Make Book Blog

Artist Book: Repose

2011-12-19T15:27:00.000-08:00

Repose by John Steck Jr.
3 hard cover cloth bound books, 28 pages total, inside slipcase.
Handmade & Printed on Exhibition Luster.
Made in an edition of 5.
Signed & Numbered.
$300 + S&H for the first edition, then $50 per edition after that.

Was Home by John Steck Jr.

2011-06-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

Was Home. This book has been in the making for some time now. It took a while to get the feel just right for this book, but I must say I am very pleased with the final outcome. Each book takes several days to make, with an extreme attention to detail. This results in each copy being very special and unique.

These images were taken in my childhood home in 2005 and 2006, right after my family sold it. It had remained empty for a couple years and I was able to get inside during that time. These images represent the foundations of a family and are meant to remind us of our own family settings and traditions.

Was Home by John Steck Jr.

22 pages, 8 x 8 in. Stiff Leaf Binding. Hand Written Text on Front Cover.

Handmade & Printed on Rag Natural Paper.

Made in an edition of 12.

Signed & Numbered.

$125 + S&H for the first 6 books. Price will increase as the last half of the edition sells.

Found Piles and other Topographica

2011-03-15T09:13:00.000-07:00

My first release for 2011. This book contains 9 images of some of my most recent landscape work, focusing on random piles that I come across during my everyday journeys. There will be several more Topographica books to come out as part of this series. Stay tuned for those.

Found Piles and other Topographica by John Steck Jr.

9 pages, 6 x 8 in. Hand Sewn Binding.

Handmade & Printed on Rag Natural Paper.

Made in an edition of 30.

Signed & Numbered.

$18 + S&H

Best Books of 2010 on photo-eye

2011-01-12T19:50:00.000-08:00

Exciting news! Fragments, Volume One has been featured on photo-eye on their Best Books of 2010 list. Every year they ask close to 30 different artist, publishes, editors etc. to create their top 10 photo books of the year. Fragments, Volume One was lucky enough to have been chosen by Larissa Leclair who founded the Indie Photobook Library. There are a lot of great books picked this year, some of which are currently on my personal book shelf. I recommend looking through the selections by the diverse group of contributors.

Fragments, Volume Two: Jimmey Leblanc

2010-10-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

The long over due release of Volume Two of Fragments in now upon us. This volume is featuring the wanderlust eyes of a great friend and fellow artist, Jimmey Leblanc.

This book contains work from several different projects that Jimmey is currently working on. Our goal with this selection was to find a flow of images that don't have a relationship together, but that create a dialogue with each other. We wanted to show the similarities of a photographers style, mood and stream of conscious from series to series, and how a selection from each series could translate into its own story.

Check out more of Jimmey work on his website or on his blog.

Fragments, Volume Two featuring Jimmey Leblanc
4 x 5 in. Accordion Style Book.
Handmade & Printed on Inkjet Paper
Made in an edition of 35 with 2 artist proofs.
Signed & Numbered.
$18 + S&H

Hour of Lead by Ariel Kessler

2010-08-27T21:25:00.000-07:00

Hour of Lead by Ariel Kessler
14 pages, 6 x 6 in. Japanese Stab Stitched.
Handmade & Printed on Inkjet Paper, text printed on
Japanese Sumi-e Paper.
Made in an edition of 20 with 2 artist proofs.
Signed & Numbered.
$32 + S&H

Ariel Kessler, who I had just recently graduated with from The Massachusetts College of Art & Design, approached me early this summer about making her series, Hour of lead, into a book. I was stoked from the get-go about doing this book with her. I was excited not only because I liked the project idea, but also because I thought the narrative book form would be well suited for it because the project is about a conversation through photographic images. A couple of months later, after a little mail (now that she lives in Portland, OR), texting, email and Facebook chat exchange, here we have it. A sweet little handmade book with a sweet story.

The series itself is a dialogue created by Ariel, combining her own silver gelatin prints and her late father's Kodachrome color slides. Having just a little memory of him, she created this narrative of images not only to gain insight into his world, but to also show the effect of losing him.

You can see more of her work on her website arielkessler.com.

Artist Book: Unique c-Prints by John Steck Jr.

2010-08-27T21:07:00.000-07:00

Unique c-Prints Artist Book by John Steck Jr.

Sixteen Pages, 7 x 8 in. Stiff Leaf Bound.

Handmade & printed on Inkjet Paper.

Made** in an edition of 16 with 2 artist proofs.

Signed & numbered.

The price will increase for this edition as each book sells.
$80 + S&H

This book consist of sixteen pages of work from my thesis project from my final year at MassArt. My goal with this work was to create a non existing landscape that could still be experienced and entered into. I wanted to make my own language through image making, creating an organic and visceral feel to the work. Having been mostly a landscape photographer this past decade, I needed to make images that still expressed my interpretation of the landscape but that also pushed the limits of photography. All this work was make in the color darkroom, using photograms, negatives, and other objects all pulled from the land.

Here are a few pages from the book.

** Since each print ever made in this series is unique because of the darkroom process involved, I decided to print each book on demand to try and keep to that unique quality. Allow two to three weeks for purchase to arrive.

Hour of Lead by Ariel Kessler.

2010-07-01T20:48:00.000-07:00

A book I'm currently working on with Ariel Kessler who I previously went to MassArt with but now lives in Portland, Or. I just started printing some mockups for her and we are sending them back and forth via the mail. You can call us the Postal Service of photo books, minus the singer from Death Cab. Stay Tuned for more info on the book and release date!

Fragments, Volume One

2010-06-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

Introducing Fragments, Volume One!

Fragments is small accordion style book that I will be publishing every two months. This book is handmade and printed on digital inkjet paper. Future Volumes will consist of other emerging artist and will be made in collaboration with them.

Volume One was made in conjunction with an exhibition of my work at The Hallway Gallery for the month of June. It is printed in an edition of 35, each one signed and numbered. It also features poetry by Katherine Murphy.

Volume Two, set to come out in early august, will feature Brooklyn artist Jimmey Leblanc. Jimmey shoots more than any photographer I know and has a lot of great ideas ranging in so many different spectrums of photography.

Also stay tuned for some larger books that I will be producing this summer, both of mine and of other artist. I plan on doing a lot of handmade, small run editions in both book and portfolio case form.

For now please enjoy this preview of Volume One and if you are interested in purchasing a copy, you may either do so at The Hallway Gallery for the month of June or by clicking the Buy Now button at the top of this page.