Mesa Arts Press ~ California
(Jim Machacek & Genie Shenk)

Interview with Jim Machacek
About the Jim Machacek & Bay Park Press
Other books by Jim Machacek (Bay Park Press)

These works are simply presented and approachable, with appeal for the lover of type. Small, inviting details in the binding cases round out the work.

An Interpretation Walt Whitman's "A Font of Type."
By Jim Machacek & Genie Shenk
1996. Edition of 60.

A folded book in one sheet of paper opens out to broadside. (Unfold to reveal title page, unfold again to the text.) Letterpress from Lydian type on Frankfurt paper. Housed in a notched, blue envelope with job case printed on front. (4.5 x 7.875 cased, opens to 8 x 16.5 inches.)

The ten lines of Whitman's ode to type: "This latent mine – these unlaunch'd voices – " explode as a printed collage of type cases and press objects and furniture. A beige, backdrop grid is the California job case. Red, pale blue, and yellow inked collage. A poem that recognizes the potential power of the voice contained in a font of type, "within pallid slivers slumbering" unleashed through print. A wonderful tribute to the noble vocation of printing.
$80

f fi fl ff ffi & ffl
By Jim Machacek & Genie Shenk
1994. Edition of 100.

8 x 4" Letterpress on Superfine. Pamphlet stitched landscape into self-enclosing tabbed wrapper.

Billed as first fanciful publication reflecting our acquisition of two cases of wood display ligatures and 18 point Century Schoolbook. This is a type lovers delight. Quoting a character in their story, one might say to the authors, "You're afflicted with ligatures!" The ligature-laden publishers contrived a text full of ligatures (that is: f-ligature words). They also reveal a fondness for f -alliteration. Playful proliferating wood type ligatures parade across the page (perhaps alliteration is contagious). Ampersands, f-ornaments (ornaments of objects whose names begin with f, and figures of fig leaves and Fiji fill out their offering.
$100 (Last two copies)

• See listings under Bay Park Press for other Jim Machacek collaborations.