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GAYLORD SCHANILEC
American Book Artist
Midnight Paper Sales


GS exhibits at CODEX IX, February 4-7, 2024, Oakland, CA. CODEX XI site.

University of Utah workshop, book launch for Oracle Bones, a collaboration between GS, Terry Tempest-Williams, and the Red Butte Press of the University of Utah. March 1-3, 2024. Link to event. Background info.

GS exhibits at Tokyo International Antiquarian Book Fair, March 15-17, 2024. Book Fair site.

GS exhibits at Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair, Saturday, April 6, 2024. Book Fair site.

"Man Before a Mirror," a transformative piece of work that came out of a years long McKnight Printmaking Fellowship. Man Before a Mirror page.

GS exhibited for the Fine Press Book Association at the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair, Dec. 9 & 10, 2023. Book Fair site.

 

It's Come to This,  by Patricia Hampl

  • It's Come to This
In 1982, while wearing the hat of a “small press illustrator” I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to illustrate a long prose poem by Patricia Hampl, who had recently become famous with the publication of her memoir A Romantic Education (Houghton Mifflin, 1981). The resulting book, Resort (Bookslinger Editions, 1982) was pivotal for me, and I began angling for a manuscript from Patricia I might publish myself. It only took 40 years for one to materialize. It's Come to This page.

American Crow: Report from Quarantine

  • American Crow: Report from Quarantine
“The text and illustrations are a poignant and pointed menagerie of Schanilec's poetry, political satire, historiography, the tragic death of George Floyd and millions more of Covid-19. Special appearances by Amanda Gorman, John B. McLemore, and the U.S. Constitution.
 
Surely, even at this early date, a masterwork emanating from the reign of Donald Trump and the global pandemic.”

                                             —Robert Rulon-Miller

American Crow page.

Bokeh: A Little Book of Flowers

  • 2034_Bokeh_Deluxe_058

The third book in a trilogy documenting one man’s struggle with the reality of growing old. After a quarter century living in the rural midwest he moves to the city where he observes the isolation of urban life and the tenacious existence of the plants, birds, and animals living there—a roster of beings that includes himself. Bokeh: A Little Book of Flowers was preceded by A Little Book of Birds (MPS 2017), and Departures (Ninja Press, 2019).
A Little Book of Flowers page.

My Mighty Journey

  • My Mighty Journey - spread

A book induced by the 12,000-year-long journey of Saint Anthony Falls, the only natural waterfall on the Mississippi River, from Saint Paul to Minneapolis — a distance all of ten miles. Detail page in progress. Meanwhile, check out the "My Mighty Journey" Tumblr Blog where, in lavish detail, Paul Nylander documents the process he and GS used to create the book. Tumblr Blog.

My Mighty Journey book page.

My Mighty Journey wins the 2020 Minnesota Book Arts Award.

My Mighty Journey received the John Burroughs Literary 2020 Riverby Award for exceptional nature books for young readers.

Books, signed and numbered prints, and broadsides all available for purchase on this website.

A Little Book of Birds

  • A Robin's Reach

As it turned out my mid-life vessel the “Hungry Mind”(Lac Des Pleurs, 2015) didn't get me to the other side, and A Little Book of Birds led to yet more water. The idea of birds captive within unopened pages was originally intended as a challenge for book collectors—to open the unopened pages—or not. As years passed the birds slowly emerged and their captivity began to mean something else. I thought this book might free the birds. It did not. —GS

A Little Book of Birds page.

Lac Des Pleurs

  • ldp_cover_box_bdr_fs

Lac Des Pleurs is complete. “I began thinking about this project in the late 1980's: the idea of a lake 25 miles long with the Mississippi River running through it, well, it took the breath away from a flat-lander like myself. Read on...

Schanilec in The New York Times - “Grain by Wood Grain, a Movable Feast- Artists Find an Audience for Painstaking Letterpress Printing” by Michael Hoinski • Book page

background photo: Alex Schneideman
ind an Audience for Painstaking Letterpress Printing” by Michael Hoinski • Book page

A broadside by Joyce Carol Oates

For a long time . . . 2019. One of 225 copies printed for the College of Saint Benedict Literary Arts Institute in the winter of 2019 Signed by the author. $80.