Wayzgoose Press is an independent private press founded in 1986 by Michael Hudson (1939âÂÂ2021) and Jadwiga Jarvis (1947âÂÂ2021).
Established in Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia and operational until 2021, the press produced over 20 handprinted limited edition books, around 50 limited edition broadside posters, countless short-run ephemera including printed keepsakes, and contributions to journals such as Bookways: A Quarterly Journal of Book Arts (USA) and Matrix: A Review for Printers & Bibliophiles (Whittington Press, UK).
The papers, correspondence, sales records, process drawings and blocks and collected works of the Wayzgoose Press are now held as an archive in the State Library of Victoria.
Michael (Mike) Hudson was born in London in 1939 and studied design at the Hornsey College of Art where he later became a senior lecturer in photography. He worked in the UK and in Australia as a graphic designer and photographer. His graphic skills included letterpress, calligraphy, typography, wood engraving and wood cut, linocut and bookbinding.
Upon moving to Australia in 1981, Hudson joined the NSW Guild of Craft Bookbinders and the Crafts Council, writing a chapter in the Craft Australia Yearbook 1984 on Book Arts. Once the press was established, he devoted all his time on Wayzgoose Press output but remained a member of organisations devoted to ephemera and wood engraving. He also produced wood engravings for Alec Bolton's Canberra-based Brindabella Press.
Jadwiga Jarvis was born in 1947 in Krakow, Poland, to Simon Halbreich and Klara Gross. Her family moved briefly to Israel, where she was known as Jael. In 1963 she studied art at the Hornsey College of Art. In 1968 Jadwiga moved to Australia with her family, changing her surname to Jarvis. In the late 1970s she met Mike again in the UK and he moved to Australia with her.
During the 1970s Jadwiga worked as an animator on Dot and the Kangaroo for her uncle Yoram Gross, pioneering a number of traditional animation techniques. She continued to work in the animation industry for a number of years after the Wayzgoose Press was established.
Her creative skills also included letterpress, writing, woodwork, ceramics and desktop publishing.
The first project by Hudson and Jarvis was issue one of Wayzgoose Journal, in partnership with James Taylor. It was printed at the Sydney Technical College in 1985, with the help of retired printing teachers Harold Jones and Geoffrey Honeyman, and bound by Hudson and Jarvis. No other issues of Wayzgoose Journal were published.
The Wayzgoose Press established their print workshop in a large shed on their Katoomba property. They started with an Alexandra platen press and over time bought three letterpress proof-presses: a Western 4C, a Vandercook and a Fag.
Private Impressions was a series of eight monographs about printing and book arts. They were released in two batches (1âÂÂ4) and (5âÂÂ8) between 1989 and 2001. The first number (printed in 1989) is co-authored; the next four are written by Mike Hudson and the last three are written by Jadwiga Jarvis. They were divided into two sets of four, with a small number of each set produced as a deluxe edition.
After an unsuccessful attempt in 1994 to procure permission to work with an excerpt of Ulysses by James Joyce (working title, Molly Bloom, inspired by the experience of printing The Cure), it was suggested by a friend that Jarvis and Hudson should explore Australian performance poetry and forwarded a recording of Jas H. Duke's Dada Kampfen um Leben und Tod (Dada's life and death struggle). As avid jazz fans, they were excited by the thought of translating performance onto page, and developed a mutable concertina book structure with a visual exploration of typography that would be applied to all of their books from that point onwards. They used only Australian literature: poetry by Ken Bolton, Pi O, fiction by George Alexander, and a play by Noëlle Janaczewska. These last five books were their most successful publications in terms of sales and reception.
In 2007 Jadwiga Jarvis self-published a commercial "biobibliography" of the Wayzgoose Press, called The Wayzgoose Affair. Written in a conversational style, it discusses the workings, correspondence and output of the press, finishing at the decision to stop printing fine press book projects. The format is a full-colour large-scale hardback with dustjacket, with 500 copies printed.
While the Wayzgoose Press ceased printing books in the mid-2000s, they continued to plan and print annual broadsides (single-sheet posters) until 2020.
All the broadsides listed below are hand-printed in limited editions. Many were printed twice: a small edition for sale, and a larger edition to send to the annual Typomania event. According to the National Library of Australia, "Typomania is an annual printfest held in the Hans-Hergot Thurm in Uelzen, Germany for hand-press printers, printmakers and artists. The participants set and print their individual interpretations on a selected theme, some being: Globalisation (1999), Slowness (2001), Hans Hergot (2002), Water (2004), Super size me (2006), Corruption (2008), The Empire of shame [Inequality] (2009). The bulk of each edition is distributed among the participants, each given three portfolios which contains one of each contributor's print with only a few portfolios available for sale. Only entire portfolios can be purchased. The annual event began in 1987. Wayzgoose has been an absentee participant since 1992." All Wayzgoose broadsides use handset letterpress with multiple layers of linocut or wood engraving illustration.
Wayzgoose Press books and broadsides are held in the following institutional collections:
Wayzgoose Press work is also held in private collections around the world.