card in high gothic font, both in my great grandmother's name and my great grandparents' name.

This stack of calling cards is undoubtedly a 19th century relic, both in concept and style. A gothic revival swept Western culture starting in the second half of the 18th century. This romanticization of the perceived mysticism of the middle ages gripped the English and the Americans in particular, and its influences are pervasive in the arts, architecture, and literature for nearly 150 years. Its vestiges seemed to linger, no matter which aesthetic movement supplanted it. While in London several weeks ago, I attended the Strawberry Hill exhibit at the Victoria & Albert museum.

Horace Walpole, whom I perhaps inaccurately assume was a fantastic dandy, built his estate in an homage to high gothic architecture and filled it with his massive, unparalleled collection of Medieval curiosities.

I wonder if his contemporaries viewed his rambling estate the way one might sneer at one of the many mini Versailles that now dot the nouveau riche Los Angeles landscape?

Don't get me wrong; I am the first to assert that the dark ages were indeed not dark. I am a lover of medieval art in every articulation, but I infinitely prefer the original and authentic as opposed to its unaltered facsimile. I believe the best of aesthetic movements find their inspiration in iconic styles, but subvert and reinterpret the foundations of such genres, as opposed to merely imitating them. Even Austen displayed her mockery of the gothic in Northanger Abbey, while the Bronte sisters recapitulated the theme in subtler, yet powerful ways.

But, I digress! These calling cards are in their original envelope, from Boston's Bigelow, Kennard & Co., though the stationer that produced them is a mystery to me.

Stationery was not excluded from artistic and architectural movements, which unfortunately strikes me as a sign of the industry's present stagnation. Though timeless and often gorgeous, most nameplate styles remain traditional; this might just be a result of the average aging consumer of custom stationery. Or, perhaps people don't feel the need to slap their name on everything anymore? Either way, I'd like to see stationers push the envelope. Image a monogram in graffiti font? I'm not saying I'd go for that sort of thing, but I know many people of my generation who would.

If Delftware can reinvent itself, as in this Lovegrove & Repucci tableware, paper can darn well do it too!

Getting back to my inherited stationery collection, my favorite paper period is the prismatic and angular Art Deco assortment that my grandmother amassed. I can more or less pinpoint the dates of when she acquired each set, based on her monogram (pre or post marriage) and return address engraved on the back of the envelope.

This charming blue set above, dates from before 1922, while the set below dates from the late 1920s.

My amateur camera does not do these pages justice, particularly the details of this set, which has a substantial silver gilt border. They are also from Bigelow, Kennard & Co.

I am fascinated by the Art Deco period, for several reasons. It presents one of those rare caveats for me in our aesthetic history; I love the art, architecture, jewelry, and of course paper, while I abhor the interior design. It is perhaps the only period I can think of where I sense such a decisive split in my tastes.

This room at the Brooklyn Museum encapsulates all that I find so wholly unappealing in the genre.

It strikes me as clunky, and lacks the organic feeling that at least lends some softness to the Arts and Crafts or Art Nouveau periods. That sloppy look just doesn't seem to correlate with the angularity I find so appealing about the rest of the style. The architecture, on the other hand...

I am a native Manhattanite, so my love for Deco architecture is rather natural, I suppose. I adore this Chrysler building gargoyle-- fantastic example of Medieval reinvention.

Marvel at the Empire State Building in its original context: this was truly a secular cathedral for a city ruled by capitalism, not Christianity or monarchy.

Informed by Futurism and Cubism, Art Deco embraced the artists of its time who tried to access other dimensions by breaking apart natural shapes and lines. People were attempting to break free of linear constraints; I can't help but see that in this piece of paper, and I find that fascinating.

You see that angularity as representative of the sensual and sexual, as well. From Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Tamara de Lempicka's homoerotic nudes, and Balthus' pubescent models in private contemplation, prismatic form was the desired. The erotic woman was composed now of definitive shapes as opposed to unpredictable curves.

Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon

Lempicka's Groupe de Quatre Nus

Balthus' Thérèse rêvant

Astoundingly, art and architecture of the time transformed gender and even erotic sensibilities; this is clearly evinced by the meteoric rise of the flapper. Concealing her bosom, cutting her hair, and adopting free form dresses, the flapper subverted the feminine in favor of the angular ideals of Art Deco, with Poiret leading the fashion revolution.

Poiret design, circa 1925

There haven't been too many times in fashion's history where a woman wearing a neck or bow tie has been looked upon favorably. Really, it was quite avant-garde and signaled changing gender roles. It seems that art and architecture informed the sensual, as opposed to the other way around. Or did it? This is where the inevitable chicken or the egg supposition rears its perplexing head. In any event, the movement applied to fashionable papers just as it did in every other form of expression-- artistic, architectural, sexual, and otherwise.

My favorite paper outfit from that era overwhelmingly reminds me of Lempicka's Sleeping Woman:

Now, compare:

This set from Crane's, now known as Crane & Co., shares the same sense of depth, angularity, and layered dimension as the Sleeping Woman.

This cut out monogram is from the early 1930s. I love the shadow it casts when you open the page, like a stained glass window filtering light onto the words within.

For years, paper manifested the synesthesia of design, art, and style. Whether it still does remains to be seen. In the meantime, I have these beautiful Deco pages to contemplate.

Curating Paper Plaisir

2010-06-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

Image credit: Legendre+Rutter

To my utter glee, fellow paperphiles at the Felt & Wire Shop asked me to curate a little collection for them. I simply could not have had more fun putting it together, and I loved seeing the mention as well on their blog.

Felt & Wire Shop fills a unique and much needed niche in the paper-sphere. Sourcing stationery and paper goods from a variety of independent letterpresses and artists, Shop presents a platform for paper to stand on its own.

Have a shop!

Felt & Wire

2010-06-16T04:45:00.000-07:00

Image credit: Deborah Bowness

Please make sure to check out my article on panoramic and trompe l'oeil wallpaper on Felt & Wire!

I know I have spoken on the subject before, but really, I could endlessly profess my love for the genre and the multitude of interpretations it allows.

Also, many thanks to editor Tom Biederbeck for the lovely Paper Trail mention on the site.

Rubber Stamps, Medieval Jockstraps, and the Legacy of Noah Webster

2010-05-19T10:02:00.000-07:00

While living in the East Village, I stumbled upon one of those often overlooked, old school, pre-gentrification shops that makes transitioning neighborhoods (although there are few left in Manhattan, sadly) so lovely to live in. I peered in the window one cold evening and saw a trove of stamp printed paper lining the walls. Without a proper sign, I stepped inside and realized I was in a rubber stamp store called Casey Rubber Stamps. The sole man at the helm of this Victorian revival wonderland is John Casey, an Irishman who immigrated from the County of Cork in the 1950s. Casey started experimenting with rubber stamps as a boy and quickly realized that this was the only craft for him.

He has spent much of his life since mining his way through old Webster's editions, which, before the days of google, contained sections of fantastic visual references. This strange and simplistic lens on another age is, pardon the pun, the stamp with which he has marked his entire aesthetic with.

One of the old Webster visual dictionaries Mr. Casey works with

I have been buying stamps from Mr. Casey ever since. I like applying them as icons on high quality but simple notecards, such as Les Papiers Jean Rouget, or using them on envelopes, more particularly as a cartouche for the return and recipient addresses. Inexpensive and unique, they are a fantastic way to experiment with do-it-yourself stationery.

I am definitely not a craft-oriented type of person, but this is so effortless and creates such a unique, personalized effect that I make a frequent exception to my "hands off" policy.

I particularly love this piggly wiggly that I selected on my last trip down to Casey Rubber Stamps.

Doesn't this hog look lovely in burgundy ink on my Dempsey blue stationery?

Returning to John Casey's inspiration, though, I find that my attraction to his shop is not really based on passion for rubber stamps, but more for the feel of the Victorian ephemera that comprises his massive collection. It's like perusing a 19th century curio cabinet, reflecting the societal mores of that era. Inspired by Mr. Casey, I purchased a reedition compilation of an old Webster's, curated by John Carrera of Quercus Press.

Pictorial Webster's is an amalgam of several editions of mid 19th century and early 20th century Webster's engravings that Mr. Carrera assembled. As he mentions in his introduction, it took him an entire year just to "identify and alphabetize" the engravings he selected to publish. Housed in row after row of drawers in the Press Room of the Arts of the Book Collection at Yale University, Carrera devoted years of his life to bring this edited collection to our 21st century world.

Carrera worked from several editions of illustrated Webster's, notably the first 1859 edition and the subsequent 1864 and 1890 editions. The 1859 edition was the first visual dictionary to be published in America and has a decidedly New England perspective, evinced by the types of fish and maritime references that were so important to the region's economy of the time. Noah Webster, the progenitor of the first American dictionary in 1806, was a Connecticut man devoted to the cultural independence of the US. He recognized, in a rather revolutionary way befitting the era of his new Republic, that language evolves with the people and that his dictionary should reflect the words of this new citizen as opposed to adhering to and enforcing the lexicons of England.

Portrait of Noah Webster, creator of the first American dictionary.

Webster was the first to catalogue and sanction words like chowder-- a purely American colloquialism-- along with vegetation and wildlife, like squash and skunk. Though Noah Webster died 16 years before the first illustrated edition of his dictionary was published, the regional and independent mark he left on the dictionary remained. In essence, he created a capsule of post Revolutionary Americana.

Retro Pepé Le Pew

As subsequent editions of the illustrated dictionary were published, engravings began to change with the emerging technology, trade, and discoveries of the 19th century. While some engravings are basic representations--flora, fauna and the like--others seem so alien to contemporary eyes that even when studying the image, you can't entirely grasp what it is you are looking at. These odd images must have been significant enough to warrant publication. Engraver's fees at the time were not cheap, so illustrated Webster's offered a kind of compendium on the 19th century psyche.

Especially telling of the engravings' era are the depictions of race in Pictorial Webster's. I counted the following: African, Caucasian, European, Australian, Arctic, American, and Mongolian. Featuring exclusively men in profile (with the exception of the "Mongolian" and "Caucasian" race which were depicted onward), each race is wearing clothing the engravers must have believed typical of their culture. While the White race is depicted handsomely in refined and elegant attire, every other wears some sort of ethnic costume, with the exception of the Australian, who is obviously nude. Apart from being completely inaccurate, ethnocentric, inadvertently racist and sexist, the race depiction in Webster's offers a lens on a Western society recently exposed to and increasingly confronting a world beyond white. The depictions reveal a society trying to codify and define the globe beyond familiar borders, while retaining the constraints of the Victorian impulse.

While the races segment of Pictorial Webster's is relatively easy to interpret and judge, not all visuals pairings are so obvious. Carrera edited his edition in an effort to explore images and the words they relate to. However, even with the word and the image paired, the compilation is devoid of literal definition leaving room for one's own interpretation. What interested me perhaps the most, is that several words in the book along with their images still left me puzzled. "Tasses", for example, is illustrated by a man with a page boy haircut sporting medieval armor, his hands clasped together in prayer. What could this be referring to? Which aspect of the man is tasses? I am unfamiliar with the word, but "tasse" in French means cup. My first interpretation-- a leap to be sure-- is that this man is a sort of crusader, perhaps protecting the "ark" , often interpreted as the "cup" or container, of the covenant. When I looked up the word in a contemporary dictionary, I see the definition as "one of a series of overlapping metal plates in a suit of armor that form a short skirt over the body below the waist".

Well, instead of a medieval crusader on a holy mission, this might just be a literal cup-- like a jockstrap. But it's not in the shape of a cup and rather a skirt, so does that make sense? In the image on the left, number 8 is the tasses.

<--- This is the contemporary Merriam Webster's illustration of tasses, which is literal and leaves little room for interpretation as opposed to the Pictorial Webster's illustration of tasses, which dates from the 1890 edition. The image in Webster's is so non-specific, that I found myself thinking about the word and the image from an etymological perspective in a way most people don't approach language anymore. That was part of Carrera's point, in the same way Magritte and the Surrealist movement approached the connection between images and words, and the power each intrinsically has on its own.

If it's not an apple, what is it?

Meanwhile, in Casey Rubber Stamp world, the images exist without the words, stripping them of all but the way we wish to see them. Icons adrift without definition, these stamps only come to mean something once applied to the paper we press them to. Sometimes, it's nice to see something just as we want to, don't you think?

Max Ernst, The Robing of the Bride

A Moment in the Shade

2010-04-19T07:06:00.000-07:00

I finally purchased Emma Rutherford’s gorgeous book, “Silhouette: The Art of the Shadow”. I have a rather strange fixation on silhouettes in all mediums. You might call it a fetish, actually.

I collect Wedgewood jasperware for the sake of those noble and often mythical white figures in frieze relief against blues and pink and blacks. My favorite antique purchase, without reservation, is a set of Grand Tour Roman silhouette cameos set on black velvet and mounted in a gold fan frame. It hangs above my fireplace, along with a reverse glass silhouette painting of an English “gentleman and his hounds” and a set of three other Roman style cameos, also set on velvet.

My mantle articulates my obsession rather clearly, I admit!

Silhouette portrait of my grandmother along with jasperware cup and saucer and blue cameo

This form of portraiture can be found throughout my apartment. It might be a little “old lady” of me, but I never insinuated I was hip; this blog will surely acquit me of that notion if ever anyone were to suppose it!

I can’t quite convey what it is about silhouettes that allures me so, and perhaps it is that very sense of je ne sais quoi I find so beguiling. In instances silhouettes can border on epic and statuesque, despite their often-diminutive proportions. Conversely, silhouettes can be charmingly naïve, unassuming, and craft-ish, like a childish expression of love. Be they epic or naïve, they are invariably mysterious.

Paper silhouettes, more than other expressions of the art form, lend themselves to that dispersion of impression. It’s the trace of a visage without the actual elements that create a face or personality. The inexactitude lends itself to imagination in a strangely nostalgic way.

Though the term “silhouette” was not coined until the late eighteenth century, the form has been in use as long as artistic expression has existed.

Lascaux fresco, Paleolithic era

I am suppressing the urge to wax and wane about “shade” in all of its early representations, primarily greco-roman, but I must get back to paper. Let’s start with its glorious 18th century reincarnation!

One of the lovely double page spreads in "Silhouette"

I always knew that the term silhouette was derived from the man, Etienne de Silhouette, but the link was never completely clear to me. A Basquaise nobleman favored by Madame de Pompadour, Louis XIV appointed him Controller General and he quickly became unpopular for his tax proposals aimed at noble-possessed lands and property. This revolutionary idea of taxing the wealthiest turned out to be all too prescient, but for Silhouette, it was career suicide. Despite his mistress’ wishes, Louis bid him adieu within the year, and Silhouette relegated himself to his chateau in Bry-sur-Marne.

Boucher's rococo portrait of Madame de Pompadour

Rutherford explores the connections between the art form and the name, and I find the most obvious argument for its association to be from its humble paper origins. This form of portraiture was inexpensive—it provided a quick likeness without a hefty commission, and poor Etienne became synonymous with frugality among the upper echelons, at a time when displaying wealth reaffirmed social position in French society. Sadly, he never got to appreciate the positive and enduring connotations his name would eventually assume, nor would he ever be lauded for his cautionary and sage financial advice.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, physiognomy was hailed a science and written about extensively by the Swiss Evangelical minister Johann Kaspar Lavater, whose book “Essays on Physiognomy, for the Promotion of Knowledge and the Love of Mankind” affirmed that one’s moral and emotional properties are right there for all to judge in one’s profile. It must have been a cruel time to be ugly! The translation and publication of the work quickly disseminated throughout Europe and America.

A page from Lavater's book

Needless to say, this “science” prompted an inevitably egotistical fascination in silhouette portraiture. Augustin Edouart, the most prolific silhouettist of the 19th century, capitalized on this profile frenzy. He reinvigorating and to a certain degree, reinvented the genre as art. It was a leap that the Royal Academy certainly would never have accepted!

One of my favorite Edouart silos, "William Buckland and His Wife and Son Frank, Examining Buckland's Natural History Collection, ca. 1828"

Edouart’s devotion to his metier brought him a means to earn a living, and he really set the stage for other artists of his ilk to follow, such as Charles Rosenberg who became the official silhouettist to George III and Queen Charlotte.

Charles Rosenberg's portrait of George III, published 1810

With the exception of Isabella Beetham, we know of few female silo artists. Beetham sold her work out of necessity, but the vast majority of women who worked in the medium were not allowed to sell their art. It doesn’t, however, mean that women were not active in this cultural phenomenon. From the late 18th to mid 19th centuries, silhouetting became a bona fide “drawing room art”, much like needlepoint. But it never became a field women would have much of an impact in, as public persona artists. It’s depressing to contemplate the amount of work humanity has been deprived of from the exclusion of women in the arts.

A work by Beetham; I find this wonderfully expressive in detail.

Along with the unintended contribution of Lavater’s pseudo-science, the renaissance of paper silhouette portraiture also fortuitously coincided with the birth of neoclassicism. Simplicity was in, and an appreciation for the austerity of the Greco Roman silhouette supplanted the frilly frounce of Fragonard and Gainsborough.

"The Blue Boy" by Gainsborough. I have never liked this period in art.

Also unlike formal portraiture, the paper silhouette was an authentic lens on the period. Even though silos lacked facial and costume details and usually color, they show us period hats, lace, collars, hairstyles and dress. One didn’t believe this ephemeral moment, captured in black paper, would be passed on, and therefore the attention to dress was far less important and calculated as it would have been for an oil portrait. And perhaps it is that very feeling of ephemera silhouette portraiture captures that renders it so special and particular.

So how did this movement, so heavily entrenched in Western society, die in a paper graveyard?

The catalyst for the silhouette portrait’s downfall was its mechanization and eventual failure to compete with the newly developed technology, the camera. Profiles, by the mid 19th century, were predominantly being cut by machine as opposed to itinerant paper silhouettists. With the gradual removal of the artist, silos became less art, and more cheap facsimiles of the real thing. The camera in the form of daguerreotype delivered the final death knell.

Daguerreotype of Edgar Allen Poe, 1848

Who could blame people for preferring a machine-made precise likeness to a machine-made shadow of a likeness? The further commercialized the silhouette became, it seems, the more gravitas it lost as an art.

Rutherford concludes her book with the artwork of Aubrey Bearsdley and Kara Walker, whom she qualifies as post-silhouette-craze silhouette artists. While Beardsley’s work was not far after the fall of the silo heyday, I can’t agree that it bares any sort of resemblance to the pure original form. It is overwhelmingly Arts and Crafts and expresses the darkness and fear at the end of a decadent era. It is anything but simplistic and austere.

Beardsley's "John and Salome", 1896

Kara Walker’s contemporary work is a forcefully narrative driven world of positives and negatives. It bares, in my opinion, no relation to silhouetting, nor should it. It is not a decorative art-- it addresses racial history, repression, sexuality, and slavery in terrifying ways.

Walker's "You Do"

While I agree that art changes as it evolves, I think it’s safe to say that silhouetting is a nearly forgotten paper art, driven to extinction by the advancement of technological portraiture. It is this delicate tension between technology and craft that I always return to, with a sense of nostalgia for what we have left behind in the name of advancement.

If paper silhouette portraiture is your passion, you'll lust after the beauty in Rutherford's book. It is as visually delicious as it is fascinating.

The Accidental Stationer

2010-03-25T13:01:00.000-07:00

The first time I was introduced to Bernard Maisner's stationery, I was working for the now (tragically) defunct domino magazine. I had, all my life, been a stationery collector, but was accustomed to the more staid and classic Dempsey and Carroll, Mrs. John L Strong, and Smythson templates. I gasped when a colleague of mine showed me a collection of bookmarks and engraved cards featuring fanciful birds, beetles, and crowns in hues of azure and rose, all on thick stock paper with gold beveling.

Included in the collection of samples that Mr. Maisner had sent to be photographed for the magazine were personally calligraphed invitations, letterheads, and menus. Heavenly curlicues of Spencerian and Copperplate lettering languorously alighted the paper as though the text itself was dancing on the page and about to overpower it. It was paper porn for those among us who collect these pages, either to send off or just to, well, hoard.

When I set out to write a blog, I thought to myself that it was the type of work Mr. Maisner created that I wished to concern myself with. I emailed Bernard to enquire as to whether he'd let me ask him a few questions, and he graciously offered to meet with me. Stationery cult figure to talk to paper blog neophyte?? Perhaps I was in over my head! But Mr. Maisner was all graciousness when we met at Picholine on the Upper West Side for a glass of wine to discuss his work. He brought a portfolio of pages with him, much to my total glee, along with a hot off the presses sample of his newest creation-- divine elephant note cards inspired by rajput miniatures and anatomical drawings, akin to an elephant version of an Audobon reference.

Maisner intricately inscribed his name in the pink drapery in front of the elephant’s ear.

"I think I'll leave the gold bevel off of this one, so as not to detract anything from the elephant," Mr. Maisner concluded as he passed the card to my eager hands.

No mere one inch motif swimming in a sea of ecru, this larger than life, intricately painted elephant rightfully commandeered the page. I lauded him for making the motif the focal point of the card-- it truly is like sending someone a miniature piece of art-- and he wryly responded that it "takes the pressure off having to write too much!" Bernard Maisner has a point; letter writing has recently become synonymous with sending thank you cards and little else. Receiving mail is generally a bleak affair, consisting of bills and catalogues. Receiving and sending letters—and particularly letters on lovely stationery—is now officially one of life's little rare luxuries.

With the collapse of Strong last spring, I was quite worried that it heralded the slow death of high-end stationery. I’m delighted to hear that Bernard Maisner is at maximum production capacity with no signs of slowing.

Mr. Maisner’s round-about entry into stationery started as a student at the Cooper Union College of Art, when he began gilding his work. Inspired by medieval illuminated manuscripts, he started painting contemporary responses to this long deceased art. Klimt became another reference point for his art, again for the gold he employed in most of his canvases.

When I mentioned that I considered his hand crafted stationery art, Mr. Maisner replied that “something is not art unless it broaches the subject of both life and death”, which is perhaps another reason why he appreciates Klimt’s work so much.

Klimt’s oeuvre more often directly than allegorically speaks to the subject of mortality, as expressed in the The Three Ages of Woman, here.

Bernard Maisner may have a more rigorous definition of what qualifies as art as his work with “contemporary illuminated manuscripts”, as he coins his genre, was exhibited and sold for many years at a prominent gallery in Manhattan.

"This Way Up is the Way Down"

In a true homage to the original illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, Bernard Maisner actually works in vellum, which is nearly impossible (and very expensive) to come by. When the restorer of a famed New York museum stepped down, she bequeathed him a very large amount of vellum. Illuminated manuscripts were created with the intention of serving as a guide and religious compass, and the artists who crafted the works used their ideas of the invisible or unseen, like heaven and hell, to illustrate their pages. Maisner’s artwork is interested in exploring the connection between emotions and the literal, or the physical expression of the often unquantifiable. Therein, his work truly is a modern or secular adaptation of the ancient art.

From top: Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry and a Byzantine illuminated manuscript depicting Saints Cyril and Methodius; I think the aesthetic connection between all of these very different works, including Maisner's and Klimt's, is quite striking.

Maisner drew a number of collectors over the years, but became increasingly jaded to the political racket that often resides behind the altruistic facade of the art world. This sentiment precipitated his foray into the world of paper.

He launched his line in 2000, telling New York Magazine that he set out to create the most “beautiful stationery he could imagine”. I daresay he has succeeded.

Whether or not Bernard Maisner considers his stationery art, it is incontestable that the hand behind the paper is that of an artist, which is what renders his work so superior to every other stationer in business today. The Paper Trail salutes you, Mr. Maisner!

Zuber's Paper America

2010-03-04T09:23:00.000-08:00

I remember the first wallpaper I fell for. It was Zuber’s panoramic Vues d’Amerique du Nord and it hung as the background in my grandparents’ federal-style dining room.

I love this candid of my grandparents-- so rare!

Jean-Julien Deltil designed the paper for Zuber et Cie in 1834. Zuber crafted the paper using a multitude of hand carved blocks and colors. The Frenchman’s scenes of free blacks engaged in trade, dressed in finery, and residing happily alongside their white counterparts presented an idealized (bordering on utopian) view of the newly born country, which may have been intended as a slight to the English as much as it was a glorification of the Americans’ nascent democratic nation.

The contiguous scenes in my grandparents’ dining room of Niagara Falls, Boston Harbor, West Point, and the New York Bay went beyond the temporal narrative of simple toile—the colors, the movement of the people depicted, and the paysage set on such a large scale rendered it an active tableau, as though it were ever changing. It made you feel as though there were cities, towns, and vistas in the background yet to be stumbled upon. Jackie Kennedy must have had a similar fascination for this fantastic representation of Jacksonian America when she selected the same pattern to cover the diplomatic reception room at the White House.

There are few wallpaper companies left in the world that still utilize hand carved blocks. Adelphi Paper Hangings, based in Sharon Springs, NY and founded in 1999, represents a rare revival of traditional methods.

They specialize in restoration work as well as reproductions of historic early American wallpaper, which was often inspired by English and French designs. Using the archives of institutions like the Smithsonian, Musée du Papier Peint (based in Rixheim, like Zuber), Sturbridge Village, and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, they have revived not just the patterns of early American paper, but the nearly extinct practice of creating handmade wallpaper. It’s sad to contemplate the amount of craftsmanship we have lost in our mechanized culture, and I am beyond thrilled to see a company like Adelphi picking up the mantle of real wallpaper production.

Doesn't this damask seem wonderfully contemporary? If only we paid mind to the troves of wealth we have hidden beneath the layers of an old wall. This particular paper was discovered at the Thomas Everard House in Williamsburg and exemplifies the mid 18th century tastes for large floral patterns (which are still preferred today!). Thanks to Adelphi, we are reuniting with some fantastic and forgotten patterns that should never have been lost, reminding us that good design is always recycled.

Chinoiserie has also experienced a renaissance of sorts; de Gournay's hand-painted silk panels are truly works of wall art. My mother has her foyer covered in it (the women in my family all suffer from wallpaperphilia, which isn't a word but really ought to be) and wouldn't dream of nailing anything more to its abundant design.

I just adore this menagerie-- it nearly chirps off the wall, and my fantasy bedroom would certainly be covered in it, in an homage to Pauline de Rothschild's famed bedroom.

This image captures the spirit of the paper, as though she is quietly peeking in on a verdant garden, full of life, and is fearful to interrupt it. Really, this is exactly what wallpaper should accomplish. It should transform a space into its own particular cosmos. When I see pixellated wallpaper (which is what they nearly all are, now) it just diminishes that often transcendent moment when you walk into a covered room.

de Gournay individually hand paints their silk panels and adheres them to a paper backing, which must in turn be installed by a specialist. Over the past six years or so, these panels have been popping up in the projects of many designers, from Miles Redd to Bunny Williams. It's lovely to see the revival (albeit niche) this genre is experiencing, but I wish there were more Adelphis, Zubers, and de Gournays out there. Hand crafted wallpaper is certainly an art, and I hope these artisanal companies reaffirm its rightful position as such.

Post for the People

2010-02-22T19:10:00.000-08:00

A Letter to Heger

On Sunday morning, as I sipped coffee and perused the Business section of the Times, I happened upon an article by Randall Stross about the debut of inexpensive letter-sending in 1840s England, which, non-coincidentally, prompted a phenomenon (with Pandora’s box-like scope) known as junk mail. Until the 1830s, it was the recipient’s duty to pony up the fee for any letter received, making sending a letter to anyone less than well off a rather discourteous vanity. Stross mentions that a popular form of inexpensive communication before the postal reforms was sending a newspaper in lieu of an actual letter, thereby alleviating the sender of having to write. I imagine this to be something like receiving an email forward-- sometimes worthwhile and amusing, but generally pesky and impersonal.

The British and American “flat rate” policy change of the 1840s democratized letter writing and truly brought communication to the masses. The article points out that in fact, the post ran quite frequently—more frequently, especially in cities, than I had thought. David M. Henkin, a UCLA history professor whom Stross quotes, suggests that the contemporary reader has an inflated concept of how eloquent 19th century writers were as one only really has the opportunity to read excerpts from “famous, articulate people”, whose letters have been “preserved and selected for publication”. With the ease of a regular post, people didn’t need to labor over their every word.

While this seems somewhat obvious, I think Stross doesn’t quite capitalize on one point I find ultimately the most relevant: that these articulate and insightful letters written by noteworthy people do exist. It seems like Henkin (or the way Stross presents his opinion) is begrudging us bibliophiles the intimacy these letters allow us.

I can’t help thinking about my beloved Brontës, whose published letters brought me closer to my deity of authors, Charlotte. While her oeuvre, presented by the more gender- palatable Currer Bell, has allowed me to draw conclusions as to the writer behind the fair hand, it is her private letters as Charlotte Brontë that have ultimately brought me closer to a mind I revere and love.

Perhaps reading a private epistle is a type of voyeurism, but at least it’s honest. An intimate letter does not have the glossy patina of a calculated, self-promoting autobiography, nor does it bear the fingerprint of an innuendo-laden biography, more often boasting the agenda of the writer than the subject. A letter meant for the eyes of the recipient has a truth, a personality, and a life that lives on its very pages, saved for the sake of posterity by someone who valued the impression it left.

So while I am not insinuating that junk mail or spam is a woe of the digital age or that perhaps people don’t always write as beautifully as they could because the lines of communication are too readily available, I do believe we are starting to lose the words of our lives. Everything we write to one another disappears in the ether of an email account. Unfettered to the tangible, the thoughts we commit to words won’t live past the moment they are received in someone’s inbox. And I’d rather the slop of the unpracticed hand than the anesthetized Helvetica, Times New Roman, and Arial size 12.

Perhaps historians, many years from now, will mine the email troves of the deceased future illustrious, though privacy laws make that idea hard to fathom. Will our Facebook pages extol our souls’ voices a century from now? If that is our only recourse for memory, I’d rather be forgotten.

Gutenberg vs. the Master of Cleves... Oh my!

2010-02-18T09:32:00.000-08:00

I recently visited the Morgan Library exhibit, "Demons and Devotion: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves". It was titillatingly gorgeous. A book of hours is infrequently pulled apart for maintenance, so to witness one in its entirety during one of its "fine-tunings" (in this instance to put it in its original sequence) was quite exciting for a medieval art lover such as myself.

Wealth, in the 15th century, was flaunted vis-à-vis religious devotion. What could be more devout than shouldering the expense of commissioning a highly skilled master artist to "illuminate" your prayer guide leading you through your compulsory seven daily prostrations to the Lord? Little else would demonstrate such religious ardour, or wealth. A work of this scope took decades to complete. Most books of hours were not completed by one, singular hand. A work of such prodigious proportions had to be commissioned out by the master to usually lesser apprentice hands. But there is barely any inconsistency in style evinced by the Cleves book. This Netherlandish Master, whoever he was, had a depth of talent that is manifested in the grandiosity and complexity of the minutiae.

Scenes range from whimsically rendered mundane visions of daily life:

To Boschian damnation nightmares:

European artists of the Middle Ages loved to place Jesus in their own socio, political, and architectural context, which I liken to a contemporary artist sticking Jesus in jeans and flannel (I bet Jesus would love flannel) and supplanting him on a Brooklyn-bound Q line listening to an ipod blasting psalms. It's just difficult, I think, to comprehend the perspective of the 15th century viewer who was lucky enough to view this work of art. It must have resonated as modern and contemporary despite its familiar story line.

The Holy Trinity chilling in a high gothic chapel:

I delight in thinking that this thing of beauty, this vellum book, could be equated in modern terms to a dressing room full of couture gowns, one for each evening, wrought over decades upon decades by the hands of Yves Saint Laurent himself (may he rest in peace!). It's difficult to put in perspective the status symbol that this book represented. Imagine a book connoting such worth in 21st century America?

The debut of Gutenberg's press was contemporaneous to the execution of the Cleves jewel. Did the Master of Cleves fear for his craft when this revolutionary news spread across Europe? Was he threatened or did he perhaps view this technological development as newfangled folly, something that would never supplant the old tradition of hand to material?

I can't help but wonder.

Homage

2010-02-18T09:14:00.000-08:00

Borges famously imagined his paradise to be a "kind of library", presumably for the voluminous amount of books he'd wish to spend his eternity amongst.

I feel you, Jorge Luis.

I’m having more than a bit of difficulty accepting the paper free world we are heedlessly navigating towards, and I’ll tell you why. I love the dry, grainy feel of paper between my fingers. I relish opening my door each morning to a freshly printed copy of the New York Times on my welcome mat, and I don’t even mind the black ink it leaves on the balls of my fingers. It is with nothing short of glee that I open a hand written note and nothing less than satisfaction that I send one off. The odor of aged, read and reread, yellowing books soothes me with familiarity. And lest I forget the newly published paperback-- the fresh jacket holds sway that anything is possible.

I gather I may sound like an ornery octogenarian wagging my finger at “youngsters” and saying things the likes of “when I was your age”, but I’m not. I am a child of the early eighties and I love physical print.

I am not blind to the irony of celebrating paper on a blog. The internet falls nothing short of a terribly efficient, expedient platform and I’m not saying I don’t appreciate its vast advantages. But I can’t help lament what I see as the inevitable destruction of a paper culture that has largely defined what we are as a society.

The kindle will never have the soul of a real book. I never will feel the writer attached to the antiseptic print of an email. And I will never choose to read a magazine online, though I fear that option will be taken from me sooner rather than later.

Here’s to my long-standing and loyal love affair with paper in all of its glorious forms!