The project finished mid-September, however, I wanted to give the research a bit of time to sit and simmer, before I wrote my final post. I also wanted to set up a blog for the future research, found here. This blog will consist of the work I create during PhD study at the Wroclaw Academy of Fine Art, which began on Monday. I am also using the work I created and the lessons to inform teaching at Spike Print Studio, which can be found here. I am currently writing up this experience for Pressing Matters magazine which will be in the Winter edition.
Jadwiga’s email was the second reason for my delay in writing this final blog post. I had asked Jadwiga Tryzno a series of questions regarding the museum and their beginnings, which I had been translating with the help of google. Jadwiga and Pawel were members of the Correspondance des Arts – a publishing house, which began in 1980. They made the first artist book, YEAR OF POLAND, at this time. The book consisted of 13 double pages – the months on which the revolutionary poems of the greatest Polish poets – Mickiewicz, Słowacki, Norwid, and Miłosz. At the time the group consisted of three artists and one poet: Graczykowski Andrzej, Zbigniew Janeczek, Janusz.P. Tryzno, and Zdzislaw Jaskuła(poet). It lasted for five years before the group split up and Janusz P. Tryzno and Jadwiga continued the Correspondence des Arts.
For a short period in 1980, when the CdA began, censorship had ceased to operate smoothly. It was very apparent then. Bibula (tissue paper), underground publications were widely available (the book LITTLE APOCALYPSE – Tadeusz Konwicki sold 5,000 copies off the back of a lorry to Warsawians). Publisher CdA was then a curiosity, being able to get luxury print materials from the Print house, which were unused in the industry. This access to luxurious materials ended quickly, and they had to learn to make handmade paper by hand. At this time Martial Law came into effect from 1981 to 1989, and you could go to jail for working with a printer. There had been no private printing houses in Poland since the Second World War, so during these years of martial law, you could only dream of having your own printing press.
The first machine they acquired was the półformatową korektorkę typograficzą, which was saved from the fire and acquired in 1987. It came from the Graphic Works from Lodz PRESS RSW, the Ministry of Culture had to give special permission for the press to be used for the artistic purposes of Janusz Tryzno. The machine was located on the 11th floor of a block of flats in a studio. It had to be evacuated in 1990 due to the protest of a neighbour.
In her email Jadwiga Tryzno marked the different stages of making books, discussing the very basic beginnings until 1986, when they were without access to any equipment or machinery. Then from 1986 – 2000, the next period involved learning how to draw paper, handwriting text from fonts, using the first computer text sets and mixing printing techniques (typography, screen printing, offset, photography). They began testing the flexibility of the codex form of the book.
I feel like there is a great deal of room for further research, I plan to return to Lodz later this year. I want to explore further how this evolution of print techniques has affected their practice. Working with limited resources has lead to increased resourcefulness. I am beginning to only scratch the surface of this project. At the Book Museum, they are still developing a CNC milling machine which will be able to take digitally designed fonts back to a matrix for lead-casting. During my time, I was able to make an artists book experimenting with embedding basic circuits into the paper. When I return this winter, I will be able to use their papermaking facilities, which were out-of-action on the last visit. All I can say to finish is watch this space.
