Mary Laird interview with Kyle Schlesinger

 

1. Schelinger describes Laird’s as a mixed-media printing bonanza, her latest book to print compiling painting, etching, drawing hand-sewing and washes to name a few processes. This is apparently a blend of her love of colour, the non-verbal (mark-making, image) with the written word. She is self-proclaimed to be a slow worker due to the combination of intricate tasks and the complexity of letterpress itself, let alone the addition of layering processes by hand. It’s, as Schelinger writes, ‘ornery’. 

2. Her inspirations include poetry, jazz, art (making of images) and the mystics of tradition. In having a wide source for inspirationion, Laird is able to cash out on the complexity and varied contents of her work as a publisher and book-maker. Again, like Bruggeman, she enjoys the many processes that go into making a book so unique through being hand-crafted.

3. Laird’s book Eggplant Skin Pants was a lengthy process, spending 9 months on perfecting the illustrations and writing the poems to be included over several years. I like how she describes the choice of paper (Hosho) for it’s transparency. Thinner paper not only gives the contents of a book a more delicate, fragile feel but allows the images to layer as ‘shadows’, creating again a more intimate experience.

4. Laird also often made the paper for her books as well as actually printing them, as a result keeping the bindings simple so as to not draw away from the rest of the making process. The juxtaposition of handmade things is the perceived simplicity and effortlessness, whereas in fact the magic of the artist is the opposite, and therein the beauty lies in this almost hidden art of print. 

5. Laird mentions some of her inspirations- visual artists who entered the print world to bring a new perspective: the integration of art, word and page. When making books, collaborating with artists and poets, or simply merging these styles as an individual brings  a creative and intriguing flare to an age-old process once associated with precision, rigidity and exclusive perfectionism.

Poetics of the Press: Interviews with Poets, Printers and Publishers, edited by Kyle Schlesinger (2021)