mr160415  Promoting the Printmaker’s Tale:  Pitching the book

The Printmakers Tale:  

The Printmaker’s Tale is a legend behind an etching press from its inception in the 18^th Century and how it changed peoples’ lives. Follow the story and see how it was conceived, how it change hands and touched the lives of many, including a Jesuit priest, a Spanish beauty, a Basque navigator, a Russian castaway and an Aleutian hostage.

Once this small press was unearthed in the 20^th Century from a grave on Guemes Island. It came up as evidence in a Bellingham trial, and it even triggered a hunt for a lost ivory treasure which had belonged to Richard Dana. Think of the movie, “The Red Violin,” a beautifully designed instrument for art and picture, if you can, a printmaker’s dream, a designer’s press.

As I designed and built almost two-hundred of these Halfwood Presses, while cutting, drilling, sanding, finishing and etching decorative brass touches, this tale came to me in installments - like the parts of the press itself.* Ten years ago I began writing down each one. Some I published with on-demand services.

My first, in 2006, was a mystery, “Hunt for the Emeralda Treasure.” The next year I wrote a mockumentary, “Halfwood Press: The Story,” and sent paperbacks with each press. Then came a screenplay titled, “Swipe,” the press redeeming an outcast teacher. The latest is a time-travel historical fiction, “Rembrandt’s Ghost in the New Machine.” Stitching these all together, the Printmaker’s Tale (a working title) will be a high-profile, worthy production.

It’s a saga beginning in the 16^th C. when the original Spanish frigate – the Emeralda – was designed, then succeeded in the 18^th Century by another to carry the beautiful Halfwoods to China, but doomed in the San Juan Islands by a great wave—a tsunami in 1772.

There is a real etching press behind the story, and you may already have visited our Mini Art Gallery and Halfwood Press show room. Or, you may have chanced to see the press upstairs, as Ethan Lind is a vendor (most Wednesdays) as “Busker Etcher,” printing on a Halfwood Press.

I am passionate not only about printmaking, prints, and printmakers, but I am also passionate also about these back stories; and I will see this printmaker’s tale realized within the next few years. I will no longer be working alone quite so much. As the Northwest Print Center Incubators evolves, I will work with more professionals in different fields.

*This is why the story of the press will become a printmakers’ game—the components being like parts of a board game or a collectible card game. The Printmaker’s Tale then becomes the back story of a game.