Stories

Waiting wall typed, mk 2

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Typed with Remington de luxe 5, and Smith Corona classic 12, with 6cpi. These are the scrambled anonymous confessions from the Waiting Wall project originally exhibited at Brighton train station, in 2015, and online. These days the website is “insecure”, Firefox informs me, so I will not be attempting to collect any more screenshots of the morphing confessions online. However I do have a large cache to work with.

A day out on the Thames

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My surprise find of fossil sea-urchin. St Paul’s Cathedral and the Millennium bridge in the background
Thames swans ( they all belong to the King, technically, as an old rule says he’s the only one allowed to eat them. ) Pigeons also and a few black headed gulls. Blackfriars bridge in the background. What you can see is actually the train station platform windows
Looking back from those windows, you can see the banks of the Thames along Southbank, and the little bit of beach where I found the fossil. Further along is the Tate Modern Gallery
And a wider view from the station window at Blackfriars. Sitting on the bench waiting for my train home, I could hear the waves of the Thames crashing beneath me as the tide came in.

My contribution to Margin Releases

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A few years ago, I started making a piece of typewriter art. I am so grateful to the editors of the final edition of Cold Hard Type for selecting that work for inclusion in Margin Releases. It feels like the perfect place for the artwork after years of not being able to decide how to get the pieces out into the world.

I don’t want to give too much away, because I hope that people will buy the book and enjoy all the contributions fresh, with no big spoilers.

And so I will just share some photos of the machine I used to make the artworks.

The machine itself became part of the artwork.
The week I acquired this machine, I received the results of my dna ancestry test. The results, showing that I have European Jewish ancestry contributed to my desire to make the artwork.

Variations

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Cover design 1 in progress. Gold foil on maroon book cloth
Cover design 2. Ink on grey book cloth
Cover design 3. Silver foil on midnight blue book cloth
Jacket-slip typed on Smith-Corona Classic 12 6cpi
Pretty satisfied with the way this project has turned out. Now on to the next!

120 lino prints…

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being sewn into a first run of ten little books

This is tank-top guy feeling festive
This is Crow, missing her friend Tank-top guy
Sometimes when you miss someone, you just have to caw them up on the phone…
and work out how to spend time together, in a corvid safe way.

Getting a handle on it

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Probably the easiest handle I’ve made
Jazzy purple shoe leather off cut with a sturdy cross stitch at each side

I haven’t had my Remington Portable on the desk for ages. One of its old issues was letter piling so I typed a page of random words to see what was what. Only a couple of instances of piling. Usually the more I use this machine the less it piles letters

I’m always keen to increase my vocabulary. I remember the first time I heard the word “realtor” and I thought huh?! I must have been about 20. Before that I assumed the Brits and Americans were speaking basically the same language with merely a large expanse of water between us. Then I learned what “rubber” meant and that it’s not for correcting mistakes on your life drawing. Oh no. And how could anyone say “fanny” in public without blushing?! Well probably me. But I blush for others.

The creator of Aunt Fanny used a Remington portable

If we read these books we (my kids and I) usually ended up having a talk about sexism and racism at some point and how different the stories might be today. I would not have chosen the books myself but if you give children free choice at the bookshop I think it’s worth exploring historical texts, and learning to say “Aunt Fanny” and “Dick” without cracking up mid-sentence is a life skill it’s never too late to learn.

All lit up

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My copy of Backspaces arrived this morning and I’m so excited. I can’t wait to read all the contributions – a whole book of stories about time-travel written entirely on typewriters? Still pinching myself ( Many many many thanks to everyone who made this project happen). Here it is with the Underwood I used to type my story on. Ok, got to go and put the kettle on and read now!

The revolution (in publishing) will be typewritten.