#pressure prints

[jodyart]

Things We Carried Into Space, artist's book, 2021

Things We Carried Into Space is an artist's book that meditates on what we carry with us into the galaxy. The images, based on x-rays of spacesuits, represent the physical apparatus we need to survive, and the text touches on what we carry inside those suits: our hopes, our prayers, our memories, our songs, our names.

Things We Carried Into Space was printed on a Vandercook Universal III at the In Cahoots Residency in 2021. The images are pressure printed and the text is letterpress printed using poylmer plates. The typface is gil sans. The book is a drum binding with a hardcover case.

[jodyart]

Pages from Things We Carried Into Space at the In Cahoots Residency, hot off the press (first run) and hanging in the end-of-residency display with the work of other residents.

[jodyart]

Things We Carried Into Space, title page and endpage

[jodyart]

Things We Carried Into Space, page process

I am obsessed with x-rays of spacesuits. I love the ghostly quality of the images. I've always wanted to make a book based on spacesuit x-rays, but the concept never quite came together until I was accepted into the In Cahoots residency program for 2021. I paired a newer draft of the poem with pressure prints based on the x-rays. I decided to pair pressure prints based on the x-rays with a poem I'd written in grad school, "Things We Carried Into Space."

The first step was to design the page layout on the computer using Affinity Publisher. As you can see in the image above, the layout uses an older draft of the poem.

I traced the outline of the x-rays and cut out paper shapes to create the plates I would use for pressure prints. Crumpled tracing paper and binding thread gave the plates added texture.

At In Cahoots, I printed the pressure print plates in a light teal. The text was printed using polymer plates in a slightly darker shade. There are fourteen pages in the final book. Every single page is a pressure print, with type printed on every page except the end pages, which are yellow.

[jodyart]

Ghosts on the pressure print plates

[geekynerfherder]

'A Vast Palimpsest' by Aaron Horkey, is a new TIMED print release from The Vacvvm. 11" x 14" giclee print, printed by Pressure Printing on 350gsm, 100% cotton printmaking paper, with border embossing and warm silver foil stamping, in a signed and numbered timed edition for $150. On sale from Wednesday August 30 at 2pm CT until Saturday September 2 at 2pm CT. Go here to buy.

[jeffmarley]

Some pressure prints from a recent class I lead. It's always fun to work with absolute beginner and share in there joy and surprise in exploring new processes.

[lynnmint8]

Updated my website and my instagram with my latest work - namely Pressure Prints! @mintonworks | mintonworks.com