In a week where we’re celebrating New Zealand poetry, it seems right that our June cover story winner is a poetry collection but, that aside, Stephanie de Montalk’s As the trees have grown would have taken out the prize, anyway.

The cover features a stunning original art work by Brendan O’Brien who specialises in producing beautiful hand-printed book and collage art from his Wellington workshop, Fernbank Studio. During the years, O’Brien has worked with artists and authors like Colin McCahon, Bill Manhire, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Vincent O’Sullivan and Ralph Hotere. However, it’s been a few years since he produced artwork for a book cover. This is the third time he has collaborated with de Montalk.

Here, he talks about the process of illustrating the cover for As the trees have grown as part of Kete’s completely unscientific Cover Story feature. It’s when we judge from a book buyer’s point-of-view, rather than a designer’s well- honed eye, books by their covers to come up with one we deem to be the most alluring.

First, Ashleigh Young, from Te Herenga Waka University Press explains how the concept was arrived at.

Whose concept was the cover for As the trees have grown?

Usually we like to have a strong, defined concept from the get-go but with this book – and especially given Brendan’s history with Stephanie’s work – we were really happy to give Brendan free rein to respond intuitively to the poems and the title of the book. It felt more like a collaboration between artist and poet, rather than the usual process of giving an illustrator an art brief. Brendan turned up with this very cool pencil-and-ink illustration, which I then got photographed by Robert Cross up the road, and then we applied lettering and laid out the rest of the cover here at THWUP.

What sort of feedback have you had about it?

People really like it! We actually hadn’t had some good plant life on a poetry cover for quite a while. The most important feedback to me was Stephanie’s, who loves the cover. It is such a good feeling and a relief when an author feels that their book has been understood and presented to the world as they hoped.

Artist Brendan O’Brien on the cover art:

How did you come to illustrate the cover of As the trees have grown?

I was completely delighted when I was contacted by THWUP with the message Stephanie de Montalk would like me to work on the cover of her fifth collection. I created the covers for Steph's first book Animals Indoor (2000) and her second book The Scientific Evidence of Dr Wang (2002).

It has been several years for me between projects for commercial publishers - the previous title was from 2014 when I worked with Marty Smith on the cover and illustrations for her collection of poems Horse with Hat. After such a length of time it is nice to reconnect with Steph's extraordinary writing, with a novel, two books of nonfiction and two other books of poetry having been published in the interim; the invitation to design a cover was also a chance to contemplate Steph's work and try to come up with something that compliments the new poems along with what has gone before.

While I haven't had many opportunities to work with commercial publishers on book projects in recent years, I have been extremely fortunate to have had many opportunities from various sources for some of the other hand-printed book projects that I have worked on, including for the Holloway Press at Auckland University, and for Dr Donald Kerr at the Otakou Press at Otago University and for my own Fernbank Studio imprint.

What was the process of creating this artwork i.e. what themes/ideas were you trying to communicate? What were the challenges and, equally importantly, the joys of producing it? You’ve long experimented by incorporating elements of various art movements into your books. What elements fed into this cover?

I was fortunate to have a read of some of Steph's poems from the new collection before I started to work on the design - this ‘sneak preview' is certainly one of the joys of being involved with this publication; another joy is the opportunity to really focus and become familiar with the text, to read and reread to uncover clues for a direction the design might take. Steph's poems seemed so evocative and full of magical energy and life that I immediately felt inclined to create an image for the cover; even the title As the trees have grown seemed to communicate to me ideas that would contribute to an image.

‘Making collage works is something I seem to have found myself doing since the 1980s. Initially the starting point would have been with music but more recently it has been with poetry that captivates me. I hope the book covers I make might serve as windows to the content within; particularly with collections of poetry, a cover of this sort can beguile a casual reader, to have them intrigued enough to investigate the content - this can never work all the time but when it does work I feel a nice sense of satisfaction.’

I hope the cover illustration does not appear too much like something that can simply be pigeon-holed into one definable art style; one problem for anyone making collage is that it can easily look like a surrealistic or Dadaist pastiche. I try to avoid this - I want to pigeon-hole my work somewhere else, perhaps one part in a metaphysical style, another part in the style of some sort of classic still life, and another part in the same place Frances Hodgkins used to combine her astonishing still life in landscape works. Perhaps part of the goal for me is to create something in a hard to define style, something that slips through most of the cracks!

Steph's new poems felt very much like part of a continuum from her work in the previous four volumes and I imagined the cover that might include visual echoes from the other books; even the striking Rita Angus painting Storm (1945) - from the cover on Steph's previous collection of poems Vivid Familiar (2009) - seems to resound into the new collection.

My "process" started with some sketching out with a pencil; from there I searched through my stack of old textbooks and encyclopaedia to find a few things that might work for the cover - some graceful eel-like vines that resembled Rita Angus's trees from Storm, a disembodied arm with a curious parcel harked back to the Dr Wang cover, and flowers and a red feathered bird appeared, as if direct from Animals Indoors - as did the stray figure from art history, a kindred spirit for the character on Animals Indoors, a dreaming figure to witness and humanise the great animated plants, perhaps this figure has wandered in - possibly a long lost de Montalk cousin - from Unquiet world?

To be able to construct something resembling a visual poetry from the textual and visual elements of all of Steph's books is immensely satisfying, at the same time I hope there is a small trace or fingerprint of the maker in the design; the necessity is that the cover connects with the tone and spirit of the text.

‘Perhaps the most anxious part of the process is at the point when the author sees what the designer has envisioned — has something been missed or something captured that shouldn't be there? Fortunately for me the always generous Steph was happy with the work.’

What’s going on at Fernbank Studio these days?

I have been making use of old letterpress equipment to make small books since about 1990, following the initial encouragement of Ron Holloway I was fortunate to meet master printers Tara McLeod and John Denny, marvelously talented craftsmen and artists. Both men were full of patience and generosity, sharing their skills and providing role models for how a small hand-press publisher might operate and what sort of projects I could work on. A little later I met Alan Loney, and again his knowledge and experience served as an inspiration for what I hoped I might achieve with my small press, the exceptional books he produced under his Hawk Press imprint provided me with a template for my future work.

The careers of these printers have straddled a time in publishing history where, in the 1970s and 1980s, it was still possible to produce a hand-printed book and sell it through bookshops at a price comparable to a machine produced volume; this was changing in the 1990s until the current time where a hand-printed book might cost several times the price of a machine printed book. This shift means that booksellers are extremely reluctant to stock the more expensive small press editions and consequently distribution for small publishers is immensely challenging.

Brendan O’Brien at Fernbank Studio: ‘The hand-made book has become equally a publication and an artifact - it currently seems more appropriate to have these for sale in art galleries rather than book shops.’

The ultimate result is an increased separation of the small press operator from the main sector of the book trade; the handmade book cannot compete economically with the machine printed book. I was fortunate when starting to assemble the my printing equipment to purchase a useful smaller size press and some trays of type, I was in luck again to receive generous support from the Thorndon Trust to enable me to live and work in the Rita Angus Cottage in Wellington, it was the practical experience I gained there that has been hugely valuable for me - it was at this time start that I started to use the Fernbank Studio imprint, the name Rita Angus had given to her cottage.

What’s the place/space in the world today for hand-printed books?

There seem many motivations why printers still operate to produce hand-printed books, there is certainly the desire to keep the old presses active and the technology and the skills alive; there is also the challenge of taking on a project and completing it unaided by modern technology, but for me the overriding motivation is the opportunity that the old technology provides to create something of subtle and distinct beauty - the metal or wooden type "bites" into the paper to create a three dimensional impression, if the printer is using a cotton or rag paper this effect is even more pronounced - this is an aspect of printing that modern machinery fails to provide. Similarly with the illustrations, the letterpress equipment particularly suits using wood engravings and linocuts and these also have an embossed type effect when handprinted.

‘I like to imagine that if Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of one of the earliest European printing presses around 1440, was to turn up in my workshop today he would have no trouble getting to work on the mostly 19th century equipment I have - the original design for presses was refined but remained intact until the advent of mechanisation in the 20th Century.’

What concerns – if any – do you have about the skills required to produce hand-printed books being lost – and how can we keep them alive?

The hand-made book has become equally a publication and an artifact - it currently seems more appropriate to have these for sale in art galleries rather than book shops. It is heartening to see the support given internationally for the work of hand-press printers, in the United States and Europe many universities have Book Arts departments which promote and subsidise book projects; these institutions are providing training and a framework to sustain the book crafts into the future. In New Zealand for some time it appeared we were following this model - the Holloway Press at Auckland University was active producing significant hand-printed books, the Wai-te-ata Press at Victoria University was less active with publishing but more active using the press as a teaching aid, and the Otakou Press at Otago University for many years had an inspired printer in residence program that produced a series of remarkable handmade books. Sadly the Holloway Press has stopped operations, and with the present budgetary issues at Victoria and Otago Universities the future of their programmes looks bleak.

The Wellington Centre for Book Arts (WCBA) is a studio established by members of the Printing Museum in early 2020; the timing of this coincided with the arrival of Covid so activities have been limited however it is hoped that classes and workshops will again be operating and this should enable interested beginners to learn the skills to establish their own workshops. http://www.theprintingmuseum.org.nz/ .

The "workshop" I have is part of a spare room, so space is limited and best suited to smaller projects that can be managed by myself. A shared workshop environment such as the studio at WCBA appears to be the workable solution for those interested in learning hand-press printing and for those wanting to initiate a project, particularly one involving collaboration. I am grateful that institutions like the Alexander Turnbull Library collect and preserve the work created by small press publishers; another institution providing valuable support for book related work is the Christchurch Art Gallery who displayed my work in 2013. https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/media/uploads/2015_10/Fernbank-Studio.pdf. The National Library of NZ has also been generous with support for a series of hand-printed books that have been produced in conjunction with the Poet Laureate Award, three titles have been published so far, most recently in 2021 David Eggleton's Throw Net/ Upena Ho'olei.

A recent shift of address has slowed book activities at the Fernbank Studio, the most recently completed project was John Dennison's Birdman an enthralling suite of poems; unusually for this project I handprinted the cover and had the interior pages machine printed - this makes the production much more time and cost effective. I am now shifting my focus to concentrate on a group of collage artworks that will be exhibited at the Bowen Galleries in the winter of 2024. https://bowengalleries.nz/

Stephanie de Montalk: ‘I gave my three-year-old granddaughter a copy of the front cover and she could not put it down. She kept telling people she was the small (Pierro-like) figure making its way through the forest.’
Photo: Ebony Lamb

Stephanie de Montalk on Brendan O’Brien’s cover:

What are your thoughts about the cover that Brendan has created?

I had completed a collection of poetry canvassing multiple narratives supported, I hoped, by thought-provoking concepts and themes and was settling on ideas for a cover that would feed a need for knowledge and stir the imagination – in which net of confusion I’d found myself while the book awaited its artwork. I toyed with the quote by John Le Carré from his introduction to Philby: The Spy Who Betrayed a Generation, which opened my 2005 poetry collection Cover Stories: ‘There will be a cover story, a story within a story, perhaps a story within that’ – and cast me as the vigilant spy I considered myself as a poet to be.

However, ‘information / my commanding nirvana’ and ‘transformation / my stock in trade’, as revealed in Cover Stories, hardly reached ‘the possibility and hope of healing’ sought by As the trees have grown. How to explain in a short space of time the weather, the seasons, the trees, the poetic text dense with suggestion?

Mercifully, Brendan O'Brien, whose marvellous artwork enhanced my books Animals Indoors (2000) and The Scientific Evidence of Dr Wang (2002), was available. Brendan's response was a triumph. He instinctively realised the need for magic, dreamlike mystery, touches of darkness; the intrigue of otherworldliness; the timeless elegance of an urn; the luck of a small red bird; enduring symbols of art, large and small.

We’re told that we should never judge a book by its cover, but we all do. Is there a book that you’ve bought or picked up to read because of the cover?

I don't recall a book I've bought or picked up to read because of the cover, unless the title of the work, or the name of the writer, or other supporting information have attracted my interest. I can, however, see myself drawn to As the Trees Have Grown, in part because the title would interest me, and partly on account of its sense of magic: I gave my three-year-old granddaughter a copy of the front cover and she could not put it down. She kept telling people she was the small (Pierro-like) figure making its way through the forest.

Cover story: As the trees have grown

First, Ashleigh Young, from Te Herenga Waka University Press explains how the concept was arrived at.

Artist Brendan O’Brien on the cover art:

‘Perhaps the most anxious part of the process is at the point when the author sees what the designer has envisioned — has something been missed or something captured that shouldn't be there? Fortunately for me the always generous Steph was happy with the work.’

Brendan O’Brien at Fernbank Studio: ‘The hand-made book has become equally a publication and an artifact - it currently seems more appropriate to have these for sale in art galleries rather than book shops.’

Stephanie de Montalk: ‘I gave my three-year-old granddaughter a copy of the front cover and she could not put it down. She kept telling people she was the small (Pierro-like) figure making its way through the forest.’

Stephanie de Montalk on Brendan O’Brien’s cover:

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Cover story: As the trees have grown

First, Ashleigh Young, from Te Herenga Waka University Press explains how the concept was arrived at.

Artist Brendan O’Brien on the cover art:

‘Perhaps the most anxious part of the process is at the point when the author sees what the designer has envisioned — has something been missed or something captured that shouldn't be there? Fortunately for me the always generous Steph was happy with the work.’

Brendan O’Brien at Fernbank Studio: ‘The hand-made book has become equally a publication and an artifact - it currently seems more appropriate to have these for sale in art galleries rather than book shops.’

Stephanie de Montalk: ‘I gave my three-year-old granddaughter a copy of the front cover and she could not put it down. She kept telling people she was the small (Pierro-like) figure making its way through the forest.’

Stephanie de Montalk on Brendan O’Brien’s cover:

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