Red Hydra Press ~ Alabama
(Steve Miller)

The Dogs of Havana
By Cade Collum
Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Red Hydra Press, 2008. Edition of 75.

5.25 x 7.75", 24 pages. Printed letterpress on Nideggen mouldmade paper at Penland School of Crafts by Steve Miller, in Bembo types from photopolymer printing plates. Seventy-five copies, of which fifteen have been specially bound in boards by Anna Embree, the rest in wraps by the printer.

Seven new poems by Cade Collum, written in response to eight linocuts created by Cuban Julio Cesar Peña Peralta. Bilingual (Spanish/English; translated from the original English by Maria Vargas.

Red Hydra Press: "This project began when, over the past four years, Alabama book artist Steve Miller, inspired by these lost animals, began photographing the small, feral dogs found on the streets of Havana, Cuba. Miller took some of the photographs to Havana and met with Julio Peralta, a well-known artist working at Taller Experimental de Grafica in Old Havana. Peralta took the challenge and created these evocative and pensive linocuts. [In 2006] Miller showed the linocuts to the Alabama poet Cade Collum, who began working on a suite of poems that would complement the spirit of the images. Once the poems were made, Maria Vargas translated them into Spanish and making the book began.

"Each linocut … is printed in black, with a different, brightly-colored background. The poems have been visually shaped to complement the linocuts."
$250

. ...or the opposite
By Mary Wehner
Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Red Hydra Press, 2007. Edition of 75.

5 x 7.25", 30 pages. Letterpress printed in Chaparral Pro types and photopolymer printing plates. Printed in twelve colors. Text paper is Hahnemühle Biblio, the wrappers Khadi Indian handmade. Designed, letterpress printed, and hand-bound by Steve Miller.

Twelve new poems by Wisconsin writer Mary Wehner with a suite of drawings by Alabama artist Jane Marshall.

Red Hydra Press: "The poems and drawings are printed over several low relief Sandaragraph plates made by the printer from natural objects collected from the perimeter of the letterpress studio at the Penland School of Crafts, where this book was printed. Chaparral digital types were printed on dampened Biblio papers. The three-signature books were hand bound with brilliant green Khadi Indian handmade paper endsheets, tucked into printed periwinkle Khadi wrappers.

"This chapbook collaboration began as a conversation between printer and author about qualities of nature, humanity, and balance found in the poet's work. Once a decision was made publish a selection of new poems, there was no artist other than Jane who came to mind. Jane's drawings, prints, and paintings are well known for their strong connection to the plant and animal world. Conversations between poet, artist, and printer commenced. The resulting work is alive with their dialog."
$175

Skin
By Dan Kaplan
Tuscaloosa, Alabama: 2005. Edition of 75.

5.5 x 8.5", 6 pages. Letterpress printed. Covers were printed in Havana, Cuba. Four linocuts. A handmade paper envelope designed by Ann Embree encloses the chapbook.

Dan Kaplan is former editor-in-chief of Black Warrior Review, whose poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Third Coast, Indiana Review, and Quarterly West.

“Today you are the man your mother pleaded / you not become….”

Another publication stemming from the relationship the University of Alabama Book Arts program has developed with Cuban artists, this chapbook is in a bilingual edition of three new poems by Kaplan translated into Spanish by Maria Vargas, with linocut illustrations by Cuban artist Julio Cesar Peña Perez.
$175

By His Own Labor:
The Biography of Dard Hunter
By Cathleen A. Baker
Northport, AL: 2000. Edition of 150.

7 x 11"; 368 pages. Two volumes housed in a cloth-covered clamshell box. Quarter-bound in leather with printed pattern papers created from a single leaf & stem punch cut by the author. John DePol cut the Hunter portrait in wood. Michael and Winifred Bixler cast the types. Kathryn and Howard Clark and Travis Becker made the paper. Dard Hunter III made the endsheets using his grandfather's Bull's Head & Branch watermarked mould. Book designed and printed by Steve Miller and Cathleen Baker. Plate volume printed by Meriden-Stinehour. Both the text and the plate volumes bound by Gray Parrot. Box by Judi Conant. Includes an index, a descriptive bibliography (271-286) and bibliographical references (296-320). 124 black-and-white and color illustrations of Dard Hunter’s work reproduced in second volume.

Red Hydra Press: "Dard Hunter (1883-1966) is best known as the paper historian whose writings form the cornerstone of our knowledge about world handmade paper history, technology, and materials. In order to gather firsthand knowledge about the making of paper, he traveled the world collecting tools, equipment, raw materials and paper samples. Through his Mountain House Press, he published his knowledge of world papermaking though a number of important limited edition handmade volumes, which have formed the foundation of today's renaissance in hand papermaking and related crafts. The Dard Hunter Collection forms the foundation of the Robert C. Williams American Museum of Papermaking at the Institute of Paper Science and Technology in Atlanta, Georgia....

"While Hunter wrote his autobiography, later followed by a biography of his father by Dard Hunter II, BY HIS OWN LABOR represents the first extensive critical biography. The book carefully chronicles his life and work, and evaluates his legacy."

This Red Hydra publication is based on the 10,000 non-book items in Hunter’s previously unexamined archives. Cathleen Baker, a paper conservator and teacher, lived for three years in the northeast tower of Hunter’s Mountain House while cataloguing and researching these materials.
$1,800