Atelier Alma Charta, Toccalmatto

On Sunday June 19 we moved from Parma to begin our letterpress printing, etching and bookmaking workshop with Andre Beuchat at his studio located in the small village of Toccalmatto, a short distance north of Parma. We had been introduced to Andre and his daughter Martine by our friend Kathleen at the Codex exhibition and book fair held earlier this year in Point Richmond, California. Kathleen had taken this workshop in 2016 and wanted to return, so she invited us to join her.  Now, here we were excited  to embark on a new adventure. I with a certain amount of uncertainty, as I had never set type or made an etching before.

Andre's studio is located in the family's old farmhouse in an amazing structure with very thick stone walls and domed brick ceilings. You can see more through the website here.

Our accommodations were also at the farmhouse, which included all of our meals lovingly prepared by Andre's wife, Carla.  More about that later........

The farmhouse is tucked away down a short narrow road, which we found fairly easily with Kathleen's help since she had been there last year.

Looking into the studio before we started. You can see the vaulted brick ceilings that I mentioned above, quite remarkable construction when you consider that this space once housed cattle.
We had all come with an idea for our book project and on describing them to Andre, he began sharing many of his books from which we could form ideas applicable to our projects.   We each began at different stages of our books, which allowed Andre to guide each project through all phases in parallel, and not, for example, all needing to use the same press at the same time.

One area where we set type.

This is the type set for the poem that I had chosen. I found this pretty challenging and won the prize for the most mistakes when we made a test print.   A "b" and a "d" look pretty much alike when viewed upside down and backwards!

Diane discussing an element of her book with Andre.

Kathleen's zinc plate with her drawing to be included in her book.  The plate has yet to be etched before it is ready for inking and printing.

The weather was hot while we were in the workshop, but in the cold winter this is Andre's "central heating system".

Len with his first experience inking the type before running the press, all hand powered, by the way.

Diane and Andre working on her printing.

Satisfying to see the pages as they come off the press, one at a time.

Kathleen working on a cut-out design for the cover of her book.

The Atelier was home to several cats, who were always willing to help!

Jack was often in the studio to keep us company.  He did not like the hot weather and the studio remained quite cool.

We began work on our projects after breakfast at 8:30, breaking for pranzo (lunch) at about 1:30. Pranzo is the main meal of the day and always seemed to include three courses and wine. Carla is an excellent cook and we ate very well everyday.  We welcomed a short siesta before starting back in the studio at 3:30, working until about 7:00pm.  Ending our day with the evening meal, cenzo (dinner), more wine and lovely conversation.
Much of what was included in each meal came from Andre and Carla's garden, which made it all the more delicious.

Carla with bounty from the garden.

Just a small example of one of the lunch courses.  I think I could do a complete blog on the beautifully prepared food (thank you Carla!)  but, back to the printing.

This is the area where the ink was prepared for our etchings.

Andre prefers to rely as little as possible on powered tools and this is a good example of how to keep warm the surface used to ink the etched plates (a small tea light).

An example of an old hand-powered press, made in Monza and dated 1868.

Diane pulling her etching off the press.

Kathleen with Martine, Andre and Carla's daughter and her sweetheart, Federico.

Diane with Sylvie, Andre and Carla's other daughter.  Diane used some of Sylvie's marbled paper in several of her book covers.  They added a very beautiful element.

Critical review of an etching just completed. A good lesson was the importance of making proof copies to insure the result you want before making a number of copies.

It is quire difficult to record all of the steps involved in making each of our books, but here is Diane with Andre working on the design of  her book cover.

Another step in the process.  I loved the use of  Andre's collection of old clothes irons as weights to keep things flat and in place,

We all hand-stitched our books together, note another iron in use.  There were many steps involved to finish our books and it was a marvel that Andre shepherded us all through our different challenges so that we each completed our books at the end of the two weeks.  He is a master teacher.

 Kathleen with the intricate cover cut-out, each one done individually by hand.

Len feeling very happy with his first handmade books.

Diane with her beautiful copies.

We felt very welcome at Atelier Alma Charta, almost part of the family. Another group photo of Kathleen, Lucca, (Sylvie's sweetheart), Sylvie, Diane, Carla and Andre. (someone had to take the photo!)

Dinner on our final evening with homemade pizza "to die for". Carla's pizza crust was like no other I have ever tasted.  The best!!  We were joined by Martine and Federico and it was the perfect ending to an amazing experience.

This was the end of our trip to France and Italy, so we packed up to begin our trip home. This photo includes Kathleen's luggage as well.  We drove her back to Parma where she was meeting a friend for another two weeks in Italy.

Sadly, we must say arrivederci.  Hopefully to return another day........

There was much more that occurred during our stay at Atelier Alma Charta, so I have decided to create another post to tell about the castles, ancient buildings, and fresco's that Andre introduced us to, providing a history lesson along the way.
Stay tuned.

Parma

We left our Agriturismo on June 13 and began the 500-plus Km drive to Parma. We took the autostrade, A14,  just south of Ortona on the Adriatic coast. The drive on the autostrade was easy, with not too many trucks, although the Italian drivers staying in their lanes is always a bit loose! The fuel and restaurant stops were fantastic, with large grocery stores displaying local wine and cheese in abundance.
It was great to stay on the autostrade for the majority of the trip, only had to negotiate the toll booths once. Our GPS got us to our AirBnB with no issues and the location in the tree-lined outskirts of Parma was just right.

The apartment was large and comfortable, on the third floor, so not too many stairs for a change.  The only difficulty we had was turning the car around in a very narrow driveway.  I think we did a ten-point turn!  Good news, there was free parking just steps away from the apartment.

The weather was quite hot, though a thunderstorm did ease the heat for a day.  We walked to the center of Parma on our first day, along wide tree-lined boulevards with many lovely old-world apartment buildings.

We walked along the river that goes through the center of Parma, but with little or no water. It is called Torrente Parma, but no torrents were visible.

The center of Parma is pretty much a traffic-free zone, so walking around the historic area was easy and pleasant.

This is Parma Cathedral, located on the Piazza Duomo.

The Baptistry located next to the Cathedral.

It is very pleasant to have mostly car-free streets, which allows for restaurants to expand dining areas onto the sidewalk.

The Central Post Office, what an amazing place, on the inside it looked as if it was once a palace! 

But the mail was delivered the old fashioned way.

We met our friend Kathleen from San Francisco and spent quite a lot of time checking out restaurants and, of course, doing some shopping.

 It was Diane's birthday during our stay in Parma, so we had a dinner celebration at this restaurant, La Forchetta.  We sat at the table behind the sign.  It was a very warm evening but Diane wanted to sit outside.

 Here we are, waiting for our table.  We got an early sitting at 8pm!

Kathleen joined us and we had a splendid meal that went on until the restaurant closed.

Diane's desert came with a birthday sparkler!

We found a super gelato shop called Ciacco, which had very unusual flavours, all locally sourced and natural, so we made several visits.   It was still very hot, so a good excuse to indulge.

You can see some of the unusual flavours offered in the above photo.

Since our next stop was going to be a letterpress printing and bookmaking workshop, we paid a visit to the Bodoni Museum. Giambattista Bodoni was a very famous printer who designed and made type in Parma in the latter half of the seventeenth century. Those typefaces are still in use today.

The museum is quite large with all of the contents of Bodoni's printing workshops preserved, all 70,000 items.

In the same building as the Bodoni Museum was the Biblioteca Palatina, a wonderful space, but sadly, many of the books looked in need of some restoration.

Again, there were many interesting areas to explore made easy with the lack of traffic. There are many other areas of Parma that we did not explore, reason enough to return.

Lots of opportunities for people-watching.

Next stop, our two-week workshop with Andre Beuchat at Atelier Alma Charta
Stay tuned.