Conversations between David Esslemont & Gaylord Schanilec
Both Esslemont and Schanilec are established, accomplished and award-winning artists in their own right and their unique relationship is revealed in this selection from their email correspondence. It is both extraordinary and mundane, yet fascinating and entertaining as they revel in the possibilities afforded by the computer and the instantaneous transfer of electronic data. Communication has taken on a new meaning.
Covering a period of four years the conversations are concerned primarily with the making of books. The daily exchange of emails during the summer of 2002 for example, when Esslemont and Schanilec were simultaneously working on books, reveals the anxiety and strife associated with this particular creative activity and displays the extraordinary detail that book artists must consider. Domestic life is interwoven as are the passing of seasons and world events.
With Introductions by J. Andrew Armacost, Head of Collection Development and Curator of Collections, Rubenstein Library, Duke University, and David Chambers, Editor of The Private Library.
Armacost writes: 'In one way, the correspondence of Gaylord and David is a daybook chronicling the seasons of the year in Wisconsin and Wales. In another way, it is a diary, with production notes, of editing, printing, and producing some important books. It is also a log of two personal journeys, a record of the writers' struggles to manage personal lives and professional lives in the midst of children, book fairs, accolades, and calamities. Still another important story is Gaylord and David's continuing dialogue about their current printing projects and the implications of their individual printing decisions.'
Chambers writes: 'For the curious reader . . . there is much detail that can be recounted, at parties in the elegance of London or New York, to entertain one's bookish friends – and even one's acquaintances who may be into golf or bridge.'
Esslemont's visits to the Schanilec home in Stockholm, Wisconsin, provided the inspiration for the colour linocuts. Printed directly from the original blocks, each is displayed on a page of its own. The average size is 200 x 130 mm (8 x 5 inches) They include: portraits of the family, one of their dogs, their guesthouse, the old pickup, the prairie, the workshop and friends and neighbours.
Schanilec's visits to the UK for the biannual Oxford Fine Press Book Fair have provided the subject for his thirty-three-inch panoramic colour engraving of Esslemont's homestead in Wales.
These linocuts have also been printed in small separate editions and are available as individual signed prints at $75 each.
Printed in an edition of 200 numbered and signed copies. The typeface is Cronos, the paper is acid-free mould made 145g Zerkall 7625.
155 pp, 340 x 230 mm (13 1/2 x 9 inches) (Original price £300 ($480), now out of print
90 copies bound by David Esslemont in full paste-grained cloth, with a cloth-covered slipcase.
10 copies bound by David Esslemont in a special full-leather binding: Sewn on linen tapes with handsewn headbands and leather joints; paste paper endleaves. Covered in paste-painted white alum-tawed goatskin, with gold tooling. In a felt-lined cloth-covered drop-back box. Out of print.
100 copies bound by Gaylord Schanilec.
Secondary market:
As new, a copy inscribed: "To David from Gaylord, St Paul, February, 2023", in half cloth with paste paper, with a cloth-covered slipcase. $700
This book is a co-publication of Solmentes Press (David Esslemont) and Midnight Paper Sales (Gaylord Schanilec) Published in 2003.
