Lugubrious Distance
Experiencing mourning & longing for North Carolina,
almost to an exaggerated degree.

Lugubrious Distance was initiated in 1998 as a project
for the year-long Editions class at Columbia College
Center for Book and Paper Arts in Chicago. The book
is based around my extreme longing for my home
state. The text and illustrations are all created by
Ellen Knudson and letterpress printed on a
Vandercook Universal I. The book was officially
completed in 2010 — and I still miss N.C.

(Detail of chapter and color illustration
from Lugubrious Distance.)

Wild Girls Redux: An Operator's Manual
Wild Girls Redux: An Operator's Manual
is the revisit of a book created almost 12 years ago.
The original book, How to Become One of the Original
Wild Girls, was designed and printed in 1997. That book
is a playful list of imaginary "rules" that "should" be
followed to achieve Wild Girl status. The rules are
light-hearted, but they have the sting of recognitio
that most women realize to be sexist in nature.
Wild Girls Redux reexamines these issues, using
motorcycle road and driving rules as text along with
images of pin-up girls and industrial schematic
illustrations. The tactile materials of the book
include pink heart paper doilies, white doily
placemats, flocked paper covers, and green office
ledger papers. The intent of the "Operator's Manual"
is tongue-in-cheek and provides the ordinary,
mechanical, and absurd rules of how
to operate women.

(Detail of book cover, envelope, and
book interior shown right)

Wild Girls Redux: An Operator's Manual
Makeready Print
Printed on the Vandercook Universal One letterpress
from photopolymer plates for the book Wild Girls
Redux: An Operator's Manual. Makeready entails
the set-up of the press in preparation of printing. This
print is created by proofing each print run on these
pieces of paper, building a layer of ink each time.
The result is this colorful, multi-layered print.

Six ink colors; many, many runs through the press.
Printed on Arches Text paper. Edition of 25 prints.

(Detail of print shown right)

2009 Honors Lecture Series
at Mississippi State University
14" x 20" poster for the lecture by Sarah Vowell.
Letterpress printed on Fabriano Elle Erre paper.
Three runs on the press.

Letterpress Print

No Place In the Shade
This relief letterpress print is a commissioned piece
for my friends Lynn and Humphrey. The print is inspired
by the title of an article about Cool Papa Bell who was
born in Starkville, Mississippi in 1903. Bell was a negro
league baseball player throughout his life and was incredibly good, but he never found his "place in the shade." He never
got the life that he could have had being born today, with
his level of ability. The first paragraph of the article (written
in 1973 by Mark Kram, reprinted in 1994) is really the inspiration for the print. Here's the link to the article:

Sports Illustrated Vault article,
"No Place in the Shade".

The piece isn't really about Cool Papa Bell, but about that
idea of not being able to enjoy a some place because things
about it just beat you down. The print is beautiful,
I think, but the sentiment is not.

NEW
Set of Notecards

Ciao Notecards
Set of 5 letterpress printed cards with envelopes.
Printed from linoleum cuts and photopolymer type.

 

Printed from collagraph, linoleum reduction, photopolymer
plates, and handset metal and wood types. 20" x 14". Edition of 50 prints. (Image above is a detail of the full print.)
$50.00

 

5.325" x 4" cards, 5-Bar sized envelopes
Packaged in a clear plastic gift box.
$15.00 per set.

 

Publication

500 Handmade Books
Three of my books are featured in this new publication
from Lark Books. The book is part of their 500 Series
of books about crafts. The publication provides a wide
variety of lovely work from many different types of
book artists. Available at your local bookstore
or various online shops.
Buy a copy!

 

A Strawberry in the Snow

A Strawberry in the Snow is a collection of poems written by Leah Eisenbeis and illustrated by Ellen Knudson. The linocuts of animals and plants throughout the book are done in reaction to Leah's poems. The book also includes the text of a few emails exchanged between these two friends.

Typeset in Bembo and Incognito types letterpress printed from photopolymer plates on Hahnemuhle Biblio paper. The two large fold-outs in each book are printed on Kitakata. The binding is french-sewn and bound in a full-cloth, built-in groove, flat-back case. Each copy of the book is contained in a handmade clamshell box. The cloth for both the book and box is decorated with stitching done on my Janome sewing machine.

4.75” x 6.5”, 60 pages with map foldouts. Edition of 75, Signed by the author and illustrator. 2007.

$325.00

Poem from "A Strawberry in the Snow":

This Isn't a Sonnet At All Is It
(To a Chronic Alphabetizer)

the word "Advent," seeing an Afghan hound,
Bread with Cranberries, a Deer's flash of white,
the Elegance of Fish, Goats' Hooves, the sound
of Ice when water's underneath, Jellyfish, Kingfishers, the Light
of candles in a Mirror, two lights, but Not two, One.
Paul i have a Question, aRe you a Strawberry in the Snow?
someThing so Unexpected, or a snowflake in the sun,
will you stain me red with sweetness, white with glow?
my hands feel like Virgins on your skin,
chickadees. how i mix the World and you!
but i eXpect that—the line between is thin.
the world inside You, a hidden Zinnia's heart—I do
very much want to get there, but to be a part,
I should demure to your system. so here i alphabetize my heart.

 

Above:
Self-Dual (How to Walk a 30,000 Mile Tightrope)
2006

letterpress printing, letterpress, vandercook, handmade books, artists books, printing, book-binding

Above:
Full page of 9 business cards, untrimmed.
Letterpress printed on Indian Khadi Gunny Sack paper from
photopolymer plates, 3 press runs.

Below:
Trimmed business cards
2007

 

Poster for Honors Lecture Series
at Mississippi State University
14" x 20" poster printed from a very large
photopolymer plate! The typeface is Helvetica Neue
Condensed Black. I designed the poster before I saw
the documentary "Helvetica". Now that I've seen the
movie, I'm more convinced that it's the right choice.
(ref. Paula Scher's comments) Letterpress printed
on Fabriano Elle Erre paper. Four runs on the press.