Richard Minsky ran the Center for Book Arts. It was on Bleeker Street in NYC during the 1970s. Now it is a bigger more comprehensive operation on 27th Street with hundreds of inviting classes in the many aspects of making books.
In 1975 I took a wonderful class in letter press hand printing from Minsky on Bleeker. There were just a few of us n the class. Richard was an enthusiastic teacher. He was also enthusiastic about his own creative binding projects. While I was there he had just finished a binding that included an actual bird as part of the book.
One night Richard let me stay late to work on one of my broadsides - a heart shaped poem by Piero Heliczer. It was cold in the studio. Most of the lights were off. Alone there, it felt like I was back n time. Newspaper editors at the old west might have worked in the cold, in the dark, alone at night to put together a front page for frontier readers. I put together a few broadsides.
1.) Marvin Cohen 2.) announcement for a Richard Kostelanetz party 3.) lyrics of a country western song by Bruce Holvenstot, a friend of mine from Marvin Cohen's writing class at CCNY, and 4.) the Piero Heliczer poem of Auswich
These broadsides made up the entire output of my Moondragon Press.
The Book Arts of Richard Minsky
Minsky's resume
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