It’s Fine Press Friday!
This Friday we highlight another book by Gaylord Schanilec and Midnight Paper Sales, out of Stockholm, WI. It’s Come to This, by Twin Cities writer Patricia Hampl, was printed in 2023, in a limited edition of 70 copies signed by Hampl, Schanilec, and Lila Shull – who drew and printed the cover lithograph of ginkgo leaves. The wood engravings are by Schanilec – the large river panorama based on a photograph by Hampl. Typefaces used include Oldrich Menhart’s Monotype Menhart,Hermann Zapf’s Michealangelo, and an italic cast by Nick Gill. Molly Brown assisted the printing “in the wilds of Western Wisconsin,” on the Vandercook Universal III. The paper was handmade in the mid-20th century, at the Velke Losiny Paper Mill in what is now the Czech Republic. According to the colophon, this was when the formula included more sizing, and the formidable paper therefore "retains its pleasing 'rattle.'" Matthew Lawler Zimmerman bound the edition at Studio Alcyon.
“Life’s a journey—no wonder it’s our most ancient metaphor. A platitude, but only truth can harden into cliché.” Written during Covid isolation at her home in St. Paul, It’s Come to This explores escape – that “Midwestern birthright, the desire to be somewhere else” – as well as the significance of a long pandemic: “At your age, a year is a serious percentage of what’s left.” With the background of Midwestern summer storms, the George Floyd protests, and menacing Boogaloo Bois, Hampl walks her dog along the Mississippi feeling both isolated from and deeply connected to the events around her. The text first appeared in The American Scholar in October of 2021. “What exactly, has come to what?” Hampl wonders to her dog. “What is this it I sigh into, what is the this I keep falling upon? What distress and what comfort does this muttered mantra express?”
Shull’s rich pattern of ginkgo leaves across the cover speaks to the dog’s favorite spot to stop along their walks. “I get it.” Hampl concludes to her companion. “And now, standing by the side of the moving water, apparently we have achieved our destination, the ghostly This.”
View more work by Gaylord Schanilec and Midnight Paper Sales.
View other Fine Press Friday Posts.
--Amanda, Special Collections Graduate Intern
