For 2019: The 42-line Calendar
New year, new calendar! Sure, we could easily continue plugging events into our smartphones, but where's the fun in that? Especially when so many stunning desk calendars exist.
One particular beauty that might interest FB&C readers is E. M. Ginger's annual labor of love, the 42-line calendar. Each iteration showcases digitized images culled from rare books, manuscripts, and photographs, all scrupulously rendered to permit deep contemplation while penning in daily activities. These calendars serve as a sort of calling card for Ginger and her company, 42-line, which specializes in hi-resolution digital photography services for libraries, institutions, and book collectors.
Ginger's name may be familiar; she was the founding editor of Adobe creator John Warnock's Octavo Editions, where she developed and directed the publication of rare books like Shakespeare's Poems and Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius. The great difference between Octavo's digital editions and e-books comes down to the reproducion values. Through a book published by Octavo, anyone, anywhere with access to a computer could interact with literary treasures otherwise inaccessible to the general public. (More to come on Ginger in a story for the forthcoming print issue.) 42-line builds off of Ginger's experience at Octavo, but for a more select clientele.
Back to the calendar. During a visit to her Oakland, California, studio, Ginger said she picks themes for her calendars based on what catches her interest at the moment. This year, she plucked images from the University of San Francisco's Gleeson LIbrary. January opens with a detailed linocut of the Golden Gate Bridge by Mallette Dean, followed by engravings by Gerard de Jode and Albrecht Durer.
