Claire Van Vliet is the owner of the Janus Press
founded in 1955 located, since 1966, in Newark, Vermont. Janus Press
has to date produced approximately 100 publications â books, pamphlets,
and broadsides- , many of them designed, illustrated, type-set,
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printed
(sometimes on paper made by the artist), and bound by Van Vliet
herself in a well-equipped studio, printshop, bindery of her own
design.
Born
in Ottawa, Canada, she has lived in the United States since 1947. After
graduating with an MFA degree from Claremont Graduate School (1954),
Van Vliet traveled in Europe, apprenticing herself for a time as a hand
typesetter. During these travels she taught herself etching while
working as a craft instructor at the United States European
Headquarters in Germany. For the remainder of the â50s and early 1960s
she taught printmaking, typography and drawing at the Philadelphia
Museum School (now The University of the Arts) and worked as a type
compositor for John Anderson,
first at The Lanston Monotype Company in Philadelphia, and then at his
own Pickering Press in New Jersey. In 1965 to â66 she was hired by the
Art Department of the University of Wisconsin, Madison as a Visiting
Lecturer in Printmaking.
Primarily
a publisher of first edition poetry (including the work of Seamus
Heaney), Van Vliet pioneered the use of colored paper pulps for book
illustration, and more recently has developed a variety of distinctive
non-adhesive book structures. Museums that collect Van Vlietâs work
include The National Gallery in Washington, DC; the Victoria and Albert
Museum, The Library of Congress
and the Smithsonian Institute. In addition to her many honors, in 1993
the University of the Arts in Philadelphia named Van Vliet an honorary
Doctor of Fine Arts. We met in her studio recently to talk about artist
books and a long, outstanding career. Please listen here:
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