supporting community, culture, and the arts since 1898
2286 CEDAR STREET | BERKELEY, CA 94709
Office 510 848-3227 Text or Emergency 510 213-4292
Mary Laird, MFA, UW Madison, has published letterpress books since 1969 as Quelquefois Press and as partner in Perishable Press Limited from 1969-84. Ms. Laird loves teaching letterpress. Currently she is a board member and teaches at San Francisco Center for the Book, where rumor has it, editions of 40 chapbooks are cobbled together and printed in a day with eight itinerant devils.
Her production style is slow and ornery so she works best alone. The Bixlers’ Type Foundry has set many of her books for which she is most grateful. Poetry, jazz, painting, drawing, the mystics of all traditions and participating in long silent retreats all over the country lend meaning to her life and inspiration to her work; her books may be found in many collections across the country and in London. She has three grown children and lives in Berkeley with her husband John Malork.
Mary Risala Laird gives a talk on fifty years of printing and book arts at the Book Club of California (08/17/2020).