ampersandduck.com

Welcome to Ampersand Duck, a diverse press based in Canberra, Australia.

I work with letterpress (wood and metal type) and photopolymer plate in my press work. As well, I work with a variety of materials to produce artist’s books. To earn a living, I teach book arts at the ANU School of Art, and I run workshops for various organisations. I also do occasional design work, which helps feed my cats.

I live close to my Dickson studio with my partner and son and two huge cats. If you want to know more about that, see my personal blog. It covers pretty much everything.

You can also find me at Artist Books 3.0 and I have a lot of images of my work and activities at flickr.

In the meantime, please take some time to look around at what I’ve done so far, and please come back to see if I’ve managed to make anything new! I have tried to arrange it so that you can follow posts on topics that interest you, be it bookbinding, design work, or workshops that I run. Each category has excerpts of relevant posts. Please click through them to reveal the full articles. Happy reading!

HOT OFF THE PRESS

Artspace Mackay, Focus on Books V, 8–12 April 2010: &Duck will be running a workshop called Print to Book, about different ways to use prints as book fodder, and I’ll also be giving a lecture, yet to be formally titled, about the limits of the book.

Book & Typography Summer School, ANU School of Art Book Studio. (postponed to June, 2010)
This will be a loosely-structured course covering the basics of letterpress and bookbinding that will primarily cater at the time to the skill levels and needs of the participants. Concrete learning outcomes are: handling wood and metal type; how to work a flatbed cylinder press; traditional and alternative printing methods; basic book imposition methods; simple bookbinding methods. This summer school is suitable for graphic designers who want to play with physical typography, book artists interested in accessing letterpress for small amounts of text, and design students, among others. The cost is Aus$750, which includes tuition, basic materials and lunch. Accommodation is not provided. There are 10 places in total, to date (7/12/09) there are 7 places available. Contact me for enrolment & further details.

The recipients of the Ampersand Duck Broadside Residencies (chosen from the graduating students of the ANU School of Art, Canberra as part of the ANU Emerging Artists Support Scheme (EASS)) were Peter McLean (Printmedia & Drawing Workshop) and Natalie Azzopardi (Photography and Digital Media Workshop). They will be coming to Studio Duck to each print a limited edition of letterpress broadsides that will be available later in 2010.