48 Hills writers and editors are choosing their Best of the Bay Editors’ Picks for our 50th anniversary Best of the Bay edition. See more great profiles here, and stay tuned for our Best of the Bay 2024 Readers’ Poll results coming in September!
Imagine a time-traveling, three-pronged literary collaboration. What Arion Press often does is reach back for the work of classic scribes like Herman Melville, Miguel Cervantes, and Patti Smith. It connects them with today’s heavy-hitting visual and textual artists, including William T. Wiley, Martin Puryear, and Kara Walker. Under the auspices of the press itself, a beautiful artist book is born.
The project, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, typically puts out three books a year. It takes about four months on each one, typesetting, printing, and binding them by hand.
For modern-day artists, the chance to work with the editorial’s small, imaginative, painstaking team is often a publishing dream. Painter Vincent Valdez, Arion’s first King artist in residence last year, created pen-and-ink drawings for Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. Valdez’s grandfather and great-uncle fought in World War II, just like Vonnegut and his protagonist. The finished product works to tell Vonnegut’s classic tale from a Mexican American viewpoint. Valdez says Blake Riley, Arion’s lead printer and creative director, was meticulous when it came to getting everything right.
“Blake is so thoughtful and considerate and committed to every detail of the books,” Valdez said. “We would have discussions about what kind of fonts and [whether they were] specific to that era in America.”
Artist Alison Saar, who recently made linoleum cuts for Octavia Butler’s Kindred with Arion, called the experience of working with the press “delightful,” and that she thought of the book they made as a sculptural object.
This year, along with Kindred, Arion is putting out Aesop’s Fables with artists who have previously worked with the press, like Sandow Birk and Enrique Chagoya. There’s also a tome of modern morals by San Francisco writer Daniel Handler in the works.
The editorial is taking on just two books this year is because in October, Arion moving its people and presses from an out-of-the-way location in the Presidio to Fort Mason, alongside the complex’s galleries, theaters, and restaurants.
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This could mean exponential growth for Arion, according to Ted Gioia, the press’s program and development director. If so, it will only accelerate the expansion the project has already been experiencing. The press’ appeal has skyrocketed in the past few years, which has equaled more subscribers, more money, and more events. Its residency program is continuing with local superstars Clare Rojas and Ala Ebtekar, and Arion just received funding to hire an education and outreach coordinator.
Gioia thinks the new eyes on its pages have as much to do with a return to the real as appreciation for his team and collaborators’ superlative work. “There’s a larger cultural momentum and this sort of movement around handcrafted things,” he said. “We’re a vital part of that.”
ARION PRESS 1802 Hays, SF. More info here.
