Endnotes¹


Sidney Hirschman
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    Artwork

    1
    2
    3
    4
    A Selection of Poems by Wendy Cope
    Letterpress book
    5" x 8" x 1/4"

    Statement Wednesday, March 23, 2022 11:48 pm New Haven, CT I was tonight about to begin the process of printing out large press sheets for my book on the Vandercook, a step that comes after months of planning and typesetting, when the ink distribution motor gave out on me. Now, at nearly midnight, sitting covered in grease and ink at this impasse in my project, seems a good a time as ever to write my statement. The book itself is not the whole of the art. Certainly, it is the work, or some part of it, but the art — my thesis — is a celebration of printing through its practice. It is the time I spend in the Press sorting thin spaces so students can have an easier time of typesetting; it is the energy that comes to me suddenly, miraculously, when someone needs help printing, even when I am bone-tired. It is the tympan sheet, accidentally printed on over and over again, bearing witness to dozens of projects at a time. It is ruining my favorite pair of pants with grease stains climbing halfway into the Vandercook to get a better view of the stalled drive shaft. It is all the art, and it is all the work, the joyful stewardship of an ancient process in an impossible place, and if it produces a little book of poetry that is nice to hold and look at and read, then that is all the better. I am not worried, now — odd, because it’s in my nature to worry, and something has indeed gone majorly wrong only weeks away from the show. But I am on solid ground. I feel safe in here. Perhaps more than at any other time in this process, I am assured things will turn out — they always do. I love the Press. I think the Press loves me.

    Student

    letters, print, class, pick, work, last semester, case, type, distributing, poet, monotype, typeface, year, wait, antimony, book, nameplate, design, letterpress, semester
    “And this is also poetry. Which is funny because I don't like poetry. But I don't like deciding where lines are gonna break even more. So I don't have to choose if it's poetry.”
    “Honestly, I like setting more than anything else.”
    “This is a draft for a letter I wrote to this poet because she's still alive. And she doesn't know I'm doing this. So my advisor was like, ‘maybe you want to tell her?’ I'm like, I don't want to tell her in case she's like, ‘Don't do that, like don't do that. I'm horribly offended by this entire idea. I never, like you shouldn't do it. You have a cease and desist.’ But I wrote her a letter anyway. And I sent it along with a broadside that I did last semester.”
    Endnotes¹

    Sidney Hirschman
  • *
    •

    Artwork

  • 1
    •
  • 2
    •
  • 3
    •
  • 4
    •
    A Selection of Poems by Wendy Cope
    Letterpress book
    5" x 8" x 1/4"

    Statement Wednesday, March 23, 2022 11:48 pm New Haven, CT I was tonight about to begin the process of printing out large press sheets for my book on the Vandercook, a step that comes after months of planning and typesetting, when the ink distribution motor gave out on me. Now, at nearly midnight, sitting covered in grease and ink at this impasse in my project, seems a good a time as ever to write my statement. The book itself is not the whole of the art. Certainly, it is the work, or some part of it, but the art — my thesis — is a celebration of printing through its practice. It is the time I spend in the Press sorting thin spaces so students can have an easier time of typesetting; it is the energy that comes to me suddenly, miraculously, when someone needs help printing, even when I am bone-tired. It is the tympan sheet, accidentally printed on over and over again, bearing witness to dozens of projects at a time. It is ruining my favorite pair of pants with grease stains climbing halfway into the Vandercook to get a better view of the stalled drive shaft. It is all the art, and it is all the work, the joyful stewardship of an ancient process in an impossible place, and if it produces a little book of poetry that is nice to hold and look at and read, then that is all the better. I am not worried, now — odd, because it’s in my nature to worry, and something has indeed gone majorly wrong only weeks away from the show. But I am on solid ground. I feel safe in here. Perhaps more than at any other time in this process, I am assured things will turn out — they always do. I love the Press. I think the Press loves me.

    Student