Lost Art Press

Introducing ‘The Book Book’

Posted on by Lost Art Press
One of the typesetting machines on display at the Gutenberg Museum.

While most woodworkers have built a basic bookcase, few have paused to consider the long, complicated and interesting relationship between the history of the book itself and the shelves, cases, stands and lecterns that hold it.

Unlike most furniture, which is designed to suit the human form, bookcases are based on the standard sizes of books, which just might be related to the size of a medieval sheep or calf (seriously).

Parchment making. From Die Hausbucher der Nurnberger

Kieran Binnie and I have decided to plumb the intertwined history of the book and the casework that displays and protects it. This book, which we are calling “The Book Book,” will explore the origins of bookmaking and the allied development of bookcases, from the time when books were handwritten and chained to the furniture all the way up to the ubiquitous IKEA bookcase.

Along the way, Kieran and I will build some of the more interesting projects we dig up from the historical record. As of now, we have a list of a dozen projects for the book, but I’m sure that will change as our research progresses.

Kieran’s initial explorations have already turned up information about book production that – as a publisher – is quite shocking. Most publishers (me included) think the birth of large-scale book manufacturing occurred when the Chinese and Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type. That’s just not so.

There is lots of evidence that specialized book manufacturing was thriving for hundreds of years before Gutenberg – and not just for royals and the wealthy. And so our search for the earliest origins of the bookcase also will extend way before Gutenberg.

To be sure, we have a lot of work ahead of us. Kieran has completed his work on “The Life & Work of John Brown,” and the remainder of that book is in the hands of Christopher Williams. So Kieran has been diving deep into the historical record and is pulling me along for the ride.

As always, we’ll be sharing the stuff we learn here on the blog. In addition to the research and building, I’m looking forward to designing this book, which will likely resemble some of the early books I got to see on a tour of the Gutenberg museum in Mainz, Germany, in 2017. So expect lots of non-standard typography, layouts and even book structure.

— Christopher Schwarz and Kieran Binnie (visit his blog Over the Wireless)

Caption Challenge and the Winner Is…

Posted on by saucyindexer

Happy winner Bill Rainford with his pack horse William.

The winner of a Lost Art Press bandana (man scarf) and Chester Cornett button is ‘speed poet’ Bill Rainford. Within 46 minutes of the posting of the Caption Challenge Bill submitted a four-line poem capturing the pleasures and perils of living in a tree stump:

”There was a young couple who lived in a stump/They had so many children they clearly like to hump/With only one room and only one bed/They should grow an addition as that tree isn’t dead.”

There were 233 entries that arrived before the cut off and there are five that I have selected as Honor Mentions:

Bob Brown submitted, “Man leaves woman in trunk.” A nice murder-mystery vibe and another reminder to me to never buy a very large suitcase.

Samuel Holland submitted, “Why would I ask for a tree bedroom house? It makes no sense.” I like puns and this also reminds me of a guy I ran into once. He kept saying “tree” on the very tree-less waterfront in Jersey.

immltasbi submitted a very short short story that reminded me of Tom Bombadil from ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’: “Let’s cut a tree, to make a home. A branch for spoons and other for the plates…”

Dave was the first to caption ala Chester Cornett: “wey make ur hows ahhom are heit cant B mad.”

Lastly, to award outstanding perseverance, an Honor Mention goes to J.C aka BLZeebub for contributing 14 entries. I want this person on my side in a fork fight.

I will contact the Honorable Mentionees and send you a small thank you for your efforts.

Thanks to all for participating and Happy New Year!

–Suzanne Ellison

Quit Your Day Job?

Posted on by Lost Art Press

From the advice column “Work Friend” in The New York Times, Dec. 31, 2018

You Can’t Beat Them (You Will Be Arrested)

What are your thoughts on friends who leave high-paying jobs to pursue their creative dreams, then end up broke and complain about it?

— Brooklyn

Obviously, we must all tell them to shut up and get back to work on their canvases and scripts. I thank these folks every day for keeping me on the straight and narrow. As a chronic quitter, I’m the most likely to blow out of Dodge and suit up for a six-month bike trek down the Continental Divide or a nine-month woodworking apprenticeship, only to end up an incompetent waitron in Silver City, N.M. But now we have Instagram, and we can spy on our sad, failed basket-weavers together.

Time, though, will have the last laugh on all our choices. A great novelist is one who quit his job in time; a failed painter is just one who hasn’t died soon enough.

God Bless You, Mr. Rosenthal

Posted on by Lost Art Press

My final blog entry for Popular Woodworking Magazine is here.

For the last 22 years, one month and 29 days, I gave the magazine the best work I could do. They own it now – every word. I don’t know what they’ll do with the blog and the hundreds of articles I wrote, but that’s OK. That was the bargain.

I am not walking away empty-handed. There’s something I took from the relationship that I own. Actually two things: I learned how to run a publishing business. And I learned how not to run a publishing business.

When I started at the magazine in 1996, F&W Publications, Inc. was a technologically backward company. Not everyone had computers, and no one had Internet access. Company announcements were made constantly using a PA system. It was like working at a Greyhound bus terminal.

The pay was terrible – I took a 23 percent pay cut when I signed on. But the company’s finances were golden. It was a family-run company with zero debt. They owned their building outright. They paid their invoices and bills on the day they arrived. And most of the managers had been there for decades.

It was a company with odd, odd rules. Every day had a “quiet hour” where we weren’t allowed to use our phones. People who cursed in front of a certain family member were fired. You got a Christmas bonus every year. Sometimes it was a tiny amount of money. Sometimes is was a turkey. I couldn’t tell if these were rewards or a sick punishment.

The family demanded that we keep our magazine’s editorial content crafty-oriented and decidedly downmarket.

The Rosenthal family sold the business to venture capitalists, and everything changed. It became all about money. It wasn’t better or worse. Just different. As editors, we were free to do what we wanted with our magazines’ content. We just had to make money. We got better computers (only five years out of date) and pay raises.

And like all money-hungry companies, they started to delay paying people – authors, vendors etc. – to make their quarterly statements look good. They still do.

The company became, in my view, just a big pile of debt.

None of the above statements are criticisms. People are free to run their businesses as they please. But we have the same freedom. That’s why Lost Art Press has never taken a loan. We pay our vendors, authors and contractors immediately and generously. We offer our authors editorial freedom and strive to maintain their voice and point of view (even if it disagrees with ours). We have decent equipment. And we don’t have a quiet hour or bonus poultry.

I am thankful to everyone at F&W for teaching me about the workings, successes and failings of a publishing company, even if they didn’t mean to.

Let’s hope John and I made the right choices. I guess we’ll see in about 20 more years or so.

— Christopher Schwarz

Phase 2 of Willard Street Begins

Posted on by Lost Art Press

Our youngest daughter graduates from high school in May and, if all goes as planned, Lucy and I will move house in July. From the leafy streets of Fort Mitchell, Ky., to the two floors above our storefront in Covington.

That’s not a lot of time. Not only do we have to fix up the living space in Covington, we have to get our house in Fort Mitchell ready to sell. As a result, I’m dedicating every Sunday possible to carpentry, painting and generally divesting us of accumulating stuff during 22 years in one place.

I won’t be blogging about this stuff much – I know you are here for woodworking, and I am, too. But as a result of this work, you might hear less from me on the blog and more from our other contributors (and a huge cheer went up in the land).

So here we go.

— Christopher Schwarz

The bar area when we bought the storefront four years ago. Just a reminder that we have come a long way.