Writing the Book
Around the spring of 2000, I came across a call for submissions from Lark Books editor Katherine Duncan Aimone. She asked for artists to send in rubber stamp work for a book she was writing. I sent her some samples of my work—and she loved them. In fact, my images ended up on the cover of Katherine’s book, STAMPING WITH STYLE.
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About a hundred phone calls, e-mails and Priority Mail packages later, I ended up contributing to almost half a dozen craft books published by Lark. I enjoyed Katherine’s sense of humor and deep knowledge of book publishing and the art world. She enjoyed my sense of humor, and my willingness to jump in and do an art project on the spur of the moment. (A sample telephone conversation might run like this: "I see you do polymer clay. A friend of mine is doing a book on it. Can you send some samples for the gallery?" "Yup." And a box of Lascaux horse necklaces were on their way to Lark Books. Or "Can you paint on glass?" "Nope, never tried that." "I need a project for painting on glass. You could paint something on a glass plate. I need a glass painting project fast!" "Okay, I’ll try." And three days later, a set of glass plates with hand painted images of galloping horses and leaping red deer were on their way.)
In her research for her rubber stamp book, Katherine had many discussions with Art Snyder (a contributing editor of RUBBERSTAMPMADNESS magazine, the bible of rubber stamping.) He told her there was another kind of rubber stamping, not well known by the "outside world", where stampers actually carved their own images out of erasers and eraser-like materials.
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In 2001, Katherine presented a proposal to Lark Books—Lark could be the first craft book publisher to offer a mass-market book on carving rubber stamps.
Originally done by underground artists in the ‘60’s and 70’s, carving erasers continued to fascinate artists interested in alternative methods of printmaking. Eraser carving was similar in technique to linoleum block carving, except the artist was limited to the size of a Mars Staedtler eraser, the most commonly used eraser carving material. The advantages were that erasers were a lot easier to carve than linoleum blocks. In the last decade, certain manufacturers of soft vinyl block products (erasers) were persuaded to create larger versions of the humble eraser. A new art form slowly grew. Not quite in the mainstream of rubber stamping (where stampers use commercially made rubber stamps) nor in the fine art world of printmaking, stamp carvers occupied an odd middle ground for years. Beautiful work was created by artists who loved working in this medium, and slowly their work became accepted as real art. Even the name, eraser carving, no longer accurately described the process. Stamp carving was better, but now some artists refer to the medium as "soft block carving" or "soft block printing".
Katherine’s proposal was accepted, and in April 2001 Lark Books offered me a contract to write the book. Due to scheduling difficulties and setbacks, Katherine was not able to be my editor, and I was informed that the schedule for the book was already behind. Could I finish the book within the allotted time? I said I was willing to try.
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My editor was Joanne O’Sullivan, and she proved to be as delightful and professional as Katherine. I thoroughly enjoyed working with her as we both raced to meet deadline after deadline.
One of the hardest aspects of the book was Katherine’s original desire to showcase the carved stamps themselves as a work of art. Even when carvers tackle an identical image, their unique vision and carving style transforms their work into a one-of-a-kind image. Yet the medium is easy to master, and even simple images can yield such artistically satisfying results. Balancing these two goals within the format of Larks’ highly regarded "Weekend Crafter" series was an ongoing dance. At the end, a successful one. Another difficulty was keeping the scope of the book within the definition of a beginner’s carving book. There are so many artists, resources, groups that participate in this medium, it felt awful to not be able to include them. But as Katherine and Joanne would gently admonish me, "Keep that for your NEXT book....!"
The first step was to write an overview of the techniques and tools used to carve these stamps. The second was to select projects of enough simplicity to encourage new users to try it, yet interesting and versatile enough to encourage the user to explore the medium further. Then came the hardest part—breaking each project down into many little steps, and carving a stamp to illustrate each step. Each project meant six to twelve carved stamps, all with the same image but at different stages.
By June, I was finished writing the text of the book. Next came a vital part of the book—photographing the carving steps for each project.
In July, I flew to Lark Books’ offices in Asheville, NC. It was a beautiful city, with many beautiful art and craft galleries, restaurants with outdoor seating, lovely climate and terrific people. The staff at Lark Books made my stay perfect. It was terrific to work with everyone. The photo shoots, though long and grueling, went smoothly, thanks in great part to my overpreparation I had carved huge quantities of stamps), Joanne’s exquisite organization and the good nature and professionalism of the Lark staff.
The hardest part for Joanne was holding all these steps and images in her head, keeping them organized and in logical order so that the directions would flow. She did a tremendous job, for though we spent an entire three 8-hour days shooting, we only had to retake a couple of missed steps here and there, which we did right then and there.
In late summer, Joanne sent me a color version of the book. It was dramatic and attractive, in shades of taupe, black rust and ivory. One of the designers, following my instructions, had carved actual strips of vinyl and inked them to create vibrant borders. Inside the borders was a carved image of a black crow on the cover of a small handmade book, with the actual carve stamp and a gouge. I loved it!
In October, Joanne sent the first black and white proofs of the book. We gleefully attacked the text with many red pens, correcting steps that didn’t correspond to photos, rewriting some portions for clarity, and catching typos. Within a day, the proofs were on their way back to Asheville. In late November, I received the final color proofs of the book. It was beautiful! Still a few errors, but very minor ones. Again, a day later, the proofs were on their way back. My part was finished.
The book was literally on a slow boat to China for its printing. Hopefully, sometime in April, the finished books will mysteriously appear in the Lark Books warehouse, and be distributed to bookstores across the country (and abroad.) Lark Books tells me there is a lot of excitement about the book already. The Book-of-the-Month Club has already ordered an unusually large number of copies. The book fills a unique niche, following on the heels of the passion for rubber stamping, but with a new twist on an old favorite. I’m delighted and honored to be given the chance to introduce this wonderful new pastime to artists and craftspeople everywhere.