News of the Grabhorn Institute
The Grabhorn Institute is the nonprofit umbrella over Arion Press and M & H Type, engaged in education and preservation efforts. Our programs include a lecture series, exhibitions, tours of the production facility, and apprenticeships in typecasting, letterpress printing, and book binding. Here is the 2009 Report Letter to supporters summarizing some of the Institute's many recent activities.
NEWS OF THE GRABHORN INSTITUTE AND ARION PRESS 2008-2009
This past year reminds us of what Dickens wrote about the best and worst of times. The recession has strained our daily operations, forcing staff cutbacks and intensified fundraising efforts for the Grabhorn Institute, which has suffered a 40 percent drop in contributions. At the same time, the pace of our creative projects has never been more energetic.
Years of preparation for the Arion Press edition of Don Quixote come to fruition in November with the publication of Book One of a two-volume work of more than 1,000 pages, printed by letterpress and bound by hand. With more than eighty full-page illustrations by William T. Wiley, this classic of world literature will be one of the landmark works of Arion Press, on the scale of its editions of Melville’s Moby-Dick and Joyce’s Ulysses.
In August, we held our first summer workshop for college students, the Grabhorn Fellows. Working with the College Book Art Association, we brought outstanding students from across the country to the Press for a week of study with our production staff and field trips to Bay Area collections. Our vintage Columbian hand press was restored to working order by Fred Voltmer and Mark Knudson in time to be used by the Fellows. The response of the participants was enthusiastic. The workshop was organized following Andrew Hoyem’s and Diana Ketcham’s attendance at the College Book Art Association convention at the University of Iowa in January 2009. Professor Kathy Walkup of Mills College spearheaded the selection process.
In the fall of 2008, we celebrated the release of Arion Press’s edition of the poetry of Robert Duncan, The Structure of Rime, with etchings by Frank Lobdell, at the International Fine Print Dealers Association annual print fair at New York’s Park Avenue Armory, with a reception for our East Coast friends at the newly restored Grolier Club. This trip was the occasion for meeting with artist Julie Mehretu about her drawings for the poetry of Sappho, which are now underway. In January, we participated in the Los Angeles Fine Print Fair.
The Duncan edition was followed in the spring by the first independent collection of The Nachman Stories by Leonard Michaels, with essays by Robert Hass and Robert Pinsky, among others. In August, the fiftieth anniversary edition of Evan S. Connell’s novel Mrs. Bridge was published, with 68 photographs of women and domestic interiors by the New York artist Laurie Simmons. Andrew Hoyem traveled to Santa Fe in August to assist Connell with the signing of the book.
Meanwhile, artists Kiki Smith and Raymond Pettibon have been at the Press to work on projects. Pettibon settled in to a nearby motel for a few days this summer, attending Giants games and making drawings for an edition of the pulp fiction classic South of Heaven by Jim Thompson. Kiki Smith made use of both our photocopy machine and scanner to copy locks of her own hair, while she and Andrew Hoyem worked on the format for a book that would juxtapose images of hair with verses from the Scottish-born San Francisco poet Helen Adam’s ballad “I Love My Love”, with its Medusa theme. Another distinguished visitor to the Press this year was New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman.
In April, the Grabhorn Institute held its sixth annual Spring Benefit Dinner honoring a major contemporary artist. This year’s honoree was photographer Stephen Shore, following William T. Wiley, Mel Kendrick, Martin Puryear, Wayne Thiebaud, and Jim Dine. The artist contributed a set of color photographs of printing and binding equipment at the Press, published in a limited edition as “The Equipment Series”, proceeds from the sale of which will benefit the Grabhorn Institute.
We participated in the CODEX international book arts conference at UC Berkeley, hosting a cocktail party and tour for out-of-town visitors, in addition to taking a booth at the book fair. A separate event was held for book collector members of the New York Grolier Club. In connection with the Martin Puryear print exhibition at the Fine Arts Museums, Andrew Hoyem addressed their Graphic Arts Council.
The Grabhorn Institute lecture series opened with a celebration of the 400th anniversary of the birth of poet John Milton, on December 9 (the exact date), with readings and an exhibition of historic copies of Paradise Lost, including the Baskerville edition. Highlights of the series included the talk “Abraham Lincoln as a Writer” by Lincoln biographer Fred Kaplan, UCLA scholar and book artist Johanna Drucker speaking on “Writing as a Printer, Printing as a Writer” (with comments and a musical interlude by singer Syd Straw), and Inner Light Books publisher Charles Martin speaking on “Reviving Quaker Classics for the 21st Century”. A distinguished group of critics took the podium to talk about the work of writer Leonard Michaels, including Robert Hass, Frederick Crews, and Wendy Lesser. A similar event was held in New York City in November. At the party for the Robert Duncan edition, poets Michael Palmer and Bill Berkson read from Duncan’s poetry. Recent partners for our lecture series included PEN/West, the English-Speaking Union, and Mrs. Dalloway’s Books.
Two new apprentices have joined us this year: in the type foundry, David Johnston, a printmaker and graduate of Pacific Lutheran University, and in the bindery, Anna Haglin, an artist and honors graduate of Smith College. Liz Conley, a graduate of the Academy of Art College, is a new bindery assistant. Journeyman Sarah Songer and apprentice Brian Ferrett continue their training in the bindery and type foundry, respectively. In September, Brian and David assisted graduate apprentice Kenny Howard at Roadworks, the San Francisco Center for the Book’s annual community street fair.
The regular demonstration tours continue every Thursday afternoon, supplemented by special tours for classes from Mills College, California College of Art, City College of San Francisco, Academy of Art College, the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, the University of Nevada Reno, Kala Institute, Foothill College, and the Bay School, as well as for groups from Pomona College, the Oakland Museum, the Cantor Art Center at Stanford, the Fine Arts Museums Graphic Arts Council, and Sixty Plus, among others.
In September, Andrew Hoyem traveled to Washington, D. C. to meet with institutions that are considering a retrospective exhibition of Arion Press and to attend the opening of “What’s It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (running through January 24, 2010), where the Arion Press print and book The Voices of Marrakesh are being exhibited. Among many other Arion Press editions used in library and museum exhibitions this year are two books with photographer Michael Kenna (The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Silverado Squatters) in the Kenna retrospective at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (through January 24, 2010), Cane with Martin Puryear at the San Francisco de Young Museum, Tristram Shandy with John Baldessari in the Logan Gallery during the Baldessari print retrospective at the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco (through November 8), and The Apocalypse with Jim Dine in “Extraordinary Editions: Artist’s Books of the 20th Century” at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (through May 23, 2010).
We cannot relax our efforts as we strive to preserve this unique historic facility for future generations. Your involvement as a donor is crucial. Please think of us as you consider year-end giving. To contribute, please print, fill in, and mail a contribution form:
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or donate securely online now:
GRABHORN INSTITUTE
1802 Hays Street, The Presidio, San Francisco, California 94129
Telephone: 415-668-2548; Fax: 415-668-2550
E-mail: arionpress@arionpress.com