Strong Silent Type Press ~ Minnesota
(Fred Hagstrom)

Bukowski illustrated bookworks
Collaborations with Greg Hewitt

deeply honored
By Fred Hagstrom
St. Paul, Minnesota: Strong Silent Type Press, 2010.
Second edition, Edition of 26.

11 x 15.25"; 28 pages. Printed in silkscreen on Rives grey. Drum-leaf binding. Cloth covered boards with a silk-screen image of barbed wire.

Images from the period of the war were obtained from the Carleton College and the Densho archives. Text is taken from letters in the Carleton archives. The visual quality of the original letters and documents required they be transcribed for this printing. The Shigemura letters were printed in Lucinda Handwriting, a font that approximated the handwriting of Mrs. Shigemura. The Carleton letters and memos have been transcribed into Monaco. The descriptive text is printed in Verdana.

Fred Hagstrom: "deeply honored is a story about the internment of Japanese Americans during the war. Carleton College took in several students under scholarship in order to get them out of internment camps. This was part of the Student Relocation Council, organized by John Nason, President of Swarthmore College.

"Carleton's first such student was Frank Shigemura, who enlisted after one great year at Carleton. He was killed in France. After the war, his parents were released and returned to Seattle. They appreciated what Carleton had done for their son, so they began a string of contributions to the College. This added up over the years, until the College President discovered that they were living in poverty and were giving a large portion of their income to the school. He tried (without success) to discourage them from any more contributions. Carleton has a scholarship in his name, and a room in his honor in our memorial hall. When his parents died, they left anything they had to Carleton.

"The book is about this tremendous family and what they did in the face of one of the great injustices of our history. deeply honored is a phrase from Mrs Shigemura. The text is from archival letters, including those of Mrs. Shigemura to the school.

"A sample of the text – a letter from Mrs. Shigemura to a Carleton Dean: We deeply feel honored in having Frank's picture in a memorial booklet honoring Carleton College gold star men. It is hard to realize that Frank will never return. I can only say that I am grateful that he was able to serve his country, God and us all. I shall always be proud to be the mother of a true American. Frank has often mentioned in his letters about the fair treatment and kindness he received from both the faculty and the students of Carleton College. I cannot find words adequate enough to fully express our thanks. We are ever and ever so grateful to you all."

It's difficult not to be over-the-top in praising this presentation of this story. If you can read it and not be moved, we occupy different realities. [Vamp & Tramp]

Because of the great interest in this subject Hagstrom decided to create this second edition. Fred Hagstrom: "All of the images and text are the same, but the colors are quite different. I think I prefer the 2nd edition."

Hagstrom has "hopes that some new fund raising for his scholarship fund is in the works."
$700

The Second Coming
By W. B. Yeats
St. Paul, Minnesota: Strong Silent Type Press, 2010. Edition of 20.

11.25 x 14.5"; 24 pages. Printed from polymer plates on BFK Rives Gray. Font is Myriad Pro. Three-color intaglio prints (the rectangular images) by Hagstrom from plastic plates applied to the base paper with chine-collé. Metal engravings by Gillespie (the round images) are printed in color then applied chine-collé to the base sheet of paper. Chine-collé paper is Iwaki. Bound in cloth-covered boards with a circular metal engraving (by Gillespie) on the front cover.

Strong Silent Type Press: "The Second Coming is based on the poem by William Butler Yeats. The book contains five hand engraved intaglio prints by Oscar Gillespie, and five intaglio prints by Fred Hagstrom. ...Yeats' text is about moments of great change in the world, evoking images from the Middle East and the beginning of Christianity. We chose this text because we think it is a beautiful poem, but also quite significant at this point in time, still close to the millennium, and at a time of violent change in the Middle East. We chose not to do a literal illustration of the images from the poem, but instead hope that we have served the text well through our own interpretation of it."

Fred Hagstrom: "Each of us tried in our own ways to respond to the poem. Neither of us wanted to do illustration in the sense of actually depicting a visual image from the poem. ... I like a kind of very open response to the text in which you can still relate the images to the text. … Oscar and I discussed a little bit the fact that his son has served in the Middle East during this time, and I certainly feel that the text – moments of great change, the ideas of changes at the end of important time periods, along with how much of the poem invokes images from the Middle East – none of this can be separated from the current wars there."
$700

Kill Box
By Joanna Rawson
St. Paul, Minnesota: Strong Silent Type Press, 2008. Edition of 19.

12.5 x 15.5 x 2"; 22 pages. Text in Veranda printed from polymer plates. Intaglio images printed chine-collé by plastic plates and letterpress. Paper is BFK Rives, gray, with Iwaki for the chine-collé paper. Bound in black cloth with tipped on image on front board. Housed in a black plywood box.

Fred Hagstrom: "Text is by Joanna Rawson. Her poem is about a group of men trying to cross the border who die when they are sealed in a shipping container. I tried to use design and images to convey the claustrophobic sense of her words."

This is the first publication of Rawson's poem.
$700

your life in two's
By Fred Hagstrom
St. Paul, Minnesota: Strong Silent Type Press, 2008. Edition of 20.

4.25 x 4.5"; 24 pages. Intaglio,chine-collé, letterpress. Text and images by Fred Hagstrom. Numbered but unsigned.

Fred Hagstrom: "This is a small book and short text about the rhythm of breathing in our lives."

Text excerpt:

your first breath is an inhale
your last breath is an exhale

$250

His Small Self Constant, Variable
By Greg Hewett
St. Paul, Minnesota: Strong Silent Type Press, 2008. Edition of 20.

11 x 13"; 18 pages. Intaglio images from plastic plate in three colors. Text printed letterpress from polymer plates. Base paper Rives Gray. Images applied chine collé on Iwaki paper. Codex binding. Black cloth covered boards with intaglio print on front board.

Poetry by Greg Hewett; 10 images by Fred Hagstrom.
$700

Echo
By Greg Hewett
St. Paul, Minnesota: Strong Silent Type Press, 2007. Edition of 12.

11 x 10"; 15 pages. Text printed letterpress from polymer plates. Intaglio images printed in three colors from plastic plates on full page. Codex binding. Cloth-covered boards with print on front board. Printing assistants: Megan Fitz and Paloma Barhaugh-Bordas.

As when a few sharp grains of sand strike
your cheek, land on your iris,
words become so small, ...

$600 (Three copies remaining)

First Light
By Greg Hewett
St. Paul, Minnesota: [Strong Silent Type Press], 2005. Edition of 19.

7.75 x 12"; 30 pages.16 block prints (relief engraved images) printed in silver from plastic plates by Fred Hagstrom. The prints are produced with a technique like wood engraving, but done on polystyrene, a hard plastic, rather than word. Hagstrom was "one of the first to promote use of plastic for engraving." The images are carved into the plastic with engraving tools — a burin and half-tone rake. Text printed from set type in brown ink. Printed on handmade paper. Bound in black paper covered illustrated boards with black cloth spine. Cover relief printed from etched copper plate (the lines that would be black in an intaglio print are white and the surface or raised portion is white) with 2.5 x 3" block print image tipped on front board. Codex binding with hard cover and black cloth spine. Printing, binding, papermaking by Molly Kent and Jesse Trentadue.

Two poems by Greg Hewett with image by Hagstrom: "Five Appearances of the Noumenon" and "Night-Blooming Cereus."

you appear last in a helix of snow
intricate geometries ticking
without synchrony ...

$350 (Seven copies remaining)

Junked
By Greg Hewett
St. Paul, Minnesota: Strong Silent Type Press, 2005. Edition of 20.

9.5 x 6.25"; 24 pages. Full-page images printed intaglio in three colors from plastic plates by Fred Hagstrom on BFK Rives. Text letterpress from handset type. Signature hardcover binding. Bound in maroon cloth covered boards with intaglio image on front board. Printing assistance by Molly Kent.

Poem by Greg Hewett accompanied with images by Fred Hagstrom.

Fred Hagstrom: "Greg and I discuss the basic theme of each next book, then work fairly independently before I try to connect images to words in an appropriate manner."

junked by the invisible world
the eye concentrates on aphids
                        swarming slow-mo under maroon velvet
                        leaves of coleus on the window-sill ...

$400 (Three copies remaining)

Can't Win
Text by Charles Bukowski
St. Paul, Minnesota: Strong Silent Type Press, 2009. Edition of 18.

15.5 x 22"; 24 unnumbered pages. Twelve large format woodcut images printed in three colors. Text printed in silkscreen. Font: Corbel. Images and text design by Fred Hagstrom. Bound in cloth-covered boards with a woodcut (9.5" tall) that spans the middle of both front and back boards.

Fred Hagstrom: "This book uses the text of a single poem by Charles Bukowski 'Lost.' Single lines of the poem are paired with large portrait heads that are carved in a rough drawing style. The intent was to emphasize the stark quality of the text.

"The poem is about a general sense of frustration and lack of power, but it is impossible to read it in our current context without thinking about issues such as our current wars. That might be our military wars, our war on drugs, or any of our collective endeavors that seem to be bound up in such a sense of frustration or futility. I am sure one could also read it as a sense of personal futility as well, but for some reason it evoked in me a stronger impression of those public struggles that seem to go on with little hope of resolution."

Hagstrom has transformed 'Lost' into 'Can't Win.' The move from description of circumstances to expression of futility is telling.

Charles Bukowski (1920 - 1994) poet, novelist, and short story writer. "Lost" is a selection from Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955 - 1973 by Charles Bukowski, reprinted here by permission of Harper Collins.
$700

So many many
By Charles Bukowski
St. Paul, Minnesota: Strong Silent Type Press, 2005. Edition of 20.

11 x 14.5"; 40 pages. Printed letterpress from polymer plates. Five intaglio images in three colors by Fred Hagstrom and five intaglio images in two colors by Graham Fransella (Melbourne, Australia). Codex binding in maroon cloth with detail from a Fransella intaglio image on front cover.

Fred Hagstrom: "This book is based on a poem by Charles Bukowski, used with permission. The poem is about a sort of vacant feeling as we look around us at people we run into every day, and we tried to use images that helped to convey that feeling. The collaboration with an Australian artist came about due to my leading student trips to Australia and New Zealand every two years....

"The thing that has always mattered to me in art is narrative. In the past, I thought that telling a story required a kind of visual theater that used figures as the players. I now think that this was a narrow definition of narrative. In the art of indigenous people (Maori carving and aboriginal art from Australia) I have found a whole new way to think about a visual story. I see similar examples from different parts of the world such as Buddhist or Islamic art. Things that appear to be abstract can actually be a very specific, poetic narrative. You can learn to read these stories, and following the often difficult path of this reading can lead to a powerful kind of understanding. I have had only glimpses of this."
(SOLD)