Videos

Raw Craft with Anthony Bourdain - Episode Five: Arion Press

One of the last of its kind, Arion Press has only a handful of members on its staff, all fellow craftsmen dedicated to this age old process. Each works meticulously to create the books in multiple parts, from the typecasters, to the proofreaders, to the printers and the bookbinders. All of these hands build a work of art through a process that must be seen to be believed, and can only, truly, be described as magic.

ARION PRESS: Creating the 100th from InCA Productions on Vimeo.

On Andrew Hoyem making the 100th book, Leaves of Grass. For a close-up of how we make type from motel metal, watch this brilliant 13-minute documentary by InCA Productions. Our fantastic machines are the heroes of this presentation of casting, typesetting, printing and binding, made by filmmakers Jamie Kennard and Jaime LeJeune.

PBS NewsHour: Letter by letter, turning Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass’ into a work of art

If you missed the superb piece on Arion Press and M&H Type on PBS, you can view it here. Jeffrey Brown interviews Andrew Hoyem on the future of the fine printed book. Our printers, typecasters and bookbinders are interviewed at work on Arion’s landmark 100th book, Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. See great Arion artist books and hear poet laureate Robert Hass commenting on Leaves of Grass as “the holy book of American culture.”