I come from a family of printers. If I consider myself a printer, that would make me the sixth generation printer in my family. I worked in their printing plant for a few years. In doing the make-ready or set up of any task, whether it be printing, folding or binding there is a certain amount of waste; bad impressions, misalignment, not enough bleed, roller marks – all sorts of imperfections. To account for this is part of the job and extras are made – Overs.

This concept of Overs is something that I carry into my own book making. Even when making a unique or one off, I will make two copies; an A and a B. That way I’m covered in case something goes awry. Often though, things go smoothly and I’m left with all my Overs. This body of work draws on these aspects of the printing process to highlight a level of detail contained in the make–ready, the edition and the Overs. It is how these separate yet linked objects relate to one another when viewed in the same space that demonstrates their making most clearly.

For each book on display, there is a companion piece. The works in this exhibition both extrapolate upon the bound book as well as transform their materials by means of folding, cutting, exposing and overprinting – all methods that are routinely used in the production of the book. Through the manipulation of the method, the material, the tool and the reference, attention is brought back to the detail. It is not the detail–ing as in the addition of embellishment or of a final once over, but the inherent palpable quality of process made evident.

-Nicholas Gottlund, April 2013