Peter Koch on his career and the craft of fine press printing

Bay Area letterpress printer, designer, and publisher Peter Rutledge Koch is recognized as one of the most accomplished printers and typographic designers of his generation. Here he is in his own words:

"For the past thirty-two years I have cultivated a cross-media dialogue between art, philosophy and literature. I have conducted my business as a fine-art printer as a means of creating and transmitting my own ideas about language and form, both by creating my own work and by designing and directing collaborative publishing projects with others. In pursuit of my art, I am deeply committed to the crafts of typography, papermaking, printing, bookbinding and the design of books and I support these crafts as intensely as I can. A duality of commitment defines my art. I firmly stand on the side of the argument that there is no art without craft. Art without craft denies the difficult beauty of a thing well made, the elegant simplicity of an idea. Through craft and the precision of design, I seek to bring the rich civilization of the printed book with me to the forge of meaning."

We met in New York just prior to him presenting a talk on his craft to The Grolier Club, which, at the time was hosting a 45 year retrospective of his work.