notes on writing a how-to-ish essay collection
and my first glimpse at the Apple Vision Pro (not in favor lol) and a glorious selection of links and recs
YAY! You can add page numbers and sheet numbers to the slug of books when you impose them in Spectrolite. (Joining the new way to resize and position pages.)
I went into to the Apple store in Salt Lake City and it was busy, yet nobody was standing near or even looking at the Apple Vision Pro goggles. The display table was front and center, but completely bereft of people. They were not an attractive looking object. As I walked by I marveled at how big and thick the head straps were, and at the big battery pack. I did not feel the urge to try them on. (I’m actually a little shocked by how incurious I was. Usually the latent electrical engineer in me can’t resist at least looking at a new tech thing to see how it is made.)
It made me remember being at one of the Double Union launch events circa 2013, where we’d wrangled some hosting space at a Google building on the Embarcadero. On the patio after the event, a few of the Googlers were getting people to try on their Google Glass prototypes and looking out over the Bay Bridge. With some ribbing, I put it on: regular-ish wire frame glasses, but with camera and a blocky prism of plastic or glass sticking off one side, which showed a small text readout if you squinted.
I wouldn’t let anyone take a picture of me wearing them, instinctively feeling both embarrassed and ashamed. It felt like a ~~~moment~~~ where there was something trying to happen but it was a decade too early. (And also that it probably shouldn’t happen at all.) Well, a decade later, the face computer still feels like a solution in search of a problem.1
I’m 20k words into Notes on Artist Publishing & Risograph Printing, my new publication for Seattle Art Book Fair, which is less than a month away. A collection of advice, opinions, lists and notes about artist publishing, making books and zines, printshop equipment and risograph printing that I wish I’d had to read.
Here’s a screenshot of how the table of contents is shaping up, with full text in the footnote below:2
One of my main motivations for making a how-to publication is to have something to hand people, and say look, here it is.3 Instead of trying to condense hours and years of learning into a conversation, which takes too long to actually do, and of course can get dull after a few repetitions. It’s interesting to write down what’s ingrained enough that it seems second nature. I like to make references for my own use, of technical things that I use only occasionally, and don’t want to keep in working memory. I also just love how-to as a genre, technical writing, and taking notes as I go as a way of learning.
Process thoughts:
Publishing something that is not complete and with some parts that are likely incorrect — sure, this is always the case, but here it’s really really the case! Feels like a nice constraint to say “whatever can be done by [date]” gets printed, with the intention of revisiting it and keeping it as an ongoing publication that’s also available digitally.
Some ‘who am I to write this’ feelings coming up.
The way I work on the laptop is not the same as writing with a big monitor. It’s not as easy; I do better when I can see many things next to one another on the big monitor.
Many of of these essays started as scrawled lists or paragraphs in morning pages first, then those got expanded into essays in Obsidian. This week I moved everything to Google Docs to format them for print and (soon) get it ready for early readers / collaborative editing.
This book is going to be bigger than I planned because the desert was so cold and windy that we cut our camping and canyoneering trip short by a week and a half. I’d initially envisioned 48 pages or so and then eventually in a future edition it would scale up to a perfect bound size.
Uff, I don’t really want to go over 64 pages plus cover with less than a week of assembly time planned. I’m going to make 300-500 copies (?) but only bind and trim part of the edition in time for the art book fair. Then do the rest the week after.
I’m going to use the booklet maker to bind them; it can handle up to a 100 page book in terms of thickness so I’m still fine there. I need to make the side margins bigger to have room for adjusting for page creep. I would love to perfect bind this but there is definitely no time for that. That’s ok!
What illustrations? I don’t have time to make hand drawn illustrations and I don’t have my iPad with me for collaging. Will this be mostly text based? I think I will pull photos of our various equipment and studio setups as visuals.
I’m going to release this as an .epub digital publication of this. And I want to send it (in chapters?) to the paid subscribers of this newsletter.
🌈 Top link for this newsletter, for small press and artist publisher type people: SPD, Author's Equity, and Distribution. Too much to quote, just go read!
🌈 Secret Riso Club is building out a bigger space in Bushwick for printing, art books, community workshops and they’re doing a fundraiser! We pitched in.
🌈 Please recommend things to include in the Climate Emergency Reading Room & Community Altar! Here’s a drawing our co-organizer Alex Barsky made of the layout of the stage — four 4x4’ wooden a-frame bookshelves around a central altar table and screen. (And the wiggly line in back is the stage curtain.)
🌈 Seattle Art Book Fair is May 11-12 and the public programming schedule includes screenings of the documentary Knust: The Pioneers of Riso Print, and a lot of other exciting things. I’ll be on the panel Photography, Fauxtography, & The Photographic Image In Risograph Printing.
READING: I zipped through The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown, recommended by my reading pal Harper. Laughing a lot at More Money than God, a history of the formation of hedge funds, which I’ve been slowly working my way through this winter. (Paired well with Liar’s Poker, Michael Lewis’s history of the bond market.) I just finished Number Go Up on crime and scams and crypto, another finance book with loads of ridiculous stories.
LINKS:
People Press by Mitchell Volk has a manifesto including ”I create to connect, I would like to break even, Relationships over everything”
Anne Ehrlich’s Studio Notebook: March field notes + Off trail hikes (Lichens!)
Textile artist Minga Opazo on engaging with the world in your work: “What happens if we mix some mushrooms with the [waste textile] clothing? Would the mushrooms eat it?”
On Dressing from Joanna Walsh’s Theory of Style column
How to use a personal website to enhance your ability to think and create?
That’s it for now. Hope you have some nice plans ahead for the weekend.
If you have time to read 20k words and give feedback, I’m looking for a couple early readers of Notes on Artist Publishing next week, just hit reply if you’re interested.
—Amelia
I’m biased though: I love not having to wear glasses since I got Lasik eye surgery in 2011 — that’s right up there in the best couple thousand dollars I’ve ever spent. Also, I laughed a lot at this review of the Apple Vision Pro.
The table of contents for a draft of Notes on Artist Publishing & Risograph Printing:
Introduction
making things as an artist publisher
Artist Publishing (vs. Self-publishing)
Books and zines as consumables
Thoughts on why people buy artist publications
On Small Numbers in Publishing
If you want to publish, publish
Riso specific stuff, and running a press + printshop + vertically integrated publisher
Advice for artists who want to get into risograph printing books and zines
Why people are drawn to things made with riso
Riso as a printing press.
Taking Care of Yourself as an Artist Publisher
Small press and self publishing burnout: on making do without proper equipment
Shipping as a repeatable process
Gentle money expectations
Sensitive Guide to Tabling at Zine & Art Book Fests
Lists + Appendices
Printing and Bindery Equipment
Sourcing Printshop Equipment
Things to Make With the Risograph
Artist Publishing Reading Recs
ANEMONE
That motivated the publication of Riso Pacific Northwest and How to Pizza Night in particular.