BLOCK & BURINspring 2011 #45

Title page photograph: Sylvia Pixley’s wood engraving tools.

DEPARTMENTS

Treasurer's Notes by Bill Myers 4

Call for Bundle #46, Autumn 2011 4

Bundle Participation? 39

A Calendar of Days 40

New Members 42

Changes & Updates 44

Announcements & Notes 45

Advertisements 49

BLOCK BURINNo. 45 Spring 2011

& FEATURES

Notes from Jimby Jim Horton 5

Full Circle, Hilary Paynter Wood EngravingsBook Review by William Rueter 7

Burin Questions & Answersby Tony Drehfal 15

Old Tool Boxesby Judith Jaidinger 22

WEN Bundle # 45, Spring 2011 26

Block & Burin is the newsletter of theWood Engravers’ Network (WEN)

This issue: Block & Burin # 45, Spring 2011 Cover: Carl Montford & the Rain City EngraversCopy Editor: William RueterFor information on Block & Burin contact: Tony Drehfal, Editor,W221 East Wisconsin Ave , Nashotah, WI 53058Phone: 262-367-5191E-mail: adrehfal@wctc eduFor information on WEN contact: James Horton, WEN Organizer3999 Waters Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48103Phone: 734-665-6044E-mail: Jimhorton@sbcglobal net

Services of WEN:• Twice yearly mailing/print exchange

(April & November)• Membership Guide• Resources and Materials Guide• Lending Library• Workshops and Exhibitions• Website: www woodengravers net

Since 1994, WEN is an organization for the education and enjoyment of relief printmaking and in particular engraving upon end-grain wood

Block & Burin uses the Stone Print typeface family Sumner Stone graciously donated the fonts to WEN

The Editor reserves the right to edit copy to fit as necessary.

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Treasurer’s Notesby Bill Myers

Call for Bundle #46Autumn, 2011

• Contributions are due by August 15, 2011.• Send bundle contributions to Sylvia Pixley, 601

Borgess Ave , Monroe, MI 48162• Quantity: Minimum of 76 (one extra for the Ar-

chive) Our membership is at 180 at this writing should you wish to distribute to all members

• Size: Maximum 9" x 12" (We are mailing in a 10" x 13" envelope) • Anyone submitting prints is ensured of receiving

entire Bundles and moving to the front of the line for future Bundles

• We recommend sending printing information with your contributions This is just a suggestion; not mandatory by any means This information accompanies your print which is stored in the Princeton University Graphic Arts Library This archive holds all WEN material

• We encourage members to sign-up for producing a cover for Block & Burin. We will cover expenses

• We welcome (and need) your submissions of articles, interviews, ads and announcements for publication in Block & Burin. Send articles, ads to,

Tony Drehfal W221 East Wisconsin Ave Nashotah, WI 53058, USA e-mail: adrehfal@wctc edu

Please send written submissions as unformatted text files via email, it makes the layout far more simple Please make an effort to use Microsoft Word for your written submissions Images should be mailed, or contact Tony for scanning specifics

Treasurer’s Report, May 2011

2011 dues and workshop deposits are flowing in, and coming expenses (Block & Burin printing, mailing the bundles, and workshop expenses) are well covered As of the last treasurer’s report (B&B Autumn, 2010), our checking account balance was $5,732 03 The April 5, 2011 checking account statement shows a balance of $8,429 96 All of the increase is dues income, which includes some dona-tions We also have a balance in our PayPal account of $333 86, making a total of $8763 82 By the time of the summer workshop expected expenses will have lowered this balance I will give an update at the workshop for those present I welcome queries and suggestions related to our treasury; contact me at wamyers@stkate edu

Bill Myers

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Notes From Jimby Jim Horton

Someone once told me that a cat has a fairly small brain It is easily overloaded Its sensory organs are certainly fine tuned, but they do not spend a lot of time in logical thinking In contrast, dogs have amazing abilities to comprehend, and new research is just expanding the understanding of how deeply that can go Cats, you will notice, can stop on a dime and just plop down and start licking their paws That is what they do to reset the sensory overload I’ve seen this many times You are playing with the toy, the cat is stalking and batting the toy, and all of a sudden it just stops and starts licking its paws Beatrice, my tortie calico, is an amazing huntress I could stock a biology lab with the things

she brings me Recently, flying squirrels! Bats! Voles, baby rabbits, rats, you name it … and she lays them at my steps She loves to play, but she has this short attention span What could this possibly have to do with wood engraving?

Attention span! There are two things that have happened to me, as I have aged in this instant cul-ture I am so used to instant everything, that when engraving I have to retrain myself to put everything else on the shelf The same goes for drawing In fact, that is why drawing sessions, such as posed models from life, are so useful You are there, and everyone else has the phones turned off, and you can be a part of the collective energy that is focusing I often joke that it is a three-hour period, where all my neuroses disappear One can do this in other ways too A long walk, a yoga session, a back rub … all these are excel-lent ways to turn off the media, and as the hippie Bible stated: “Be here now, or be now here ”

The second is overload I am speaking strictly from my own fatigue Even in college, forty-five years ago, I recall my professors talking about the bombardment of images They likened the advent of modernism to a reaction against realistic imag-ery, and therefore abstraction was the only true and viable arena of art We can argue that another time Di gustibus non est disputandum The point is, we are bombarded with imagery

If it was bad forty years ago, where are we now? I think about the folks in our rural past who spent most of the time in the fields, the barn or the kitchen A trip to town or church was huge … in that they needed some sensory input other than

Beatrice

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the earth tones of their usual surroundings Just think what paintings and polychrome prints did for them Think of the power of a magazine with colored images Think of church with those stained-glass windows! These things get a bit lost when up against Avatar

So it seems that movies are the art of today People can even buy 3-D TVs now We are bringing the world into our living room, without the smells, sounds and feel of an environment We have special effects that just dazzle your eyes Oh Lord, the acting is bad though Please just give me Masterpiece Theater There I can experience subtlety … real emotion that is not enhanced with maudlin or rock music My brain is the flat-line, again, like the cat … slow down and let’s spend some time looking

I recently taught a class down in North Caro-lina John Campbell Folk School is located south of the Smoky Mountains I was among people who live simple and art-filled lives They pretty much did not buy the toys They create and value quiet They make music with fiddles and banjos They haven’t paved the wildflowers I had a class that, despite the difficulties and challenges in drawing for engraving, spent a problem-solving week with me We left hav-ing made new friends, and experienced techniques and tools that they will be hard-pressed to find in many places It haunts me WEN member Nancy Darrel was there She has made her last kiln-firing, and is now exclusively working in printmaking Tom Patterson assisted me Tom jokes that he likes staying under the radar screen He works slowly and

thoughtfully … and not on a sandbag, but holding the block in his hand He spends hours contemplat-ing the drawing, working and re-working it

My travels to these workshops are an adven-ture They get me out of the house I will be at the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers with you all in June In early July, Deborah Mae Broad and I will be teaching at Frogman’s Print & Paper Workshop in South Dakota Apparently we filled a class with 26 students! We will be working hard, but so full of laughs and seeing amazing drawing and printmaking Oh yeah, the legendary bowling tour-nament too In early August, I’ll be at the Augusta Heritage Festival in Elkins, West Virginia I don’t know how I manage to keep this class going, but I seem to have gotten up a class for the last 13 or so years I mean, most of this environment is pickers, dancers and singers But amidst the din we quietly maintain something for the visual arts Lastly, I will be at Bookworks in Asheville in October I am so excited about meeting Laurie Corral, and seeing this now famed location All these venues can be Googled of course

Maybe this winter, I will get down to work on the book on the Sander Company I have all this material, file after file of it, that is historically im-portant and wonderful to see I just need to be like my Beatrice cat, and filter the sensory overload, and focus on it Beware, the phone may be off the hook Actually, it is the God-darned e-mail That has got to go! I will lick my paws and reset the overload

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Full Circle, Hilary Paynter Wood EngravingsBook Review by William Rueter

Hilary Paynter. Full Circle: wood engravings 260 pp Illustrated (ten pages in colour) Woodend Pub-lishing, 2010 Available through Art Matters at the White Lion Street Gallery (http://www artmatters org uk/galleries/hp/book/index htm) £25 paper-back (plus shipping and handling) E-mail info@artmatters.org.uk for order information

Hilary Paynter has produced consistently intriguing and challenging wood engravings for more than forty years Full Circle is a record of her mastery of this most difficult art medium Her work reflects the vision of a skilled artist and the compassion of a dedicated and sensitive human being

Born in Dumfernline, Scotland in 1943, Ms Paynter had an adventurous but somewhat dis-rupted life as the daughter of a naval officer The family moved many times and the constant change of school and inconsistent education made it dif-ficult for her make many lasting friends She was dependent on her family and the self-education she achieved through books

She initially intended to become a sculptor and from 1959 to 1964 she attended the Ports-mouth College of Art, where she studied wood engraving with Gerry Tucker, obtaining a National Diploma in Design Her ability to think in terms of three dimensions has given her wood engrav-ings a remarkable quality Rockpool shows her early command of shapes and textures With Children in the Wood she creates a dark, unknown childhood narrative with simplicity and bold strokes In her professional career of more than 30 years, she has

worked with special-needs children as an educator and educational psychologist, and in many engrav-ings she shows great insight into and understanding of children and youth

Landscapes are a major interest for her She has travelled widely in Switzerland, China, and the USA Her outdoor spaces are usually unpopulated, dramatic, occasionally terrifying Symonds Yat, a panoramic view of the Wye River near Monmouth, is a large Plasticard block, approximately 12 x 16 inches: a good example of Ms Paynter’s use of a

Rockpool (1963) 16 x 12 cm

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wide variety of textures, fascinating perspective, and astonishing detail always in control Glencoe also shows the strength of her work as an engraver of landscapes

Full Circle has arranged more than 500 of Ms Paynter’s engravings thematically The sec-tion entitled Heroic Structures reflects some of her

visual comments on the effects of humankind’s impingement on Nature Bridge in Calabria is a combination of nine views of the Italian bridge: a delightful compilation of abstract shapes and textural combinations

In 1966 Ms Paynter was elected to the Society of Wood Engravers and she has been very active

Symonds Yat (1991) 30.5 x 39 cm

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in the Society of many years In 1984 she helped in the revival of the Society, which had become somewhat moribund after the Second World War, later serving as the Society’s Honorary Secretary and Chairman – encouraging and supporting interest in the medium of wood engraving – all this while raising a young family and studying for her degrees in education psychology

In 1978, with her engravings for poems by Benet Weatherhead, Ms Paynter began exploring book illustration Elm, a riff on a Bewickian sub-ject, shows her versatility with the finest gravers: a seemingly simple skill achieved with incredible subtlely For The Story of Poetry she created more

than 100 engravings She also produced work for some of the Folio Society’s Shakespeare editions The Satyricon shows her skilful treatment of ro-man capitals and her early experience as a sculptor is reflected in the blocking of shapes and figures Legal London Engraved was an opportunity to develop her mastery of characterful architectural rendering within the unforgiving medium of the engraving block In The Texture of the Universe she suggests regeneration through the layering of im-ages Siluria, with its detailed patterning and its

Elm (1978) 12.5 x 9.5 cm

Siluria (2009) 14.5 x 9.5 cm

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profound depiction of nature is among her most accomplished engravings

Ms Paynter has also done work for Gwasy Gregynog, the famous Welsh private press Bwyta’n Te is one of her loveliest small engravings, suggest-ing the drinking of tea as a spiritual experience Her interpretation of animals, combining remarkable observation with skilled use of the graver, pushes her toward Joan Hassall’s world of sensitively-en-graved animals – but here Ms Paynter is totally her own person Another Cat Show is a bravura work: 36 feline portraits on a seven-inch-square block!

Hilary Paynter occasionally uses colour in her engravings with great courage The book contains ten pages of reproductions of her work in three and four colours An engraving of the Spassky Tower in

Bwyta’n Te (1988) 13 x 10.5 cm Another Cat Show (2008) 18 x 18 cm

Another Cat Show (2008) Detail

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the Kremlin is a fascinating print, the sky seeming to be lit with fireworks But Paynter says that plan-ning colour work robs her of the spontaneity she enjoys when she engraves solely for reproduction in black ink

She often works on three or four blocks simul-taneously, moving from one to the other with only broad outlines to suggest composition and ideas: probably a habit acquired when she balanced a professional career with domestic responsibilities Her spontaneity belies her carefully-created images and her highly eclectic body of work

In 2003 she accepted a commission to cel-ebrate the 250th anniversary of Thomas Bewick’s birth with the creation of a mural of enlargements of her engravings as part of Newcastle’s central subway station The Metro Project evolved into 32 blocks, stretching to 22 metres (about 24 yards) with panels bending around the station’s corners Ms Paynter’s blocks were enlarged to roughly ten times their original size At this scale every detail of every engraved stroke is visible It is a measure of her vision, confidence, and skill that the panels appear so consistent

The result is a panoramic view of the highlights of Newcastle-on-Tyne that, for me, is one of the best reasons to enjoy this book Ms Paynter’s skill in linking varying perspectives and angles and creating a flow to her engraved narrative is nothing less than astonishing She combines subjects from the Roman occupation to the Industrial Revolu-tion and contemporary Tyneside life Black Gate is a good example of her style and subject matter, with consistently appealing images of Newcastle She also included small animals and other details in the foreground to amuse and interest children waiting for the subway The Metro Project mural is a remarkable tour-de-force and we are fortunate to study much of it in detail in this book

Ms Paynter has taken on miscellaneous com-missions, facing the difficulties in dealing with clients who don’t know what they want, and has created a number of “rumbustious” bookplates of a mildly erotic nature for friends and clients She has also engraved some bread-and-butter prints

The Metro Project (2004) 2 metres x 22 metres

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for various exhibitions I particularly liked the calm atmosphere of Pensford with its beautiful balance of light and dark

Black Gate (2004) 20 x 20 cm

For many years Hilary Paynter has taken the Christmas season seriously, honouring her recipi-ents with well-conceived engravings on her personal

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Christmas cards She has expressed her own social and political views with them, and also with prints she has made for herself, since she feels most people want to avoid ‘difficult’ subjects In Exile is one of her strongest and most powerful images Based on her impression of the Hoffmann Garden of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, it shows an almost Kafkaesque figure in hiding, overwhelmed by enormous tilted

In Exile (1999) 20 x 25 cm

pillars, surrounded by barely-perceived ghostly shades: an exceedingly dark narrative Perhaps there is hope among the trees growing distantly atop the pillars Ms Paynter’s sensitivity toward children and her experience as a psychologist is brought fully into play – as is her extraordinary engraving of textures and tones and her handling of light and shade For me this is a desert-island engraving, one to re-

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turn to and investigate many times This well-designed book concludes with a chro-

nology and a useful appendix of Ms Paynter’s prints that reinforces her incredible range of subjects and her rich imagination

It seems to me that in the act of engraving in wood one has to juxtapose opposing elements: to create warmth with an essentially cold and rigid medium; to suggest three dimensions using a two-dimensional plane; and to pull light out of darkness In so much of her work Hilary Paynter succeeds admirably in convincing us to follow the artistic vision she has shown for decades

Pensford (1984) 10.5 x 15 cm

Self Portrait engraving (1967) 8 x 5 cm

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Last year I purchased some new burins from McClain’s Printmaking Supplies I noticed that a new E C Lyons spitsticker felt “wrong” in my hands compared to the older burin that I had purchased from Jim Horton I observed that the angle of the handle to the tool’s tip was different between the newer spitsticker and the older one The newer tool had a steeper angle I e-mailed McClain’s, attaching a composite photo I created that visually compared the “new/old” spitsticker angles

Alex at McClain’s replied that she forwarded my e-mail to E C Lyons and wrote; “EC Lyons is more than willing to work with you and other wood engravers on changing the angle of the tang on any-or all-of their engraving tools Brad said that because the tools are made by hand, there will always be slight variations from one to another but they would do their best to make tools with the angle that wood engravers want ”

At the same time I wrote a few e-mails to Jim Horton, and a few other “expert” engravers, includ-ing the photo and asking their opinion about my burins, and inquiring in general about burin shape and angle I also looked through the archive of pho-tos I had taken at the WEN workshops I attended Looking at them, I observed there was a good deal of variety in burin shape and design The responses I

Burin Questions & Answersby Tony Drehfal

received echoed my visual observation: burins vary, engraver’s techniques and methods vary, some folks could work with all sorts of tools, others were quite particular in their tool’s shape I received a sort of consensus that the new tool that I had received was too steeply angled

A few days later, I wrote Brad S Owens at E C Lyons thanking him for his offer, and told him that I would write my fellow wood engravers and see if I could find some consensus Brad replied; “I am looking forward to hearing the feedback from the WEN members on a consensus angle Once we get a consensus we will manufacture the new angle into our tools We used to make shortened elliptics but there wasn’t much demand and manufacturing two sizes proved very time-consuming & inefficient When we discontinued the shorts we ended up shortening the standard elliptic by a half inch or so to its current length ”

A few weeks later I sent off an e-mail to WEN members, using the addresses from the most recent WEN Membership Directory booklet (Quite a few e-mails bounced back with an “address unknown” response, in case you are wondering why you were not contacted ) Attaching the “new/old” composite image, I wrote my tale of the crooked burin and asked everyone to share his or her burin prefer-ence/observations

After receiving responses from many of the WEN members that I e-mailed, I found that there was not enough consensus to forward to Brad at E C Lyons My questions did elicit some wonderful responses that I will share here

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I do a good deal of tool shortening and sharpening for people as part of the business and often need to angle the tangs I don’t have a set angle, just do it by what looks right Too little isn’t enough and too much feels uncomfortable in the palm (Sorry, I don’t think that will help your survey!) I used to set up tools for Intaglio Printmaker of London, but passed the job onto a friend Intaglio Printmaker sells, in my view, the best tools on the market The steels are F Dick of Germany and the handles are nicely turned with a deep hollow They are about £17 each, which is expensive when set beside Lyons, but I know that they are expensive to produce and the shop makes little profit on them

Some years ago I made a study of Thomas Bewick’s tools, and had access to the famous tool-box, which is here in Newcastle I measured each tool for length and angle of grind, and found that there was little consistency However, the angle of the tool cutting face was very low by our standards,

some being only 20 degrees This is so that the curl of wood does not fall in front of the tool as you cut, obscuring the line It works, I tried it! Generally the tools were very long, though a few were also very short The handles were varied in design, but none had the hollowed out area so useful for curling in the fingers I suspect it is because this is the most difficult aspect of turning a mushroom handle, but I don’t know for sure why they didn’t feature it They were all very sharp, but have never been used since the master died Amongst the items is a block of lead or graphite for rubbing the back of the draw-ings prior to tracing down and a tool used to lower sections of the block before engraving

As for my own burin preference, I tend to prefer a medium bend, but not the arc which I think you refer to I have a box of old Stubs steels (one of Bewick’s tools was a Stubs of Sheffield), which has a dramatic arc from tip to tang, but could never work comfortably with such a tool Chris Daunt

I always looked at a tool as something that was adaptable to whatever was on hand I’ve used long tools, and short ones, and just adjusted the grip of my hand I either chocked up or pushed it further out This works fine for me, but I do acknowledge that newcomers really need concrete answers to their questions and tools that absolutely work best for them I have shortened many a tool for them, but made changes in angles on the tip of the tool, and not so much on the tang end Heating a tool and bending was getting out of my expertise and my will

Photo of Bewick’s tools courtesy of Chris Daunt

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to do so I’ve a lot of the old tools, and some that Sander used to sell I imagine these were made by the older generation of Lyons/Mueller I also have a number of old European tools, and Gesswein, that still makes jewelers burins today

What really characterized many of those old wood engraving tools was a bend along the entire length of the tool, not just at the tang I think my larger frustration with tools today is that often the width of the tool didn’t necessarily correspond to the number I’ve seen #1’s that were as wide as a bullsticker I think the tools have improved in the last few years, though Being the old hippie that I seem to be, I think people need to experiment, and make tools do what they want them to do That is a pretty vague statement, I know But I’ve seen Deborah Mae Broad do such amazing work with an old jeweler’s burin I’ve heard David Sander say that Leonard Baskin only used a #5 spitsticker (ac-curacy questionable) Jim Horton

I mentioned two curves in my book One is the ‘lovely curve’ in the metal itself which I have in some old (probably European) tools I inherited from George Buday This produces a greater angle between the bottom of the tool itself towards the tip and the bottom of the shank part of the handle The curve is not in the angle at which the metal is fixed into the wood but in the back inch / inch-and-a-half of the metal itself, before it narrows to the haft that slots into the wood This gives, visually, a lovely swing to the whole tool The curve seems to

have been cast into the metal itself The second is the ‘ferocious kink instead of a

gentle curve’ which I have seen in some tools, where the metal of a thin tool (like a small-section graver) has been heated and bent, like a bent hairpin, to try to achieve the angle between tip and handle that is thought desirable This second is unpleasant to use because the kink gets in the way of the fingers and the section of the metal, not having the flat sides that make a tint tool and others pleasant to hold, is too sharp for the fingers

It may also be that the problem is in the mush-room: many modern handles are too bulbous and insufficiently hollowed-out, to allow the all-control-ling little finger to tuck securely into an adequately hollow groove

The old European tools are a joy to hold but they might take a bit of getting used to if you are used to a flatter angle What the curve does is to push the mushroom handle further up into the palm so that it is easier - indeed entirely natural - for the fingers to hold the cutting end of the tool lightly and parallel to the surface of the block True, the wrist is slightly more raised; this is what may take getting used to - with the wrist raised, you’d normally be jabbing the tool into the block

In this business, the hand, which is different in every person, is also - darn it! - always right; and all the tool-maker (like the glove-maker) can do is to try to establish norms which suit the greatest number of customers

A little while ago, Edwina Ellis worked with the London suppliers Intaglio Printmaker to establish a

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set of blade sections and also I suspect a desirable blade/handle angle Simon Brett

There is a huge range of comfort with tool shapes that I observed In Newcastle it seemed that a straighter tool ruled - Bewick’s tools were wicked straight!

I recently purchased engraving tools from In-taglio Printmaker in London Edwina Ellis helped them design the shape, bend and handle of their engraving tools They don’t have any curve to them really, so it takes a bit of getting used to, but they feel nice in my hand and the smallest tint tool makes the tiniest line I have seen They are really nice tools I know the craftsmanship and care that goes into them is really good - I met the guy Ian, a friend of Chris Daunt’s, who puts the bend in the shaft and the handles on those tools - he definitely knows what he is doing

Vintage burins might feel better though - I could see the allure there, tools broken in with love Joanne Price

I have definitely noticed some of the tools that are being used by WEN engravers Since most of them are purchasing new ones, I found it odd to see some of these extreme angles you are talking about I assumed no one was having any trouble because I hadn’t heard any complaints Personally I wouldn’t be able to use them It did cross my mind that maybe they could be meant for metal engraving but I never pursued the idea

As for the tools that I own, which are all old ones as you mentioned in your e-mail, they are straight with a slight angle of the part that inserts into the handle I will say that each individual engraver cus-tomized his tool to suit the span and length of his hand This meant some of them are short and some extremely long

The angle on the end was also important Some of my tools have long angles and some short and stubby I like them somewhere in between Each engraver also had a personal preference of handle I have long extended ones, which can be put on short tools, and some very small handles that are petite and light There are those that are medium and nestle neatly into the palm of your hand Then there are the large ones that you see today I can use them all because I am comfortable with the tool but it could be very awkward for a beginner Most of these handles have been changed from tool to tool so that holes have been drilled to accommodate the blades needed Sometimes the holes are too large so that engravers would jam paper plugs along side the end of the blade going into the handle

Most of my tools were made by Mueller in the Intaglio Printmaker Spitstickers

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U S The others were made in Germany and France, so that gives you an idea of just how old they are Judy Jaidinger

A rule of thumb is as low an angle as tolerable The angle is, by necessity, higher when the burin is used for copper engraving because the resistance is far greater So let us start there Whereas Gabor Peterdi recommended 35 degrees for copper, the great master Stanley W Hayter ventured up to 45 degrees, a truly upper limit Not only do I know this from his book New Ways of Gravure, but I also have several of his own burins, kindly passed on to me by one of Hayter’s associates! For wood I usually stick to 30 degrees and I also use a GRS Power Hone (thanks to Jim Horton’s recommenda-tion) where you can adjust the honing angle with precision Draw several angles, say from 45 to 25 degrees on a cardboard and measure the angle of your tools If you are satisfied with a tool, that is if it remains sharp over a long period of use, then note that angle and stick to it You may find that different tools require slightly different angles but measurement will give you an absolute criterion Richard Franklin

I own 9 burins that I’ve acquired over the past 15 years All have been manufactured at Lyons They do vary a bit, but fall into the straight style My favorite #1 spitsticker is the straightest of the lot Dale Kennedy

I have quickly and easily dealt with the differences in angles of tools from all sources (for example, I have some old ones that were made in Switzerland) by heating and bending the tang to the angle I want The method: lock the tool in a vise just tight enough to hold it but not scar the shaft Gently tap the base of the handle with a hammer to loosen it, and remove (it is simply jammed on in the first place) Heat the area of the base of the tang with a propane torch, Bernzomatic being the most common kind sold in hardware stores It should get close to glow-ing red but not bright red Holding the tang with pliers or vise-grips you can bend it to whatever angle you like Perhaps make a template in advance so you aren’t just guessing Clamping the shaft of the tool in the vise gives it a heat sink to keep the heat from reaching the tip and damaging the temper While bending the tang ensure that the bend keeps the angle of the tang in line with the shaft of the tool Let the tool cool until there is no more glow but spit will still boil Carefully holding the tool in pli-ers or the like, remove it from the vise and hold it under running water until it is cool to the touch To replace the handle, push it on as tightly as it will go by hand, then, with the pointing the tool vertically into a piece of wood (I use scrap maple) gently tap the handle to secure it The only problem I have had

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doing this is getting too vigorous with the hammer at the very last and splitting the handle Fortunately Lyons also sells handles I believe in having control over my tools and prefer to shorten, sharpen, and shape them myself Bill Myers

Thank you for the opportunity to talk about one of our favorite topics: tools Being a woman with small hands I may bring another wrinkle to the discussion: length When McClain’s discontinued their shorter length engraving tools I bought up one of everything I could get my hands on They should last me awhile, but there will come a time when I will have to start looking for more Sylvia Portillo

Thanks for starting this conversation It reminds me of my first engraving tools that I bought from Vern at Graphic Chemical back in the 1960s He stocked straight engravers and asked if I wanted it bent I said yes, so he invited me into the shop where he clamped most of the tool in a vice and with the handle removed heated the tang just above the vise with a torch and bent it with a pair of pliers As he bent it he asked how much bend I wanted I told him when to stop (a wild guess on my part since I was pretty green at the time) So, there is nothing sacred about the angle of these things Just change the angle with some heat Do use a vise, as it will act as a heat sink and keep the working end from overheating Jack Brubaker

I love that you’ve made me grab my gravers/burins at this hour of a Saturday morning! I find that, yes, mine have a range of angles and that I don’t care After a very scientific analysis of my pal, my #52 graver, I found that it too has the higher angle What matters most for me is the length of the shaft

A few years ago, when I took engraving again with Deborah Mae Broad and Jim at Frogman’s, Deborah delighted and shocked us all by showing us how to remove, cut down and reattach the metal into

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the handle It’s very easy to remove the metal, re-drill and glue it back in after all, whether to change the angle or shorten it in the process It was one of the highlights of the course, and reminded me of a similar discussion/demo by Karen Kunc, when she shared how she changes the angle of her V-gouges if she doesn’t like it It sounds so elementary that it’s humorous that I and the other printmakers would find it “shocking” and revelatory I bought the tool I should be able to do whatever I want to it! This knowledge has been liberating for me, and I now find myself changing the angle on my U-gouges with no attending guilt

I have had discussions with McClain’s & Lyons over the years (visiting their booths at conferences) “Who really wants those long shanks/shafts on the engraving tools? I have large hands Do men really have hands that are that much larger?” I suspect

that with the shorter shank I can hold it flatter in my hand, and as such makes the angle less of an issue for me, if it is an issue at all I’ve noticed that I’ve had an opportunity at both vendor tables to pick up a tool and play with it, while they looked on interestedly (This not just at me, but with all the other carvers/engravers too ) It struck me that they, most assuredly are there to learn from us, and want the interaction with us, as much or more, so that we want their tools

With my Deborah Mae Broad instructed skills, I know I can hand-tailor any tool Perhaps that’s re-ally the message here Why would we assume that a tool is made correctly for all of us? Why have we lost the skills to manipulate and re-craft these extensions of our hands!?Sarah Whorf

My early tools were purchased from David Sander in 1984 I know the shafts were shortened, and maybe it was David who shortened them Since then I have ordered most of my tools directly from E C Lyons My two favorite tools are both spitstickers from E C Lyons; one is a #2 and one is a #6 One has a slight bend, the other has a sharper bend I have used them for years, and never even noticed the difference In my drawer of tools I have only two that are “arrow” straight These are the only two that I find uncomfortable and very rarely use They have no stamp on the shaft so I do not know who made them It seems to me that it is all about personal preference!Marsha Sweet

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Old Tool Boxesby Judith Jaidinger

About the tool boxes, I have three that I have kept Some guys were real craftsmen and others just slapped wood together Because some of the engravers worked at home (overtime) they had elaborate leather rolls with sewn partitions Most of those have dried out They also made leather sleeves for each tool which I found would usually fall off in transit The boxes were left at work for daily jobs and were of varied design

The box I use and is my treasure is made of oak with 4-5 drawers We stripped and refinished it and polished the brass I lined the drawers with felt and the notched wood dividers are original The other box is similar in that it is oak but has 6 stubby drawers I use this for storage The third box is a soft nondescript wood painted brown This is also used for tool storage I had 2 others that just plain fell apart

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Tool trade marks & names imprinted on various burins from the vast collection of Judith Jaidinger

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Something Wicked Johanna Mueller (actual size)

Something Wicked was engraved on a High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS) block and was printed on a “Japanese” paper, using Daniel Smith relief ink An edition of 82 was printed for WEN

Bundle No. 45Spring 2011

The prints contained in this issue of Block & Burin have been scanned from WEN Bundle No 45 This section does not intend to substitute the value of viewing the original prints as printed by the artist on fine paper with quality inks, but is meant to provide a facsimile for WEN members not receiving bundles Because of space and reproduction limitations, some

images have been reduced in size, and color prints have been reproduced in shades of gray In some instances a print represented in the bundle may have been excluded in this section as requested by the artist All original prints from the bundles are

archived at the Princeton University Graphic Arts Library, Princeton, New Jersey, with Agnes Sherman serving as curator

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Year of the Rabbit Michelle Morrell (90%)

Year of the Rabbit was engraved on Resingrave and an edition of 77 was printed for WEN Michelle used Graphic Chemical ink and printed this WEN edition on mulberry paper

Cascade Falls Nancy Darrell (95%)

“During the 2010 WEN workshop I made a sketch of Cascade Falls during a group outing It was rough and vague, but Carl Montford and Joel Moline encouraged me to make a wood engraving from it This is an edition of 90 for WEN ”

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Dangling Dirk Lee (70%)

Dangling is a wood engraving, printed at the Naked Man Press, on a Vandercook SP20 (built in 1965), using Roberts & Carlson ink, on Farbriano orange/gold colored paper An edition of 100 was printed for WEN

Daphne & Apollo Daniel Williams (38%)

Daphne & Apollo is a linoblock reduction print Daniel used orange, brown, green and blue water-based Speedball inks An edition of 76 was printed for WEN

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Tiger Eyes Keri R Safranski (70%)

Tiger Eyes was engraved on an end-grain maple block An edition of 100 was printed for bundle #45 using Daniel Smith #79 Black ink and Stathmore Bristol plate paper

Spare Tire Mary Thompson (55%)

Mary sent an assortment of engravings, all of cars, to WEN for bundle #45

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Year of the Hare Colleen Dwire (55%)

Year of the Hare was printed with linoleum blocks using a Vandercook Universal 1 Press Colleen wrote, “This is a promo piece I send to some children’s book publishers The stock went through the exquisite color copier at FedEx Kinko’s (printing from a native Illustrator pdf file) before it got to the Vandercook ” “… I’ve discovered that publishers get excited when they see letterpress work; I am happy to indulge their yearning I get a kick out of the combination of the computer generated art with the relief image ” An edition of 80 was printed for WEN

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Scribe and Cat William Rueter (95%)

Scribe and Cat shows the great British calligrapher and teacher Edward Johnson at work with his cat Pounce It comes from A Letter from Edward Johnson, produced by The Aliquando Press The quotation behind Johnson translates as “To work is to pray ” The edition of 150 was printed on Mohawk Superfine paper using Vanson ink

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Recycle Sarah Whorf (95%)

Sarah used Resingrave for Recyle An edition of 100 for WEN was printed at Burnt Toast Press using Van Son Oil-based Plus ink & Daniel Smith litho ink on Neenah recyled cover stock (color “Desert Storm”)

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The Artist W Gale Mueller (75%)

The Artist was engraved on a Castello (Brazilian Boxwood) end-grained block Gale printed his edition at The Millstone Press on a Vandercook SP 15, using Van Son Black ink on Mohawk Superfine 100# white text paper An edition of 110 was printed for WEN

Black-headed Grosbeak W Gale Mueller (actual size)

Black-headed Grosbeak was engraved on a Hard Maple end-grained block Gale printed his edition at The Millstone Press on a Vandercook SP 15, using Van Son Black ink on Mohawk Superfine 100# white text paper An edition of 100 for WEN

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Smiling Politician Allan Greenier (actual size)

Allan Greenier printed Smiling Politician in an edition of 157 for WEN The wood engraving was printed on a Challenge cylinder proof press using Von Son black ink on Mohawk Superfine 100T White Text paper

WEN Moth Paul Constance (actual size)

Paul printed WEN Moth, engraved on a piece of Ivorywood, in an edition of 36 for WEN The edition was printed on Rives BFK using a bottle jack press

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Looking for the Sun Karin Hokkanen (80%)

Looking for the Sun is a pine block woodcut that Karin printed with her table top proofing press using black Speedball water-based ink and 20# gold office paper “I went for a walk in a cleared area by my house Even in Florida, in February, almost everything is brown, except for lots of clumps of moss, glistening in the morning sun So those clumps were my inspiration for this image ”

A Wild Hare Runs… Julianna Humphreys (70%)

A Wild Hare Runs Before A Snowstorm is printed in an edition of 76 for WEN Julianna used end-grain maple for her engraving The edition is printed using French Company’s 100# Speckletone True White paper and Graphic Chemical dark brown ink

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8 Jacks Nikki Vahle-Schneider (95%)

Nikki sent an edition of 80 for WEN 8 Jacks is printed on a #1 Vandercook proof press, using gray and brown cover stock paper The print is hand colored with watercolor pencils “This print is the letter J out of my alphabet ”

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AIDS Service 2010 Cover John Benson (55%)

AIDS Service 2010 Cover is a linoleum block hand printed by John Benson

Opening Gerri Carlson (85%)

Gerri sent an edition of 94 for WEN, printed at the Slow Poke Press on a Challenge proof press Opening was engraved on a maple block, printed using oil-based Hostman Steinberg Letterpress Special Matte Black ink on Zerkall White Book Vellum paper

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Untitled John Johnson (actual size)

This edition, engraved on end-grain hard maple, was printed at the Birdhouse Press on an Albion iron handpress John used Vanson CML oil base black #22011 ink and Sommerset Book paper “This is the key block of a 3 block set, the color blocks not yet engraved This set is planned to be one image for a future circus poster ”

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Bundle Participation?Show your stuff!

A Note to All WEN Members on Bundle Participation: and in particular, those new members that might still be confused as to what and how the print exchange works.

A Bundle is a name we dubbed the mailings that take place twice yearly (Spring and Autumn) A Bundle is a packet of prints, or a “non-digital” show that comes to your door They are not intended for sale or speculation They are meant for people to share the joy of printmaking with others who know and appreciate what went into their production

We have many levels of expertise represented There are established professionals along with be-ginners There are a few who appreciate prints, but don't practice printmaking themselves We hope the Bundles are a means of education We do not pub-licly judge or criticize the work that is contributed, though we are always open to comments, and cer-tainly, individual contacts can be made to these art-ists with your more personal comments and ideas We love of seeing ink on paper that came from an artist's hand Sometimes we are awed by the quality of the work Sometimes we learn from the rawness of a “Beginner's Mind” as the Zen masters call it, that hasn’t been influenced by standard practices and shows the exciting marks of experimentation “A print is the halfway point between a thing and a thought,” as Fritz Eichenberg once said To hold it close to the eye, and see the artists intimate journey of creation is no small thing In these days of digital imaging, it is a rare and valued thing perhaps more so than ever

We are always happy to hear of sales and con-tacts that result from people seeing someone’s work in the Bundles, however, that is not the prime reason we exist WEN is just one place where, if you have something extra to give, with the spirit of “What goes around, comes around,” you donate We are an appreciative audience When you do contribute to a Bundle, unless you indicate that it not be used for exhibition, you are giving people the right to show it to others in educational displays If it were to be reproduced for commercial use, permissions must be sought

Bundle participation is not mandatory for being a member of WEN If you paid your dues, you will receive a journal, all announcements, a welcome to come to any of our activities (such as summer workshops), exhibit in any WEN connected exhibitions and receive some prints that have been donated by members You might not receive all the prints (as members only have to submit a total of 76, not enough to go around to all) Why that number? Some of these artists print by hand, slowly, and to even give away 76 of such work, is asking a lot, though some do contribute the maximum How do you get the full array of prints? You do so by con-tributing at least 76 prints to a Bundle If you do so, you are put at the head of the list when the stacks of prints are sorted into envelopes for mailing If you never contribute (which there is no pressure to do so), you will get whatever is left over That list is sorted by the seniority of when you joined If you are a newcomer, obviously, you are going to be at the end of the line But contribute, and you are at the

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front of the line This keeps a healthy array of new artists coming in If contributing every few years, you are still getting just about everything

We do ask that the work going into a bundle is by your hand You may contribute brochures, advertisements or a prospectus All materials are welcome as long as you feel it would be of interest and benefit to the group We have received intaglio, lino and plank-grain woodcuts, which are welcome Any questions, do contact us

A Calendar of DaysParticipate; promote WEN and your work!

We now have a new WEN tradition, A Calendar of Days, which promotes the Wood Engravers’ Network to an expanded audience, thanks to our partnership with Tim and Elke Inkster and their marvelous literary press, The Porcupine’s Quill

A Calendar of Days includes fourteen repro-ductions of wood engravings contributed by art-ists from the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, all of whom are members of the Wood Engravers’ Network (WEN) The images have been engraved by hand, proofed letterpress by the artists themselves, then digitized and printed offset on the Heidelberg KORD by Tim Inkster at The Por-cupine’s Quill in Erin Village, Wellington County, Ontario A Calendar of Days is what promises to be an on-going collaboration between the Wood Engravers’ Network and The Porcupine’s Quill, a small publishing company noted for its expertise in using twentieth-century offset technology to

replicate the quality look of a nineteenth-century letterpress product

For the Wood Engravers’ Network, our primary involvement in the production of A Calendar of Days is to provide high-quality wood engraved prints that will be reproduced and featured For future calendars, engravings can be submitted year round Our hope is that it becomes a regular habit of WEN members, to print an “extra” proof of their latest edition and mail it to Tim Inkster Prints not chosen for the current year’s calendar will be kept as can-didates for future calendars As our pool of prints grows, finding the best seasonal image for any given month should become an easier task for Tim

The finished size for A Calendar of Days will be 8 1/2” high by 5 1/2” wide, with 1/2” margin at the bottom and 5/8” at the top for a ring binding Prints will be reproduced in black and white at their actual size Prints submitted will have to fit within the following calendar template dimensions: within a 4”x4” space (3”x3”, 3”x 4”, 3”x3”, etc ) or 5 1/8”width x 4”” height, in which case there will be no border, and the image will bleed left and right A border may be used for images less than 4” x 4” in size

The artists whose work is chosen will be com-pensated for the one-time usage of their image in advance with 10 copies of the calendar, including freight For this royalty, The Porcupine’s Quill can reproduce the selected artist’s engraving for a one-time use in the calendar The artist retains all copyrights to the image Artists whose work is selected also will be eligible for a 40% discount

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on any additional calendars that they may wish to order The artists would be paying the freight for these additional calendars

Tim Inkster will select the engravings to be reproduced, as The Porcupine’s Quill will have total creative control over the design and printing of the calendar If Tim would like to receive any additional input pertaining to the selection of engravings for A Calendar of Days, the Wood Engravers’ Network’s organizers would be happy to help If the WEN/PQL Calendar partnership ends, all wood engrav-ings submitted will be returned to WEN To keep the process simple, all the prints would be returned to WEN organizer Jim Horton

At this time, 14 engravings will be chosen for the current calendar design, including a cover image, an image for each of the 12 months, and a “bonus” month – January of the following year Extra leaves will be included that will include brief biographies of the contributing artists, calendar information, etc When you submit an engraved print, please include your contact information, so if your image is chosen a follow-up request for your biographical information can be sent to you

Tim Inkster will determine the retail cost of the calendar and the number of copies to be printed WEN members are eligible for a 20% discount off the list price from The Porcupine’s Quill, excluding shipping and handling A Calendar of Days is already listed on amazon com in both the US and the UK The calendar is also available through Barnes & Noble (US) and Waterstones (UK) websites

As The Porcupine’s Quill has committed its

resources to this endeavor, we believe it is important that Tim should have enough quality engravings to select from for the A Calendar of Days effort For the continued success of this partnership it is essential that WEN members send Tim Inkster prints on an ongoing basis, so our collection builds Always print an “extra” (if the image size fits within the calendar’s template size) when you can, and mail it to The Porcupine’s Quill – address below (Write Tim a nice note while you are at it ) We encourage you to submit engravings often Our hope is that Tim and Elke receive so many quality engravings that they will have a difficult time choosing the best

As our calendar spans a little more than a year, the topic of the engravings you submit may find a matching month to represent it Your winter scene might be competing against another engraver’s snowy landscape It may be the case that an image that is more universal, and not having a seasonal aspect to it, will have a better chance at being se-lected As the WEN engraving collection grows at The Porcupine’s Quill, the calendar’s months and seasons will find their matches naturally My advice would be to submit your best, and in time, your work may be featured on one of 14 pages of A Calendar of Days

When you mail your submissions, it is very important that when you fill out the customs declarations form, and identify the content of the package (printed material) that you do not assign any value to what you are mailing The Canadian Customs collect a 13% Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) for the value listed on the declarations form This tax

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has to be paid before Tim can receive the package If you sent two wood engravings and valued them at $50 each, Tim would have to pay $13 HST before he can receive the parcel! Therefore, any package a WEN member assigns a substantial value to most probably will be refused at the Erin, Ontario post office and returned back to its sender

With your mailing to The Porcupine’s Quill, please comply with the Canadian Customs and postal administration addressing requirements Be sure to display the complete name and address of both the sender and recipient on your parcel If you decide to send a proof/print inside a “stan-dard” letter you won’t need to fill out the customs declaration form The print may get scrunched a bit, but it should scan just fine if it is selected for A Calendar of Days

Please join in our new tradition, A Calendar of Days, which promotes the Wood Engravers’ Net-work and The Porcupine’s Quill WEN encourages you to participate Mail your engravings, including your contact information to:

Tim Inkster CM RGD The Porcupine’s Quill 68 Main Street, PO Box 160 Erin, Ontario N0B 1T0

If you have any questions about A Calendar of Days or any other WEN-related topic, feel free to write or call Jim Horton or Tony Drehfal, using their contact information located in the masthead from this edition of Block & Burin

New Members

Diane CutterHC55, Box 9101Ceiba, Puerto Rica, 00735cutterstudio@yahoo comwww dianecutter com

Daniel Williams5 Stagview Lane,Bahama, North Carolina 27503414-254-6424danielw@paintmywords comwww handstampedprints com

Keith R. Cranmer1808 McGee Ave Berkeley, California 94703510-843-0963studio@keithcranmer comwww keithcranmer comKeith is the CEO of Seabright Brewery, Inc. He is a self-taught engraver in metals since 1975. He recently illustrated a book of love poems by Robert Bly called The Indigo Bunting.

Laura L. Pharis309 Arlington St Lynchburg, Virginia 24503434-845-2557lpharis@sbc eduLinda is a professor of art at Sweet Briar College. Her education began at Virginia Commonwealth U. She then studied with Blair-Hughes Stanton (with a di-ploma) at Central School of Art & Design in London.

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Her MFA was at University of Wisconsin – Madison where she studied with Ray Gloekler. Linda is a founding member of One/Off Printmakers in Virginia, where she is a frequent exhibitor.

John Tiesberg 1460 Simpson St St Paul, Minnesota 55108651-645-9299 Awaiting more information from John.

Judy GerrowPO Box 3061New Haven, Conneticut 06515203-668-3484Awaiting more information from Judy.

Michelle Fleisher155 Brewster St Unit 3DBridgeport, Conneticut 06605

Laurie Corral81 N Liberty St Asheville, North Carolina 28801828-255-8444 (M) 828-291-6541lauriecorral@ mac comLaurie has a degree in Printmaking from WVU (Mor-gantown), an MFA from Cranbrook, and an MA in Art Ed at U of Illinios. She founded Boookworks, the esteemed workshop for bookbinding, printmaking, papermaking, letterpress, etc. in Asheville.

Bob Benson334 Apple Valley Rd Sevierville, Tennessee 37862865-453-2781 fax: 1-866-334-1902865photo@gmail comBob has taken several classes in wood engraving at John Campbell Folk School. He is a fine artist and plays a mean dobro. Welcome Bob.

Allan Greenier1005 Whalley Ave Apt 3New Haven, Conneticut 06515203-389-8212agreenier@snet netwww planetxylo comInspired by an exhibition of M. C. Escher, Allan is a working printmaker and invites WEN members to his website “Block Party Pages”

Caryl PetersFrog Hollow Press1758 Armstrong Ave Victoria, British Columbia V8R5S6Canada250-595-3607carylpeters@telus netwww froghollowpress comCaryl’s education was at McGill U. She is a publisher, book designer and now wood engraver. Caryl has worked with Wesley Bates.

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Amy S. Fujimoto15728 Buena Vista DriveDerwood, Maryland 20855301-590-0419fax: 301-590-0430amys_fujimoto@yahoo comAmy is an accomplished artist. She also does watercolor and traditional woodcut. She delved into wood engrav-ing at John Campbell this March. Welcome, Amy.

Eric Gulliver1278 W Ninth St Cleveland, Ohio 44113758-1758-1758eagulliver@gmail comMore info on Eric to come.

Paul Constance203 S Lee St Falls Church, Virginia 22046

Changes and Updates

Address Change:Mika Boyd 2074 Shiloh St , Eugene, Oregon 97401 541-554-6586 mikab@uoregon edu

Name Change:Tina Johansen is now Tina Herman18211 Steiner Rd Gays Mills, WI 54631Congratulations Tina!

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Announcements & Notes

A Clear Blue Sky in Royal Oak

By John Holbrook with wood engravings by James ToddWEN member Jim Todd has eight of his wood engravings featured in a new collection of poems by John Holbrook titled, A Clear Blue Sky in Royal Oak

From the Preface: In these poems we are swept

along in our daily lives / by unseen currents, bumping here and there, / our little driftwood heads against / one thing or another. Listen, when we get down to it / aren’t we able to find our course / picking up steam like rivers do in their rapids. // Why argue about / what rivers and our lives are? John writes all the watermarks with mineral-pebbly syllables on our lips as we read.

A Clear Blue Sky in Royal Oak is a 96 page hand-stitched paper book with spine, and available for $16 (plus shipping) Foothills PublishingP O Box 68Kanona, New York 14856(607) 566-3881http://foothillspublishing come-mail: fhp@foothillspublishing com

Eyesight

Recently Block & Burin editor Tony Drehfal sent Simon Brett an e-mail, writing: “As I am looking at ways to engrave longer periods of time, I am finding using an optivisor to be somewhat a “pain in the neck ” I recently observed in a photo of your workspace that you use a magnifying lens that looks to be mounted on your desk What kind is it? What is the magnification? If you have any other insights on magnification tools, please do share them ”

Simon replied: “I don’t know what magnifica-tion my lens is, I bought it forty years ago Its not fixed to the desk, it is on a weighted, moveable stand Lenses on stands are available in this coun-try, if not at art then at hobby shops; look in the

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needlework section if necessary I think you can get them with desk clamps too I have also got an inherited but little used (by me) lens with a neon light coiled round it The ‘frame’ is thus 2” thick around the 5” lens and I find that alienates one from the work, rather

I think a lens much better for the eyes than glasses or a visor I’ve never used a visor but didn’t take to it when I tried one on: again, I found it alien-ating from the work Hilary (Paynter) has a nice lens on a bendy stand like mine but there is no rim to it at all – the glass is fixed directly to the stand – so there is no barrier between the naked eye view and the enlargement except the shift of scale itself

Reasons for my perhaps superstitious views are attached – it is a footnote from the forthcoming 3rd edition of Wood Engraving How to Do It Juliet used to wear glasses but dispensed with them some years ago to the consternation of the opticians!”

To raise your eyes from the block regularly and refo-cus on the most distant thing you can see – indeed, on things at various distances – is commonsense; Clifford Webb told me to do that It also echoes the principles of the ‘Bates Method’, a so-called ‘Alexander technique for the eyes’ It is not for a book like this to commend alternative medical therapies, but Bates is less a therapy for the eyes than a way of thinking about them Dr Bates saw the eye as (among other things) a muscle, and, like any muscle, subject to tiredness and malfunction from external causes and from physical or mental stress or worry An arm or leg held on crutches, even

for a short time, loses muscle tone and has to be exercised to regain it Bates argued that spectacles put the eye on crutches long-term Just as a crutch supports the body but takes away the function of the leg, causing it to weaken, glasses seem to support the sight but, by fixing the eye’s focal length, take away its movement and flexibility Stronger and stronger glasses are required as the eye is deprived of its natural flexion It recovers less easily than a leg; but it can be recovered and, more important, can be saved from unnecessary deterioration by not resorting to glasses automatically in the first place By wiser care, the need for glasses can be postponed or even obviated

This is not to say that eyesight does not change over the course of a lifetime or deteriorate with age By this third edition, mine has Rather, it is to say that there is no need to hasten it on its way

Wood engraving, with its particular, close focus over sustained periods, must test Bates’s ideas to the extreme; but engravers might at least consider that a magnifying glass, in relation to which the head and eye remain in motion, is healthier for the eye than spectacles, which lock the focal length to and of the eye itself

The only difficulty is that the limited field of vision through a magnifying glass can make it hard to see the whole of a larger block Now in my sixties, I sometimes put my ordinary reading glasses back on for that purpose – but I take them off as soon as I can and use the naked eye whenever I can

See W H Bates Better Eyesight Without Glasses (1919 and still in print) and http://www seeing

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org/ the website of The Bates Association for Vision Education (UK)

Editor’s Note A new revised and expanded edi-tion of Simon Brett’s classic Wood Engraving How to do it, has been published by A&C Black and is now available (See the McClain’s ad in this issue )

Casanova in Venice

Nine original wood engravings by Wesley W Bates, of Clifford, Ontario, are featured in a new The Porcupine’s Quill publication titled, Casanova in Venice: A Raunchy Rhyme by Kildare Dobbs With Casanova in Venice, The Porcupine’s Quill continues its marvelous creative partnership with the very best of Candian authors and wood engravers

Jennifer Fandel of ForeWord Magazine wrote; “…The ‘raunchy rhyme,’ as noted in the title, is the supreme delight of Dobbs’s collection Through-out the book, readers watch outrageous trysts develop while listening to hilarious double entendre (‘Awake, my lute!’) and surprising, memorable rhymes (‘fondle her’ and ‘gondola’) ” “Throughout

the collection, Dobbs immerses readers in beauti-ful, spare descriptions of Venice as the backdrop of Casanova’s tale ”

“Entwine our arts with laughter low ”, a James Joyce quote featured at the start of Casanova in Ven-ice, sums up how Wesley’s marvelous, playful, and sometimes titillating wood engravings, partner per-fectly with Dobb’s ribald poem With a close study of each Bates wood engraving in Casanova in Venice, it is apparent that his mastery of the burin let him match, incised line to written word, the wit, warmth and inventiveness of Dobb’s imagination

For more information about Casanova in Venice you can visit The Porcupine’s Quill website at, http://porcupinesquill ca/index html

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2011 Rain City Engravers Calendar

Carl Montford and the Rain City Engravers have produced a marvelous calendar for themselves, and shared a copy with the lucky editor of Block & Burin The calendar included a cover, the twelve months, three additional prints along with a colophon

In Memoriam Wood Engravers’ Network Members

Fred Brian Jane Walker Conneen

Robert Crump Dale DeArmond Guy Debenham

Bill Jackson Eric May

Ann Mikolowski Erena Rae

Ross Zirkle

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AREPOAREPO

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