Interview with Ruth Lingen

SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM Interview # LINGEN, RUTH LINGEN, RUTH (19-)Book Artist At UW: Interviewed: 2018 Interviewer: Sarah Lange Index by: Transcribed by: Teresa Bergen Length: 58 minutes First Interview Session (May 19, 2018): Digital File 00:00:00 SL: Hello. Today is May 19, 2018. I'm Sarah Lange with the oral history program at UW Madison. I'm talking with Ruth Lingen, book artist and UW alum and director of Pace Paper. We're at Memorial Library in Madison. So, Ruth, I thought maybe we could start out with you talking a little bit about where you grew up and what you did before you got here in Madison. RL:Yes. I grew up in rural South Dakota. And I loved letterforms from an early age, actually. And was involved in helping my father collate his programs for church every Sunday. So the old quote about learning everything you needed to do in third grade is true, in my case. As I collated many things that had to be stapled and folded when I was very young. And I also went on through, in high school I started painting billboards along the side of the road. The side of I-90, actually, in South Dakota. So that was my first introduction to really liking letterforms. SL: That's pretty cool. RL: Yeah. And then I went to University of South Dakota to study. Started out as a painter. And it was, I believe, in my second year that I took printmaking with Lloyd Menard, and John Risseeuw was teaching graphic arts there. So I actually really fell in love with setting type at that point. And decided to switch majors. So I studied with John for several years there. For I think junior and senior year exclusively. And he was definitely my mentor. And did a lot of printing of books, broadsides. The handset type that he had in that studio, or that was at the University of South Dakota at that time, was called Cooper Inline. And it's a very skinny version of Cooper Black that's actually kind of nice looking. So I printed several books and broadsides in this esoteric version of Cooper. And John Risseeuw was such an inspiration to me as a teacher, as a human. I remember very clearly we went to his house for a potluck dinner at the end of a semester. I think it was my senior year. And he had his own Vandercook press in his house. And I remember that made a huge impression on me about his dedication to what he was doing. So much so that I took a summer class in papermaking at the University of Minnesota in Bemidji one summer. There was some kind of outreach class offered through the university. I think it was a month-long, maybe. But that's where I first learned how to make paper. Because John had been a papermaker. Papermaking was not offered at USD at that time. But I did do some real homemade looking paper. And I did make enough paper to print a book edition in undergrad with that. 00:03:02 SL: Okay. Cool. RL: So. And it was really, actually from taking Lloyd Menard's printmaking class was when I had my first taste of sort of what you would call cooperation with an artist. Because he had a one-credit class that you could sign up for. And it was basically, not collaborating, it wasn't really called that then. Because it was a bunch of students doing all the work as fast as they could for a visiting printmaker. So you were expected to drop all your classes and be in the studio nonstop when this artist came to town for, usually I think it was one to two weeks, if I remember correctly. And that was really exciting and really fun to see that happen. And that was the first time I'd heard of people all working together in this community way to work toward sort of a finished 00:01:00 goal. And that was, that, and working very closely with John were my favorite undergrad experiences. SL: Okay. Well so then how did you, how did you come to be in Madison and study art at UW Madison? Was it because of John? 00:04:07 RL:It was absolutely because of John. He told me multiple times, "You should go to," you know, because I'd made so many books at that point. I mean, I don't know if it's so many. But I made some substantial books that had a lot of printed pages. And he said, "If you want to continue in book arts and typography, you should go to Madison and go to grad school and study with Walter Hamady." And he said, "You're going to love Madison. It's going to be great." I remember he said, "Pack your long johns and your swimming suit. You're going to need everything when you go to Madison." And I did. I took a year in between and worked as a commercial silkscreen printer in Omaha, Nebraska. And then after a year I decided it was time. You know, I applied, got in. And I actually got to become Walter Hamady's teaching assistant. It was actually work study. But I worked in the type shop. I requested to work for him. And that was my very first job on campus was working for Walter, cleaning up the type shop. And I was very sort of intimidated by Walter at first, because he was already very kind of, he 00:02:00 had this career and he was known. And I kind of knew his work. But he had an interesting combo of humor and intellect and he could be severe, but he could also be very, very sympathetic to me. I remember talking to him multiple times about, I had a lot of financial aid problems in grad school. So he was very, very, very helpful with me in securing, I got a scholarship for in-state tuition and a couple of things like that that he helped me get. And he was my main advisor in graduate school. And so I spent all my three years that I was here, I was in the type shop more than any other place. And I actually loved the job, which was one of my main T.A. jobs. Or my work study jobs, I should say, was really just sorting all the pied type and putting it away. I loved, loved, loved that. And that was when I really honed my eye to typography. I've definitely said this in other sort of, I don't know if I said this in a catalog. But at that point, my eye was so attuned to typography, because Walter would famously make us set type. As we set type by hand, he would say that copper and brass thins, a brass thin is 1/72nd of an inch, so that makes a copper one half of, half the thickness of 1/72nd of an inch. And he would say that 00:03:00 is not delicate enough, not fine enough, to really do beautiful letter spacing. So we were always cutting pieces of tissue paper to put in between letters for that extra little bit. 00:07:10 And I remember I was so tuned in to typography and spacing then, when I would drive down the highway I couldn't read billboards. Because the type spacing, I was like what, what is up? I really was so attuned to it at that time. It was also when you're learning and you have maybe more time to really focus in that kind of detail on something. And Walter, as you know, is just an astounding typographer, and has an incredible eye. So I learned so much from him in the years that he was my mentor and instructor and so many other things. SL: Can you talk a little bit more about maybe the classes that you took while you were here? RL: Oh, yes, yes. I took a lot of lithography with Jack Damer as well. I took a lot of relief printing with Ray Gleckler. And I took offset printing with Bill Weege and silkscreen printing with Dean Meeker and graphic design with Phil Hamilton. And what was interesting is Walter's book arts class was called graphics at that time. It wasn't called book arts. So even though you made a book, you made broadsides, you made letterhead, you made other kinds of typographical studies. And he also taught a really interesting class that I learned so much in. I can't remember the exact title, but it was making a one-of-a-kind book every week. So we would go into class on Tuesday. He would give us some interesting sort of concept. And then we would spend the whole week working like crazy and come back with something that had been designed, made, bound. It was often not 00:04:00 printed. Usually visual books. And I'm sure you've heard Walter's description as a book as a multiple and sequential picture plane unalterable by the viewer. This was playing on that with fold-outs and pop-ups and blow-ups and all the kind of fun and funky things that we didn't do so much in his formal graphics class, where you really spent half the semester making an edition of very seriously considered books that had gone through multiple dummy stages, and all kinds of proofing, typography and everything. Usually making the paper for that. And of course I took papermaking with Walter as well. And actually, one of the funniest things, I know the building that the paper mill was in, which is long gone. But it was down in a basement. You must have heard about this by now, right. And you know, the stuff would drop in. The dirt would drop off the ceiling into the feeder. (laughs) 00:09:58 SL: I didn't hear that part. RL: Yes. And I actually had my studio in the back of the paper mill, in this very damp, wet basement. I had about an eight by ten foot little space down there. It was like being in a little cave. That was my quote "studio" the first semester. (laughs) So, yeah, it was just, Madison then for art students like us, we all got assigned a room in a house somewhere. In a dumpy little rundown house. And it was actually really fun to have those kind of studios, because it was somewhat communal and somewhat private. And I have seen, of course, the new building and the new 00:05:00 studios. And they're very slick. And these were kind of the opposite of that, very funky and rundown. And you could be very relaxed in them, because you didn't have to worry about trashing anything. You know, just print on the walls or whatever you wanted to do. So it was super relaxed in that way, I would say. Other classes. Yes. Ray's relief class. He was a fantastic woodcarver and wood engraver. And we learned so much in that class. Same with offset, of course. Everybody knows how famous Jack Damer is for, you know, he had so many great lithography students. And they continue to do really amazing work. You know, the Wisconsin lithographers. So, hmm. What else? Art history class. Yes, I took a lot of art history. And print studying at what was then the Albion, going over there and looking at things. And actually we made a number of trips to Chicago to go to the Art Institute and look at prints there as part of 00:06:00 art history classes that I took. SL: Were you, as part of your art degree, required to take certain art history courses? Or did you just want to go in that direction? 00:11:55 RL: I definitely, you know, I don't remember. But I did do a couple of semesters because I was really interested in prints, because these were art history classes that were sort of focused on prints and works on paper. Yeah, you know, I don't remember if they were requirements. SL: I just asked because when I was speaking with Marta, she mentioned art history, too, so I thought maybe that was something that was part of the program. RL: Yeah, of the program. Yeah, maybe. Maybe it was. SL: So you came to Madison already having made some books and wanting to study with Walter. Can you talk a little bit about how your bookmaking changed while you were here as a student? RL: Oh, absolutely. Well Walter was, you know, he was so innovative in a way, and very known because of his, really his ideas about working with people around him, poets around him, 00:07:00 poets that he knew, writers, artists, people that he, he had students that were in his classes do woodcuts and things for his books. You know, he preached that and he practiced it. Work with contemporary people. Work with living artists. You know, he was not into the reprinting Shakespeare again in an updated version. He was into discovering new literature and extolling that. So that was definitely, as his students, we all wanted to do that, too. So what was great about the classes and this is like, I can talk about this later, but people within the classes did collaborate a lot together. So it fostered a real community spirit in the classroom with just setting type and making paper. I know I was involved in a number of projects where I would say okay, we're going to go down to the paper mill and we're going to blitz out two hundred sheets of paper this week that are all stenciled. And then it will be enough to make this book edition out of. So somebody would come and help you do that. And then you would go help them do that. And it was much like in lithography where whoever's printing the stone has a sponger. And then if they sponge for you, you sponge for them. So it makes the job go so much faster. So that was definitely something that was happening a lot. And Walter encouraged that, to work with other people and to figure out a way to bring your strengths together to make something better than the parts, bigger than the sum of the parts. 00:14:37 SL: Sure. Well while we're talking about it, can you think of any projects that you were working on at that time, or 00:08:00 relationships that you developed? RL: Yes. Well that brings up Kathy Kuehn, because we had a, I had done a broadside with a man named Tom Pinkard, whose wife Susie was in our class. And he was a writer, Susie Schneider, and he was a writer. So I asked him if he would give me something to use for my broadside. So I did a broadside called The Big Field with handmade paper. And then this gill sans set and printed. Then Kathy was working at Memorial Library and researching things. She later on did run the Silver Buckle. But she worked at Silver Buckle earlier, too. And she had run across this book with beautiful, really amazing and very strange medieval woodcuts of weird birds doing weird things, and hunchback, crazy characters. And so she loved them so much. So she decided to ask Tom Pinkard if he would write a fable based on these crazy pictures. And then she asked me to embellish it with more drawings. So it became this fantastic book that I still really, really love, called The Fox and the Farmer: A Group of Moraless --More or Less--Tales. And they're very funny, they're very whimsical, but they're also very 00:09:00 rooted in this specific place, Madison, because the library was such a part of that, the resource of the library. And also all of us gaining this sort of enthusiasm about collaboration and the spirit of working with people. And that kind of, I can't remember if this was before or after. But I also collaborated with Walter Tisdale, who was in my typography classes, on this beautiful book called The Walum Olum. And he set huge amounts of type. And I cut, I don't know how many dozens of tiny little linoleum cuts, sort of symbolic imagery that went with this Native American tale. And yeah, so we would print it, I'd print it at the shop. And then we'd print it at his house. And these projects, you could always go in and work all night on your projects if you wanted. So. 00:17:11 SL: Yeah, speaking of, I was wondering, that class that you said that you developed a book in a week-- RL: Yes. SL: --like how many hours were you spending on that project? RL: Everybody would end up putting in, I don't know, you would almost always have to pull, if not an all-nighter, than close to one, to do these things. Because it started out and you thought oh, this won't be so bad to make a book in a week. But as the semester goes on and all your other classes are starting to get more intense, too, then, you know, and Walter wasn't going to drop his standards. SL: Sure. RL: So. I still have some of those books today. Some of those books I made in that class, I really like, there's a certain vitality about, which I know from working with specific artists like Jim Dine, for example, that the speed and the energy of doing something quickly, you can feel that in the final 00:10:00 result. And it's a very different kind of feeling from doing the end of semester book project where you come forward with your edition of 20 books. And they're all going to be consistent, they're all going to probably be on your handmade paper. Yeah. 00:18:22 I remember the first book I did in Madison, my first semester with Walter. I only set type for the title page and the colophon. The rest was all this sort of artistic, I don't know how to describe it now. (laughs) It was in that accordion book. But it was not typecentric, and it was not poetry and not writing. It was an extreme visual book. And I think, you know, Walter was a little surprised, but--(laughs) That was what I wanted to do at the time. So he got behind it. Yeah. SL: Were there times when he pushed you in a certain direction or suggested? Or any of your teachers kind of suggest certain things, like kind of got you going in one direction? RL: I think, I think for Walter, he tended to, you know, we were required to have different dummies of the book at different stages. So he didn't sort of micromanage you as much as make suggestions as to maybe format, type choices. And he would really kind of just make sure you were 00:11:00 staying on track with your dummies, and really let yourself be creative. And then hopefully you'd have pulled it off so you weren't too worried about your final critique with your book. But you would have so many meetings leading up to that where you could change course or direction if you wanted to. Yeah, and I was trying to incorporate other printmaking into my artist books at that time. So they always included either litho, woodcut or handmade paper. And then the typography on top of it. That's something I still do, actually. So. 00:20:13 SL: And did you, with collaborating with some of your peers, did you kind of share work with each other and ask for advice from each other? Or not so much? RL: Oh, absolutely. Because we were, you know, typesetting is very labor intensive. As is printing all this amount of text that you need for a book. So everybody was always in the studio late, late, late. So, yeah. Some people I've definitely heard that they said they learned as much about printing from the other people in the studio as they did about Walter. And I said well, I don't know. Because I was in the type shop all the time. But that was also where I worked. So I definitely wouldn't say that was true. But Walter was, you know, he would give you the basics, the mechanical basics. And he would critique you. And I do remember as his work study person, I printed a card for him that was the Friends of Typography card to hand out. Have you ever seen one of those? SL: I 00:12:00 don't know if I have. 00:21:18 RL: I'll send you one. I found a stash of them that I still have. And Walter would hand them out to everybody at the end of the semester. It was Friends of Typography, Friends of Papermaking, what you got after your semester of typography. And it was dedicated to the promotion of fine typography on this planet. And I had to set this in justified six-point caps. And I just, Walter was famous for, you'd have to hand in your proofs at any stage for the dummy, so you'd have to make proofs on tracing paper. Give them to him and he would go through and correct them with a red pencil. So I just--setting those things in that small caps, I mean, I had to reset the thing at least three or four times before he was happy with it. (laughs) That six-point type, oh. There's not a lot of spacing that comes, you know, it's so tiny that a copper is one-tenth of the body of it. So you just, that's very tricky. SL: Yeah. It's interesting that you said that that affected how you looked at other things too. RL: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's not good to be too attuned. (laughter) SL: Well, what about your time working with Joe Wilfer? Do you want to talk a little bit about that? 00:22:41 RL: Oh. Well, Joe, of course, was a Madison grad as well. Studied with Walter as well. And he, it was just a fluke that in my, I think it was my fourth semester, fourth or fifth semester at Madison, he, Walter was on sabbatical. And he came from New York to be the 00:13:00 teacher of those classes for that semester. So I was his assistant. And he came in and he really, you know, he was so full of energy. And he was very, very different from Walter. Where Walter, everything was neat and tidy and perfect, Joe was much more messy. He was much more willing to shake things up in whatever way that meant. But he had shown us this slide talk of projects he was doing in New York. And he was making huge, handmade paper pieces with Chuck Close in 24 shades of gray that were about 64 by 84 inches. And this just blew everyone's mind that he was doing this at the same time. This was early '80s. So he had come up with this technique in New York. And that made a huge impression on me. And that was actually one of the big reasons why I moved out to New York. Because I knew Joe was there, and he was doing these great projects. And I was determined to go out there and get a job working for him, which I eventually did. But yeah, so Joe was very, very tied, he's originally from Racine, Wisconsin, so he was very 00:14:00 tied into the Madison community. Head of Madison Art Center, had been head of the Madison Art Center before he moved out east. Yeah, that was how I connected with him. So he was my boss and he became a real mentor to me, too. And also was just equally full of ideas and inspiration. And just a lot of fun to be around. He was a blast. He took us on so many field trips. We'd go visit all the paper mills and print shops. And we were constantly going. 00:24:51 And Walter did that as well, too. Walter, in his classes, we visited the children's library collection. We went to Fox River Paper Mill. We went, we'd go out to Perishable Press and Shadwell Mill, and look at his studio. And a few other places I'm not remembering. Oh, we went to Appleton to see dandy rolls made for papermaking. So we went on a lot of great field trips. And just the whole history of papermaking in this state, it's a very rich history. We had a paper chemist come in and talk to the class. SL: That's cool. RL: Yeah. I still have my papermaking notes. SL: Do you? RL: Yeah, I do. I still have my original handouts from Walter. SL: Oh, that's great. RL: I should have brought them. SL: Yeah, that would be fun to see. 00:25:43 RL: But yeah. And in terms of Madison, my first impression of actually coming to Madison was what a cosmopolitan town it was, compared to where I was from. I mean, compared to Vermilion, it seemed like big city, almost. And just how many creative people were here. So, yeah, I was very 00:15:00 impressed with Madison. SL: I know you were working so much on your projects. Did you guys hang out outside? Like what did you do for fun? RL: Are you kidding? Art students? Graduate art students? It was party, party, party. It was nonstop house parties and studio parties and openings. Yeah. It was just a lot of hanging out. And as I said, because so many of the grad students, what's now, you know, around Johnson Street and that whole area, were all these rundown houses that were just packs of people. So it was a sort of smaller scale vibe of like not intimacy, necessarily, but more accessibility, I think, than when you come into big like fortress-like buildings. And of course, you know, if you were working in 6451, in the art building, and you've been inside there. Of course, it's a fortress. So I think anyone who worked in there, you kind of bonded. Because you couldn't tell what the weather was like or anything, you know. It's a very strange building to be in. SL: Yeah. It is. (laughter) 00:27:20 RL: For art people. But there was a lot of bonding that went on. And I know Walter used 00:16:00 to tell us, he would host a picnic every, I want to say once a year out at his farm. And he told us. He said, "This is such a special group of people right now at this time." And you know, we would just think oh, yeah, right, he says that to everyone. But I think it was really true, because so many people in that, at that time, did go on to continue sort of really working. You know, Kevin Henkes' one of them, Walter Tisdale, one of them, Pati Scobey, so many people from that group. Marta. And a lot of people did end up working for Walter on projects. I know Marty did. I was sure that that was not a good idea to work on Walter's [unclear] projects. So I stuck to just helping him out in the classroom. SL: And why did you think that that wasn't a good idea? RL: Well, I guess it was Walter definitely has a sense of perfectionism. And while I could see wanting to achieve that in the classroom, I always kind of felt like his work at Perishable Press was a very separate thing. And he did talk about that as 00:17:00 it being such a separate entity. So I mean, I just, since I already worked for him on campus. And also, he never asked me to help him out on anything. So. (laughs) But, anyway. SL: But you worked with Joe. Could you talk a little bit about, like you were working with him here, first? 00:28:58 RL: Yes. One semester. The semester he came. I was the shop tech, basically. So I kept the presses oiled up, put the type away, showed the students where all the type was. Cleaned up. When Joe came, another fun thing that he did was we had, the Friends of Typography didn't have any money. So Walter, or Joe wanted to raise money for it by printing a Friends of Typography cookbook. So he got all the paper donated. I don't know if you've ever seen that. It's really a riot. So everybody in the class printed one or two recipes, letterpress. SL: Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. RL: And then we sold copies. They sold out. And we raised money, I don't know what the, I can't remember if we bought some type. And then through the end of semester party. I know Friends of Typography liked to throw little sort of parties in the type shop where people could come in and see your books. So everybody would lay their books out. You'd have like a little open house with refreshments. Not alcoholic. But it was just nice. You could invite people in and they could see things. And then prospective students could come in and also see the type shop. And it was always very clean and very tidy. Yeah. That's a fun project. SL: How often did you have students, prospective students coming in? Kind of like whenever? 00:30:12 RL: Well, it was always the end of semester when that happened. SL: End of semester. RL: Yeah. And I think it was more a word of mouth thing. But did I mention Kevin Henkes? He was an undergrad and he was in my class. And what was, another thing that was done between students a lot is we traded. I have a lot of books that I traded. And that was the beauty of doing editions. So when I've taught book arts, too, you know, with classes, I definitely encourage them to do that, too. Because it's a great way to get a small collection of hand printed books. SL: Yeah. That's very cool. RL: Yeah. SL: So do you want to talk any more about some of your other 00:18:00 collaborations? I mean, we talked a little bit about you working with other UW students while you were here. RL: Mm hmm. SL: But you, as you moved on in your career later, you continued to collaborate with all kinds of people. 00:31:04 RL: I have. I have. Yes. Both, not as, just somebody like Walter, but I've collaborated with a lot of visual artists. And doing both artist books and then sort of, I don't want to say fine press, they're not quite fine press. But hand printed writing with artists. So, yeah. Quite a few projects doing that. One of my favorite projects to this day is a book I did in, I want to say 2009, called Led Almost By My Tie with poems by Jeremy Sigler and images by Jessica Stockholder. She's a sculptor who teaches at the University of Chicago. And I just really liked her sculptural work and I had been trying to publish these books that had a very sculptural aspect to them. If they weren't complete sculptures, they were very physical kinds of books. I really like sort of the book as an object. But having more function than that. And rather than just being a sculptural object, having that aspect to it while still conveying whatever, you know, whatever you were deciding to put inside. In this case, it was a collection of twelve poems by a poet. And then a sort of 00:19:00 visual element that runs through from Jessica Stockholder, where she also culled words from Jeremy's poem to make her own poem at the end of the book. So each half page of a poem will be interleafed with images of hers on sort of transparent kind of films and papers that overlap and cover the poetry, and also sort of reveal. And it's a very, her work lies on the edge of painting and sculpture. And I feel like this was a book where it all came together. And it's still one of my favorite books. It was about two years in the making. Not every day. As most, you know, we all rejoice if we can do a limited edition book in one year. Well, less than one calendar year. It's a cause for celebration. But in this case, it really confirmed this feeling about collaboration that we talked about with Walter back in those days. And it was, putting your heads together, you really get a better thing in the end when you've collaborated. I think, I think that's really true. Because you're using your heart and your brain, everybody is in the project that wants to be in on it. So for Jessica, she came up with this incredible wall sculpture that the book sits on. And the text block of the book is 00:20:00 glued to a piece of wood. And then the piece of wood sits on the sculpture on the wall. And it's a beautiful sculpture. But then the book itself is 90-some pages that is so colorful and so visual, and we just--and what I like when I feel like a project is really successful is when you look at it and it feels very fresh, like it could have just been done. Sometimes you look at a print, even at Albrecht Durer, and you think wow, it looks so juicy and so good, it could have just been printed yesterday. So to have something that you're so happy with later, because I tend to find the flaws and say oh, I don't like that so much anymore. So it's fun to have a couple of projects, that's one I still like a lot. 00:34:40 I am working on a couple of projects right now. And I've done quite a number of books for other publishers and foundations. One project I really enjoyed was called The Piddling Pup. And it was an unpublished book of Alexander Calder's. Again, this is exactly what Walter didn't have us do, what I was talking about. This is probably the only book I've published that was--I didn't publish this. It was published by the Calder Foundation. So I decided to print it. And it was Alexander Calder's grandson had this manuscript that Calder had worked on drawings for and it had never been printed. So I thought it would be fun to help him print that, 00:21:00 and bring these-- So we sort of researched this. Sandy Rohrer and I researched this and made the book look--in paper, in typography, in binding with materials that would have been around in 1925, when he had made the drawings for it. And then he sets out for Paris and it never got done. So, yeah, that was a fun project, too. Yeah. So I've never really counted the number of book projects I've done. It's been a lot. But I can never decide if I'm going to think it's so few. So I just never have sat down and done that, to count. (laughs) SL: I bet it's a lot. Because-- 00:36:06 RL: It's a lot. It's a lot. But I feel like it's better I don't know. Because Walter, you know, Walter Hamady famously, Perishable Press has numbered all it. So I'm very aware of the fact that he's done 124, whatever the volume number of editions. And I'm way short of that. So. (laughs) SL: Well I wanted to ask you a little bit about how your collaborations come to be. Like do you reach out to artists you want to work with? Do they reach out to you? How does that-- RL: Yes. It goes both ways. It definitely goes both ways. I've had a lot of people, writers and artists, reach out to me and say they'd like to do a project. And it's usually just based on, I just go with my gut on this kind of thing. I have a project in the works now that I've been struggling to get going for four years now. I have a couple of those that for different reasons, health, you 00:22:00 know, there's always different parties involved. So this one's had a number of people change their mind, blah, blah, blah. But it's been both ways. And I really have to do a lot of research and read a lot of work if a writer's involved, or really go through a very comprehensive research period. Because when I commit to it, then, I also don't want to sort of micromanage, in a weird way. If I commit to this person who's going to write something, then I want to let them kind of write it. You know, within bounds. I've sort of nitpicked a couple of things, but I really don't like to do that once I've committed to the project. I like to let the project then develop in a very organic way. So it starts exactly as Walter taught us with the dummies and sort of a vague idea of how you're doing. And then I do feel like the project sort of takes you down a road where you know, you try out a lot of ideas. As I said, this thing I'm working on now, which I do hope gets done. It's been in the works for years. And it's gone through so many different iterations already that it's, I hope it's not going to lose steam before it's done. Because there's a definite arc of energy. And in the case of the Stockholder/Sigler book I was telling you about, that was an amazing thing because even though we had put so much energy in it, and had done this finessing of every single page multiple times, when you look at the book now, the evidence of that is not there. And I have worked with other artists like that. For example, working on Claes Oldenburg prints, they are very, very meticulously done. But when you look at the print, it looks very free and very simple and very easy. So that's a big victory, I think, if you can have 00:23:00 something not look labored. So in terms of, yeah, as I said, I do a lot of research. And then I'll have kind of a vague idea of what I want to do. 00:39:05 In the case of a book I did a few years ago with Edward Hirsch poems and etchings by Glen Goldberg, I had access to eight copper plates made when Glen Goldberg did a residency with a friend of mine, Julia DeMario, out at Sitka Center for Art and Science in Oregon. So I knew he had these eight really beautiful plates. And I said, you know, if I help you guys do it, can I use the plates in a book? So in that case, that was the only the second time, going all the way back to The Fox and the Farmer, where the images created the book, a book with text that looks like a traditional book. So after I had these images, then, I just, I spent months. I called it speedreading poetry on the subway, because I was, it was, and I was searching for something very specific. And I didn't find it right off the bat, but I found something by Edward Hirsch, this poet, who I didn't know at 00:24:00 the time, but is also the head of the Guggenheim Foundation. Very, very intimidating man. And I cold called his agent. Which I often reach out to people through their dealers, their agents. Because for me, it's about the project. It's not so much, you know, in grad school you just had a pool of friends, right, that are doing the same thing, and you could choose from them. But now I'm in a different stage, so it's like I want to more consider the steps I'm taking with these projects. So in that case, I had multiple meetings with Edward Hirsch where he was not enthused about the project at all. He said, "I don't see how this fits together. This is not a good pairing." And I was very, I was persistent. I had another meeting. He said, "Let me think about it." And then he did decide that he saw how I was trying to connect these things in a sort of existential way, and agreed to do the project. We had a reading and a sort of book promotion party, whatever, book signing, at Cooper Union. So that was really fun. And he read the poems. And at the reception afterwards, it was quite fun because he was telling everybody, "I didn't see it. And now I think the book's fantastic." So that was a hard sell. And sometimes it is. And I have asked a lot of people that have said no. So it's like anything in life, you know? You go, you sort of meander around until you find the right path for every project. 00:41:44 That's one of the things I 00:25:00 really love about bookmaking is you start the project and it zigs along or it zags, or it's a very straight line. But it's kind of its own little world. And it's its own set of experiences that go into it. So I really like that part of it. SL: So how do you manage your time and the projects? Because they vary so much. And you are relying on other people, too, for their input. RL: Right. SL: How does that work? RL: Ooh, that's a good question. I mean, a lot of it for me is based on I've had a lot of experience in printing and the logistics of these kinds of projects. So I do understand the kind of time parameters that are needed for things. Some things are easy. But most things become very complicated as you go along on them. So bringing other people into the mix, every person you bring in--this collaboration I'm trying to do right now involves three other people. So even scheduling a meeting becomes this whole thing. So it just, yeah, it takes forever. So you have to know that going in, or you can get discouraged. And certainly movies. You know, if you were in filmmaking or something, I would think that would be one of the biggest things is just that time hurdle. But that, and making sure, I like to kind of have a small team for these book things where I really know who's going to commit to the project. I have a couple of different people that help me in specific things, like binding. I have a young woman who helps me with all my folding and trimming, stuff like that. So when you line up the right people for the projects, I think then it really comes together in a very sort of natural way. SL: And you mentioned that there have been occasions where people declined to be-- RL: Right. (laughs) SL: --part of a project. What about on the flipside? What would make you say no if somebody approached you? 00:44:03 RL: Oh, that has happened to me. Because I've been approached by a couple of different writers and artists who wanted me to do projects. And when I looked at their body of work, I have to tell you, I know for writing, when you handset somebody's writing, you have to set it over and over. And you have to proof it and you have to--I was involved in a William Kentridge and Wislawa Szymborska collaboration book published by Dieu Donné. So I did the typography for that book. And I can tell 00:26:00 you, as I was setting the poems I thought, these seem very simple. And by the time I finished, I was madly in love with the poems and the poet. So you go through this process with the work where you better start out really liking the work and feeling strongly about it. Because it's going to put you through the paces of understanding it and sort of getting lost in it as you're going along. And I did with, I can think of a couple of people, writers and a couple of artists, when I looked through their work, I just didn't feel the kind of excitement and sort of thinking about the potential there. Like how you could take that and turn it into something bigger. I kind of didn't feel that. So I do feel like I have to go with really people or work that I feel really strongly about. I can't feel even a little bit ambivalent about it. Because it's just, it's too much work. SL: Yeah. Well, what about your role at Pace? Can you talk a little bit about that? 00:45:41 RL: Sure. That involves the things that I learned in Madison. Papermaking, printmaking and typography. So in this studio at Pace Paper, it's an aspect of Pace Prints. So we do different kinds of printing, and then many, many 00:27:00 kinds of paper. So at this point, I wouldn't say we make volumes of paper, as Walter Hamady taught us to make hundreds and hundreds of sheets for all of our books. But we have explored so many different creative processes in papermaking that we are sort of taking that language, I think, and really pushing it. I've worked on now 57 editions and about 70-some mono prints with an artist named Leonardo Drew, who's a sculptor who does phenomenal installation works that are very monumental, large-scale. And we have pushed the medium into this crazy thing that I would not have ever believed. And actually, it's really starting to get a lot of attention now, this body of work. It's going to be a whole traveling show next year, starting at Mount Holyoke College. And traveling around. And he's been on, he was featured in Hand Papermaking Magazine, Art Net Magazine, Artsy, Art 21. He's been featured a lot, and especially this work we've done. So I do feel like the ideas I got here in Madison were so important for that frame of thinking about collaboration and about just opening yourself up to working with other people. And just sort of seeing what happens. SL: So at Pace, then, you're kind of doing what you were explaining. Like finding artists that you want to collaborate with. 00:47:33 RL: Exactly. Exactly. But it's not, because we are part of Pace Editions, we're not open to the public for somebody to just come in and do their project. These are artists that have to be sort of vetted. And they had an association, if not with Pace Gallery, Pace Prints, then 00:28:00 with somebody in this realm of sort of the art world that, they have to be mature artists, basically. I mean, we work with some emerging artists. But it is, we work with a lot of established artists. And they're usually complicated projects. And the cost, because we're based in New York City, you know, it's expensive. So there's always this financial thing that you have to take into account there. That I don't have to think about so much when I publish my book projects. So. SL: And can you talk a little bit more about how you got into the role at Pace? RL: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Well that was me when I moved to New York and Joe Wilfer actually was setting up a print studio for Pace Prints. Previously all the printing of editions, that I remember distinctly it was Julian Schnabel editions they started out doing in the '80s. And Joe had figured out that he could set up a print shop and maybe do things in-house. And it would be just as, less expensive, I think, than farming out these big projects that were being done in Europe and elsewhere. So he set up a print shop in SoHo. And I sort of went down, he was just getting it going. And I worked all kinds of odd jobs, freelance. And I was actually at that time a letterpress printer at Bowne & Co. Stationers. Which was, and still is, actually, a 19th century print shop as part of the South Street Seaport Museum in New York. So I would go up there, I worked there four days a week, and then I would go up there faithfully every Friday and say to Joe, "Hi. Do you need to hire me? I'm available if you need help." So I did help him freelance on projects. And the first project I helped on was a 00:29:00 Louise Nevelson cast paper piece. That I'd go in once every two weeks and I'd make twelve pieces in these plaster molds. And I'd turn the fans on. Then I'd come back two weeks later and make more. So this went on for a number of months. And then he said, "Okay, I think we might have a job for you." So I started working for Joe. He was so much fun to be around. And where Joe was, was the center of the world. And he knew a lot of, there were a lot of Wisconsin people in New York. So everyone hung out at this local bar. And it was the Wisconsin Mafia in New York City. So there was a lot of friendly faces that we, that sort of congregated around Joe and the workshop. 00:50:35 So that began as a fulltime thing in, I want to say 1986. And we worked with Alan Shields, who had been here working with Bill Weege at his paper mill. And Joe as well, when Joe had Upper US Paper Mill. And out at Bill Weege's farm, ranch, farm. And so that was, yeah. So I started really working there for Pace, and stopped working at the Seaport then. SL: So how long have you been at Pace? RL: Well, aside from a few years when I went out west to teach, and a few years when I was out in Long Island, working exclusively on some Chuck Close projects, that's the rest of my years. So it's been 25 years or so. SL: That's great. RL: In different capacities. So actually Joe died in 1995. And then I sort of stepped into his position then. We had closed the paper mill. Then I was out west, as I mentioned. Went out and taught for a while. And then when I came back, that was 2005, 2007. And I made some Chuck Close editions on my own. And then decided to, my boss, Richard Solomon, decided to reopen a paper mill in Brooklyn. So that started in, early 2009 is when we really got up and 00:30:00 going. So that's what I've been doing since then. SL: Okay. Can you talk a little bit about your teaching? You said you taught the book arts. RL: Yes. SL: How did you approach teaching? And I guess how did you get the gig, too? 00:52:15 RL: Oh, well I taught here in Madison for a year, right after I graduated from grad school. So what happened then is Walter got a sabbatical. And somehow, I think it was very, I somehow the deadline for posting the ad for the job had just passed or something. So very few people applied. So I got it somehow. I was straight out of grad school. That was an interesting experience, I have to say, to have had all these other professors for my teachers the semester before. And then to be going to these meetings and sitting in on these meetings with all these people that had just been my professors. And I really, that was the year I learned diplomacy, I have to say. So there were rifts within certain teachers that you had to be able to manage. And as I said, I was the youngest person teaching there, because I was straight out. And I did have students that were older than me, so that was interesting, too. But of course coming straight out from under Walter's tutelage, I felt very equipped to teach. I taught the graphics, I taught papermaking, and I taught lettering. Which at that time, when I taught it, it was going through all kinds of calligraphy. And then it was constructed caps and really what you'd call graphic design. But done by hand with pen and ink and brushes. And that was a class I really liked teaching, and I really liked doing all those things, too. So that was my first year of teaching. And then I taught at Whitman College from 2005 to seven. And I taught book arts and printmaking. So my book arts classes, I was very, very tough on the students, I'll tell you. I made them do so many projects. And the printmakers, too. But I think they loved it. I got, actually, a number of letters from students years afterwards saying how the skills they had learned in their book arts class, they had used consistently. Just things like, things seem so simple. Like folding paper correctly. Handling paper correctly tearing it, making signatures. Thinking about book structures. So book arts really is kind of my pet class to teach, I have to say. I really love it. And there's a lot to know there. But I think also there's a real excitement for the students, because they progress from basic typography, more complicated typography, image with typography. And then the book project. So they come out with something that's very substantial. And a lot of them use this to apply for other things. Like they used it for scholarships. One of my advanced students 00:31:00 got a semester in Japan. Actually, two of them. Because they had done such beautiful complex books. And then they made these wrappers to apply for this Japanese scholarship, which they got. So it does give you a lot of presentation skills, which are important. 00:55:19 SL: I wondered, I've been asking artists if they have a definition for an artist book. Because I think that people encounter that, probably people who don't know about artist books. And then they find out you're a book artist, they must ask you, "Well, what does that mean?" RL: Right. Right. SL: Have you thought about that lately? RL: That is very good. Because I always just requote Walter's, which is the multiple and sequential picture plane, unalterable by the viewer. Well, I guess I would say something very close to that. Maybe something that can be manipulated a little more by the viewer. But I think an artist book is something that when you finish, it's not strictly about the information it's conveying. It's really something that can be seen as such a beautiful object in and of itself. And it isn't necessarily the physicality, but it could be the combination of what it's giving you intellectually, visually, and the sum of all those parts, that give you this feeling that could be as strong as viewing a painting, sculpture, anything like that. It's not just, you know, 00:32:00 I've made it through my paperback and now off it goes. But that will be a good project for me to come up with a very concise definition. And I'm going to think about that. (laughs) SL: Okay. That sounds good. Is there anything else that we haven't talked about that you want to touch on? RL: No. I would just say that I really loved my years in Madison. And that's why I'm back here visiting. I get back from time to time. And I just do feel like it was a very powerful place for me to be at that time. And I just got so much from my time here. And it was just really fantastic. So many wonderful people. And continue to be here, too, I think. So it was just really a great, excellent experience. SL: That's nice that you guys stay in touch, too. RL: Yeah. SL: Well, thank you, Ruth. I appreciate it. RL: Thank you. 57:32