Book artist Jessica Peterson examines slavery in the North as she letterpress prints a portion of Austin Steward's autobiography. Steward's "Twenty-two Years a Slave and Forty Years a Freeman" was originally published on Exchange Street in Rochester in 1857. In it, Steward recounts the first twenty two years of his life as a slave in Virginia and in Sodus and Bath, New York.
Peterson will be printing the pamphlet containing excerpts of the book while a resident of the Printing & Book Arts Center. She will use the extensive metal type collection at the Center to set the type by hand- a painstaking process. The public is invited to visit Jessica as she works each day on this project from July 26 to August 2.
An artist talk on the project is scheduled for Friday, July 29 at 7:30 pm at the Genesee Center for the Arts. This event is free and open to the public. Peterson previously held a talk at the Center, "Cause and Effect", to a standing-room-only crowd last summer.