A sheet of ice has begun to form. Birds still here follow the edge of the ice slowly advancing toward the center of the lake. A few days ago, while driving through, I noticed four swans still at Maiden Rock. Today two remained. I stepped out onto the ice with them. The marsh bottom beneath my feet was magnified by perhaps two inches of ice, judging by the bubbles frozen into the sheet. I was encouraged by the tracks of a man, presumably setting muskrat traps, but alarmed by the sound of ice shifting beneath my weight.
The text of the river book will follow ( I think) two threads: one, a narrative illustrating the engravings, and two, excerpts from historical texts. So far I have selected an excerpt from Louis Hennepin’s journal of 1690 in which he describes the sobbing of Indian men intent on killing him, a piece from Robert E. Coker reporting on the freshwater mussel (button) industry for the US Bureau of Fisheries in 1918, some of Elliott Coues’ 1895 annotated edition of Zebulon Pike’s journal from 1810 in which he cross-references accounts of various land marks around Lake Pepin from the accounts of Pike and other early European explorers, and an excerpt from Mark Twain’s description of a steamboat pilot’s view of the river from Life on the Mississippi in 1883. The excerpts will not necessarily be in chronological order, but will loosely reflect the narrative/engravings.
I visited Bill Logan in New Jersey and spent some time looking at his extensive collection of 18th and 19th century specimen prints. This timely visit kindled an interest in the idea of “hand finishing” prints, to add certain color effects, and in the use of gum arabic, applied by hand to specific spots of an image to add depth (the iris of a fish, for example). Thank you Bill. Again. (see “Sea Trials”, August, 2009)
Meanwhile, it is full steam ahead in the production of The Bicycle Diaries, which I hope to finish printing this spring. I met with author Richard Goodman in New York, biked his route from the upper west side toward ground zero, and have begun engraving the images. The book will contain two full page images, two double page images, and two vignettes. The Diaries will slow progress on the river, but I am looking forward to printing fish…