Author Description

In an ongoing saga spanning twelve years, an artist designed and made two-hundred etching presses out of wood and steel. Some people call them "works of art." This book tells how the first thirty buyers found them and put to use these works of art in the making of their own prints. As with works of art, there's more to this story than meets the eyes of the beholders and owners of the presses. Doing the sometimes tiresome, repetitive work of crafting and packing the presses (some going to owners in faraway places) this artist made up stories to entertain himself. Like the virtuous teacher he wanted to be, he took notes and wrote them down. The stories are sometimes about real people; but new characters and events he imagined. Imaginary places, people, things, and events, too, came to the author's mind. This book bundles together not only his original 2008 text, but also the back story over-arching this printmaker's tale. In this 12th Anniversary edition, therefore, the reader is offered a tapestry of stories. Some parts are based on historical facts, but most of the tale is the artist and craftsman's dream peopled by a Jesuit priest, a Spanish beauty, a Basque navigator, a Russian castaway, an Aleutian hostage and others. Oddly, a screenplay is shoehorned in this book, the author's semi-biographical offering based partly on true events. He dreams of a movie. The book includes names of the people who bought the presses, and their words praising the press' designs. Summing up is a ballad titled, "Vladimir's Song," by a song about a legendary ship that brought the Halfwood Press to the drawing board of this printmaker's mind. It was the Emeralda, Jewel of the Sea. Bill Ritchie was sometimes also known as "Harris Sweed" and he wrote part of this book under his pseudonym.