20 Years of Horse & Buggy Press
(and Friends)
June 15 – August 7, 2016
20 Years of Horse & Buggy Press (and Friends) is a multi-media, mid-career retrospective celebrating the award-winning, book production, graphic design, and letterpress studio which got its start in Boylan Heights at Antfarm in 1996, and has been working out of downtown Durham since 2003. The exhibition, which opened at Cassilhaus on the banks of New Hope Creek in Orange County in May, focuses on the fine press book collaborations between Horse & Buggy Press and a diverse range of writers, photographers, visual artists, and historians.
Eighteen fine press book editions are presented with varying amounts of hand-printing on the letterpress, hand-sewn bindings, and other special touches; all of which turn the books into true cultural artifacts and provide a strong stage from which the content can shine. These books often win awards for their content (IPPY Independent Publisher Awards), and for their design (including AIGA’s Best 50 Books/50 Covers Competition), and they are housed in dozens of special collection libraries across the world. The exhibition includes titles long out of print, such as the 1997 fable-esque It Had Wings, written and illustrated by Allan Gurganus, and which features handmade, hand-dyed paper covers. It also includes hot-off-the-press projects from 2016, including Sons & Father: Engravings by John McWilliams and Journey: Photomontage by Catharine Carter. The exhibition also presents a selection of books designed for other publishers in addition to catalogues for museums and galleries and projects for independent businesses, arts organizations and other clients.
CAM Raleigh and Dave have teamed up to present an engaging series of CAMversations with some of the many collaborators in this interdisciplinary exhibit (including musicians, writers, photographers, and furniture makers). Learn more about the CAMversation series.
Designed and curated by Dave Wofford
(with guidance from CAM Raleigh)
Photo courtesy Frank Konhaus
A 1994 NC State School of Design graduate and Penland Core Fellowship student, Dave Wofford began Horse & Buggy Press at Raleigh’s Antfarm Studios at the age of 24. He has been working out of the Bull City Arts Collaborative (which he co-founded) in Durham’s Central Park district since 2005. For the past twenty years, Horse & Buggy Press has remained a one-person operation.
The exhibition features more than thirty pieces of framed artwork by twelve different visual artists, along with custom furniture and display materials created to showcase these projects in an intimate and aesthetically rich reading environment. Artwork (pulled from the content of the books) is shared by photographers Catharine Carter, Courtney Fitzpatrick, Gail Goers, Roger May, Rob McDonald, and Pam Pecchio; visual artists Ray Duffey (who started Horse & Buggy Press with Dave Wofford before moving on to a career working with wood), Henryk Fantazos, John McWilliams, Ippy Patterson, VC Rogers, and Jason Seale. Horse & Buggy Press has worked with two North Carolina poet laureates, Joseph Bathanti, and Kathryn Stripling Byer. Dave has also worked with dozens of other established writers and historians including David Need, John Lane, Zelda Lockhart, Allan Gurganus, and Charles Millard. A culling of design and letterpress work and a few gems from the archives vault provides a fun, time capsule flavoring to the show.
Custom furniture created for this show includes chairs and lamps by Scott Howell; custom shelving by Evan Lightner; bench cushions made with repurposed agricultural feed sacks from Hawks & Doves; two tables and an “altar” by Al Frega made with a variety of materials salvaged from historic North Carolina buildings; a forged iron, glass-topped coffee table by Ben Galata; a liquor/book cabinet by Ray Duffey; a book display rack by Tim Schrand; and a wooden display table by Anthony Ulinski.
Poems, Prose, & Drawings, Stephen Gibson, 1997
Cover image is a transfer print of a Diana camera photograph made by Dave Wofford
Hand-printed, hand-sewn binding
First Horse & Buggy Press book
Broadside for the Durham Farmers’ Market, Woodcut by Josef Beery, writing by Erin Kauffman, 2009
Edition of 500 hand-printed on paper made from kenaf fibers
Southern Fictions (detail view of first sonnet), Kathryn Stripling Byer, 2011
Publisher: Jacar Press
Muse, Gail Goers, 2014
Publisher: Daniel 13
Journey: Photomontage (detail from Grace), Catharine Carter, 2016
Maji Moto: Dispatches from a Drought, Courtney Fitzpatrick, 2012
Bookplate for Jaime Lyn Danehey and William Merle Hansen, 2011
Many thanks to Cassilhaus, where this exhibition first debuted.
CAM’s educational and community programs are funded in part by the Goodnight Educational Foundation, The Grable Foundation, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust, IBM Community Grants, SunTrust and the United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County. Free Family Sundaes are funded by the PNC Foundation.
