#cave paper

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Decorative Sunday

This week we present four paper samples from Cave Paper, a distinctive American handmade production paper company. Cave Paper was founded in Minneapolis in 1994 by Amanda Degener and Bridget O'Malley. In 2020, Cave Paper was passed on to Zoë Goehring who moved the studio to Tuscon. The samples shown here are:

Galaxy: a rich black dusted with mica flakes. The black is an optical black made from dense layering of indigo and walnut dyes. The dyed paper is then coated with hot melted gelatin and sprinkled with mica, a technique introduced to them by papermaker Richard Flavin (1943-2020).

Green Crackle: a natural flax sheet is size and dried and then crumpled and dunked into pigmented water. The paper is then quickly opened, laid flat, and rinsed.

Cloudy Sky: a cotton rag paper with a cloudy pulp couched onto a blue base sheet.

Alphabet: made from recycled sheets with letterpress printing. The Hollander beater breaks down the paper while leaving the letters intact in the slurry. When forming the paper, the letters float to the surface and are caught as the paper mould is lifted full of pulp.

These samples were inserted in the article "Cave Paper [continued]" by Amanda Degener and Bridget O'Malley in Matrix 27, Winter 2007, pp. 13-17, printed at John and Rosalind Randle’s Whittington Press in Risbury, Herefordshire, England in an edition of 750 copies, another donation from our late friend Jerry Buff (1931-2025).

View more Decorative Sunday posts.

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A Wood Engraving Staff Pick of the Week

At Sutton Hoo Press, established by poet Chad Mikal Oness during his time at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, fine press books are released on Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, and Memorial Day each year. For Thanksgiving 2002, Oness and Michigan artist and wood engraver Ladislav Hanka worked together to create an edition of The Book of Ruth with eight wood engravings. Ruth tells the story of the titular Moabite woman who decides to accept the god of the Israelites and her embracing of the Israelite people as her own. Amongst Jewish converts, this book is incredibly popular due to its subject matter and also contains themes about inter-religious marriages and the complexities of Jewish religious law associated with conversion and the acceptance of converts within the religion.

An avid beekeeper, Lad Hanka includes one of his signature bees on page 25. The book was hand-printed in Winona, Minnesota at the Sutton Hoo Press in an edition of 100 copies using handset Lutetia types. The long-stitch binding was done in-house in a handmade flax paper case from Cave Paper.

View more posts with works from Sutton Hoo Press.

View more engravings by Ladislav Hanka.

View more Staff Picks.

View more posts with wood engravings!

– Sarah S, Special Collections Graduate Intern

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Our Mighty Journey for My Mighty Journey

We recently had the absolute pleasure of unboxing My Mighty Journey: A Waterfall’s Story written by John Coy and beautifully illustrated with original color wood engravings and prints made directly from found materials by Gaylord Schanilec, in collaboration with Paul Nylander and Barbara Eijadi. We had to pry open box after box after box to reveal the 18″ x 24″ book. Fully opened, the children’s book is nearly 4 1/2 feet wide! Much bigger than a child! Luckily, the text and images have also been turned into a trade edition for children.

The book tells a story about the evolution along the Mississippi River, as imaginatively told by the longest resident in these parts, the St. Anthony waterfall in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. The waterfall as narrator playfully explains all of the changes the river has been through over its 12,000-year journey of 15 miles. The act of turning the enormous pages adds to the illusion of years passing for the reader. 

“I am a powerful waterfall. I listen. I pay attention. I have a long memory. You might find it hard to believe but I have moved through time.”

We had a sneak peak of the publication when Gaylord Schnilec was the guest artist in our annual Ettinger Book Artist Series in February and a couple of days later when our department head Max Yela was a featured participant in the opening events for the exhibition “Gaylord Schanilec: A Natural History” in the James Watrous Gallery of the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, Wis.

Schanilec’s Midnight Paper Sales is the imprint, and the images were hand-printed on Mohawk Superfine paper, with the text handset in Bernhard Gothic foundry type printed on handmade Cave Paper produced by Amanda Degener in Minneapolis in an edition of 40 copies. The volumes were hand-bound and the covers and boxes constructed by the project participants.

Want to see more of what’s inside? Come into UWM Special Collections on the fourth floor of the Golda-Meir Library, or stay tuned for more social media posts on this magnificent text.

Pictured in the GIF is Max and our department manager Alice! 

-Morgan. Special Collections Graduate Intern

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Typography Tuesday

We just love these two very different typographic broadsides by Minneapolis letterpress printer and book artist Wilber “Chip” Schilling. Unfortunately, in both cases the typographic designs used are not identified.

The first, Inside (click on the image for a better appreciation of the craftsmanship), is a collaboration on handmade abaca paper with Amanda Degener and Bridget O’Malley of Cave Paper in Minneapolis. The broadside was designed and printed by Schilling as a keepsake commemorating the 25th anniversary of the journal Hand Papermaking in 2011. The text, printed in silver and written by Degener, is difficult to see in this presentation, but reads “something from the inside has come to meet what is made.”

The second, Apokalupsis 12:21:2012, is a tongue-in-cheek indulgence absolving the bearer “of all prior aural sins” and allowing “the privilege of musical revelation” for the future. The broadside was “prepared for the End of Times broadside exchange held in St. Joseph, Minnesota prior to Armageddon” in 2012. It was designed and letterpress printed from a vinyl record and typographic plates by Schilling with assistance from his wife Trish in an edition of 50 copies at his Indulgence Press in Minneapolis.

View some of our other Typography Tuesday posts.

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Buttonhole Stitch

Learning new bindings feels so great. I feel like I've accomplished something, even though in reality all I've done is stood at my desk and folded a bunch of pieces of paper together... It just makes me so inexplicably happy to put all those folios together and end up with a chunky stack of paper. They never turn out perfectly, but I love figuring out ways to make these different bindings work in my little makeshift bindery. My most recent project has been the buttonhole stitch (instructions from Keith Smith's Non-Adhesive Binding). I love the potential for beautiful design this particular binding has. My book is about as basic as you can get, but it was a great project to learn from. I made a few mistakes, like adding a last-minute book block pleat with endsheets after measuring and tearing the cover paper, so the side-covers are a bit too short and the spine isn't quite thick enough. 

Some pictures:

I decided to use a jig made out of binder's board to trim all the signatures to size. I can't decide if it was worth it in the end, because once everything was sewn together, the book block wasn't as tailored as I had hoped. Anyway, here's some nice, trimmed paper porn for you all to enjoy:

I used some really yummy Cave paper for the cover:

And, the finished product!

Not perfect, but I suppose that is why we practice. 

Some exciting life updates:

I will be volunteering at a book conservation lab starting very soon! Learning how to make enclosures and sleeves and doing lots of repetitious work. I'm thrilled!

I have decided to apply for a Fulbright to study in the MA Conservation program at the University of the Arts London. Does anyone know anything about this program? In all the research I've done on conservation and bookbinding programs, I hadn't come across this particular school until very recently. It really interests me, though, because I haven't found any conservation programs that allow to specifically study books. I would be interested to hear if there are any graduates of the program out there, and whether or not they've found employment.

I'm still trying to decide if I should apply to the North Bennet Street School bookbinding program. Any graduates of that program out there on the tumblrverse? Did you end up going through a conservation program after NBSS?