This piece shocks me now with its elaborate form. No time or budget for that anymore. I wanted to do a letterpress invitation to reflect the printmaking background of this artist, and then have an offset reproduction as an insert. Can't remember who sent me to Elias Roustom and Em Press, but I will be forever grateful. We struggled like crazy with the cover. What I'd made in Photoshop was a ghosted silhouette of a Kollwitz crayon self portrait, with a very coarse halftone dot applied. But on press with the polymer plate, but we couldn't get the halftone to degrade nicely at the edges. After starting to edit halftone dots by hand, Elias decided to add some tone to the whole cover, thus eliminating the issue. Worked perfectly.
The offset insert presented an entirely unnecessary addtional set of problems. I decided to use a small independent printshop run by an artist who also did letterpress and silkscreen. This printer shall not be named. After endless problems and many days of delays, I had them printed digitally, by whom I can't remember, but it must have been my earliest use of digital (laser) output for a real job. I rather liked the contrast with the letterpress.
The only other thing to say about this job is that one should note that it's opening was one day after the World Trade towers fell. "From many wounds you bleed, oh people."
JK, December 2010
