JENNA RODRIGUEZ

It has been far too long since the last time I wrote a post. The past couple months have been a little hectic! I am very honored to be the 8th Victor Hammer Fellow at the Book Arts Center at Wells College in Aurora, NY. A few weeks ago I said goodbye to Chicago. I packed my bags, my car, and my art to start a new adventure in New York State. It was a great little road trip. My mother and nephews did the drive with me and we made a pit stop at Niagara Falls and Western New York Book Arts Center in Buffalo.

Fast forward to this week. I am quickly adjusting to the slow pace lifestyle and the nature I am surrounded by. Lake Cayuga and all the towns surrounded are absolutely beautiful. Around every corner there are waterfalls, farms, produce stands, vineyards, hills, woods, wildlife, and much more (well kind of). Haha

This semester I am teaching bookbinding. I am excited to be back in the studio and hopefully start producing new work.

Here is a little information about Victor Hammer. I pulled the text from the Wells Book Arts Website.  http://www.wells.edu/academics/programs/book-arts/history.aspx

“Victor Hammer, an Austrian fleeing the Nazi regime, arrived at Wells in 1939 to teach painting, but it did not take long for him to start teaching printing. An accomplished painter, calligrapher, type designer and printer, Hammer used his many talents to produce enduring works of beauty and intelligence.”

“Victor Hammer, an internationally renowned figure in 20th-century graphic arts, founded the Wells College Press in 1941. His respected position among the leading typographers, printers, and artists of his time is due not only to his publications, drawings, and paintings, but to the type he designed, cut, and cast. During the years Hammer taught at Wells College, students entered the world of publishing under his tutelage. The Long Library Archive has copies of many publications Hammer created in the 1940s, as well as copies of his students’ works. Victor Hammer operated the Wells College Press until his retirement in 1948.”

“Hammer created his most well-known and beautiful typeface while at Wells, the famous American Uncial. Designed in the early 1940’s, the type embodied thirty years of scholarly research and technical practice. Hammer’s uncial was not (and was not meant to be) a true copy of historic forms, but instead a dynamic hybrid of roman and blackletter, suited to the requirements of modern literature.”

Here are some pictures of the Book Arts Center

Bindery

Morgan Hall (The Book Arts Center)

Print Shop

Print Shop

Print Shop