Join us next Wednesday (Nov. 14th) as Peter Koch, a self described Artist/ Collaborationist, Archeologist of the Book, and Cowboy Surrealist presents "Printing in the Shadow of Aldus" which is the story of the making of the book WATERMARK in Venice.

In the Fall of 2006 Peter and his wife Susan Filter joined forces to publish and print (letterpress) a large quarto limited edition of WATERMARK, a lyrical and autobiographical essay about Venice by the Nobel Prize winning poet, Joseph Brodsky.  Mr. Koch was awarded a residency at the Scuola Grafica di Venezia in Venice, Italy where he and his fellow artists and craftsmen completed printing 50 copies entirely by hand using 15th Century techniques.  Brodsky wrote his text while living in Venice in the 1980's and this is a story of artisans working on that text in Venice today, and about our collaborations with paper makers, bookbinders, printmakers, bronze foundrymen, painters, poets ,and a multitude of Venetian institutions including a printing history museum, an art school, several scholarly foundations, old Venetian families and friends...  The printing was accomplished with help from a phalanx of visiting printers from Vancouver, Verona, Cornuda, New York, London, Berkeley, etc. ....  all in a combination which should make up a very lively evening profusely documented with luminous photographs (and perhaps a few bottles of prosecco).

A native of Montana, Peter Rutledge Koch got his start in printing in Missoula when he founded Montana Gothic: A Journal of Poetry, Literature & Graphics and the Black Stone Press, a publishing imprint and letterpress printing office, in 1974 in tandem with his first wife, the artist Shelley Hoyt. Four years later, the press relocated to San Francisco, where Koch embarked on a one-year apprenticeship with the great printer and book designer Adrian Wilson at the Press in Tuscany Alley. Koch, a self described Artist/Collaborationist, Archeologist of the Book, and Cowboy Surrealist, has operated his own design and printing studio continuously now for thirty-three years. A creative force and personality in Bay Area fine press, artist books, printing, and publishing world, Koch’s work has earned an international reputation. Since the dissolution of Black Stone Press in 1983 (the archives are housed at the University of Delaware Library), he has published under numerous imprints, creatively named to suit different facets of his work:  Peter Koch, Printers; Hormone Derange Editions; Editions Koch and Del Million (with Susan Filter) . Under these various imprints he has printed over 100 books, hundreds of broadsides and fine art prints and indeed countless ephemeral bits and shards. A nearly complete catalogue of his work may be seen on his website www.peterkochprinters.com.

Contact info:
Peter Koch, Printers
2203 Fourth St.
Berkeley, CA US-94710
Phone +1 510 849 0673
peter (at) peterkochprinters.com
http://www.peterkochprinters.com