On reprinting Efemmera Reissue #3: Saving Seeds, a continuation of the May 1, 2026 post.
With this reprint: I’ve done it before, that’s the main thing. There is a sense of ease in that whatever issues arise, I know I have solved them before. The question is not, will the riso print on this particular paper stock? The question is, will the riso print on this particular paper stock TODAY?
The paper I had originally printed on in 2020 has been discontinued. I can’t get it from the manufacturer, but there’s a small batch distributor who has some quantities of some of the colors. I patch together an order, creating a new palette of earth tones, using some paper stocks I haven’t used before but have similar specs. There is a freedom in this, in not having to replicate my decisions for the original reissue (the original original was black ink on white paper). The fact is, it doesn’t really matter.
Same with assigning ink colors to the different paper colors. During the first printing I made a wide range of ink tests, printing every color ink on every paper color to see what I liked best. I am not as thorough now. I build on what I learned, experiment as I go. If I don’t like it, I adjust. The brick red paper is a new color for me and the orange ink, it turns out, is not legible on it. So there will be two brown-ink pages in a row. Ah, but no! I can print the reverse side of the brick red in green ink. Small problems that can be solved.
Is this over-confidence, because I have made the thing before? Am I too cavalier? Or is it more: not over-emphasizing my role?
What makes this publication great is the attention and labor of its original creator and contributors. Whether the ink is orange or brown is less important. What makes the publication feel special is that there IS orange and green ink, and copper and brown: a variety of earth-toned papers, a tactile and visual abundance.
Yesterday, a windier day, had fewer hiccups; the century-old factory windows were banging in their channels but the riso purred happily along, making master after master without incident, printing sheet after sheet without jamming. Today, the first problem is the cover. (If only I kept better — i.e. ANY — production notes. When I printed it the first time, I just hadn’t anticipated I’d be printing this again, and again, and again, as it turned out,.) As the unfolded original cover is a tan laid paper just slightly smaller than 11x17, the edge of the original cover shows up as a faint artifact line when scanned from the riso’s glass top. I try again: change the setting of the scan to “photo” rather than “line art.” Then the master is too light. I try again: adjust the contrast one lighter, a 2 instead of a 3. The cover edges now disappear; visible are just a couple punctures made by the removed staples. These I can live with; I rather like them. The sewn binding will cover them anyway — if the marks remain on the spine fold that is and don’t get pushed out of place during the printing, which is inevitably variable on the riso.
Today outside is a calmer day, near a gentler kind of spring, but inside now the riso is finicky about the steel blue paper, prints a few at a time, then declines to pick up the next sheet to feed it through. I adjust the dial a few millimeters on the paper feed unit. It prints more again — pauses. Stops. Jam error. This refusal to pick up the paper is called a “jam” at the pick-up, but it isn’t truly a jam; it is more of a resistance to picking up the paper. A no thanks. A bit of protest. A work slow-down. A Bartleby.
I replace a feeder wheel, but I only have one. I order another one. I replace a stripper pad. When the riso indicates an internal jam, I wipe down the offprint on the drum and then feed in waste paper until it prints without an echo. It prints without issue on the lighter weight waste paper. It does not print on steel blue.
I turn it off. Close my eyes for a minute.
Three hours have now been spent this way. Only 70 or so sheets printed of a 200 copy run. Only 70 or so of this run, out of 22 runs, only 70 prints out of 4400 prints, and half the day gone. Certainly this is not the best use of my time?
Or is it? What do we learn by troubleshooting, by cooperating with machines, by assessing their needs and trying to meet them, by being patient, by acknowledging how little we know, by accomplishing something anyway?
Emily Larned has been printing and publishing as an artistic practice since 1993. Her artist publications are collected by over 90 institutions internationally. She is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where she will serve as Director of Graduate Studies commencing in fall 2026.
