Small Publishers: The Books of Perro Verlag

By Eduardo Z. Sarmiento

Although it seems to go against the tide, almost unseemly in the times we live in –undoubtedly characterised by an increasing trend towards digitalisation– there are still small publishing houses producing literally handmade books of artists’ work. These are usually small books which in many cases do not exceed 24 pages, but which help keep alive the joy of drawing, writing and compiling a work, without considering the market or the distribution of thousands of copies. This article constitutes the first in an occasional series dedicated to making these projects known to our readers.

Perro Verlag’s books are an excellent example of this kind of publishing, as are the editors: Visual artist, writer, exhibition organiser and editor Jo Cook (Minnesota, 1946) –living in Canada since 1969– and her partner Wesley Mulvin.

Jo Cook uses various pseudonyms, or rather heteronyms, as did Pessoa, something which she discovered after beginning this practice: Florentine Perro, the name with which she founded Perro Verlag; Bucky Fleur, the name under which she worked on various books and commissioned mail-art, and Frances Zorn as a her writer’s name. Cook produced her first artist-made book in 1991, when she went to live on Mayne Island in British Columbia (Canada). This was a book of spider drawings, of which only 20 copies were printed and given out to friends. Her next work did not appear until 1999, when she decided to abandon painting and concentrate on drawing. She felt that painting was difficult to keep up if one did not want to participate in the commercial gallery circuit. At that point, she met Jeremy Turner from Vancouver’s 536 artists’ collective. Jeremy used to wear a white T-shirt with pockets which he called his “pocket gallery”. One of the pockets was for solo exhibitions, and the other for group exhibitions. Jeremy invited Jo to produce a piece of work for his “solo exhibition pocket” and she made him a 5 x 8 cm, 32 page book. Since then, Jo Cook has continued to produce artist made books.

Perro Verlag was founded after Cook was invited in 2001 by Ed Varney to have a solo exhibition at the Comox Valley Art Gallery in British Columbia. Since then, she has begun to travel more as a result of her exhibitions. Thus, in a short space of time, she visited London, Oslo, Stockholm, Bergen, Amsterdam, Chicago, Prague and various places in Canada. In 2004 she joined the Open Space Arts Society’s advisory council, in Victoria. The director, Todd Davis, suggested she organise an exhibition of self-published books and books published by small independent publishing houses. The exhibition, (Self) Publish or Perish, was a complete success, and one of the Open Space Art Centre’s most visited exhibitions. This led her to organise another similar exhibition with artist Owen Plummer for Vancouver’s Access Artist Run Center.

Several months later, in 2005, Perro Verlag began the publication of one of its most numerous series of books to date, the Hell Passport Project, which comprises 25 volumes dedicated to mini-comics and chapbooks. Jo Cook’s initial idea was to ask 12 artists to produce books of 16 pages, literally drawing on printed books. But in order for this to work as a publication with a print run, it was necessary to standardise the format. Size chosen was 12 x 17 cm, with between 16 and 32 pages, produced from photographs of the original. Cook invited other artists she admired to participate in the project. The proposal was simple: each artist would use the pages available as he or she wished, printing would be in black and white as the most economical option, and each copy would be bound in red. Each book would be numbered and have an ISBN. There would be no editorial interference, and no deadlines. The first 10 artists agreed, and quickly became 24: Derek Beaulieu, Lisa Cinar, Mark Connery, Becky Dolen, Brandy Fedoruk, Julia Feyrer, Emily Goodden, Roy Green, Sally Ireland, Ben L. Jacques, Collin Johanson, Donato Mancini, Billy Mavreas, Wesley Mulvin, Robert Pedersen, Guinevere Pencarrick, Owen Plummer, Terry Plummer, Fiona Smyth, Scheisse Wives, Colin Upton, Ed Varney, Julie Voyce and James Whitman. The basic intention behind this series of books is to create a collection as diverse and disparate as are the artists themselves. This project came to an end recently with the publication of a special 100 copy edition of the complete set of 24 titles, which meant that each of the 2400 copies had to be printed and bound manually, one by one.

In the autumn of 2006, Cook and Mulvin discovered the Boekie Woekie bookshop in Amsterdam, where they learnt about more advanced binding techniques. Using their new skills, they have produced new titles such as Dragons of the Air and Altered Faces and Faithless Altars.

Although they do not have any long-term plans, Perro Verlag plans to publish new titles over the coming months.

The paper is alive.

Eduardo Z. Sarmiento is a Philosophy graduate and editor of Art Signal Magazine.