Our Philosophy

Our goal at Turtle Light Press is to make aesthetically pleasing, durable books that will last for decades, if not longer. We take our time in every aspect of the craft; we do not rush. As the saying goes, “Slow and steady wins the race.”

All of our limited edition books – volumes of poetry, photography books, or personal histories, etc. – are painstakingly crafted using the best materials, including acid free papers and museum-quality, pigment-based inks. In designing a book cover, laying out a page, or sewing a binding, we take special care with our work to get it just right in order to please ourselves and our customers.

Our book art is meant to be both fun and aesthetically stimulating. Whether we’re making a miniature accordion book, an interlocking concertina, or a Japanese-bound photo album, we aim to use unique book structures in order to blend content and form in interesting and evocative ways.

We use graphics that are produced either through the use of digital technology or through the traditional arts of printmaking, woodblocks, silk screening, etc. Some of our items could be exhibited in a museum; others are meant purely for fun on special occasions like the centennial of the Borough of Highland Park, N.J.

Our digitography items draw from a variety of graphic images provide businesses, nonprofit organizations, towns, and cities with an opportunity to recreate their visual identity. Our designs are innovative, and we always use materials of high quality.

We hope to help people celebrate the whimsical, the paradoxical, and the beautiful in images of everyday life, whether in a picture of a pay phone or news machines, a doorway or a street scene.

We believe that the work itself and the friendships that we make along the way are just as important as the final product.

Our Name

The press is named for a wedding present in the shape of a turtle that my wife, Laura Ahearn, and I were given by John Noble, a family friend. At first, we didn’t know what it was. We looked it over several times before we realized that it was a small light.

It seemed like a gift that would be of little use to us, but the longer we had it the more we began to appreciate its charm, and soon we decided to place it in our hallway as a nightlight. Slowly, the turtle light has taught us the virtue of pacing ourselves in this all-too-hectic world. It reminds us to slow down, to savor each moment. It also illuminates our way every night and encourages us to let our own inner light shine brightly.

We have since acquired other turtles to keep the turtle light company in our hallway.

People

Rick Black, Founder

Rick Black, a book artist, journalist and poet, is the founder of Turtle Light Press. Over the past few years, Rick has dedicated himself to learning the bookmaking trade so that he could combine his love of words and stories with his desire to work with his hands.

Rick has studied various facets of bookbinding with Maria Pisano, Susan Mills, Carolyn Chadwick, Yukari Hayashida, and Carol Barton, among others. In 2003, he was awarded one of eight emerging writer awards to attend an intensive Letterpress Printing Seminar at The Center For Book Arts in New York.

For more than twenty years, Rick was a professional journalist, including a three-year stint in the Jerusalem bureau of The New York Times. He has also freelanced for numerous newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Dallas Morning News, The Jerusalem Post, The Forward, Archeology, Cicada, and Cricket.

In addition to his work in journalism, Rick has been a haiku poet for the past ten years and has garnered several international awards for his poetry, including first prize in the James W. Hackett Award, sponsored by The British Haiku Society and third prize in the Betty Drevniok Competition, sponsored by Haiku Canada. His haiku have appeared in Frogpond, Cricket, RawNervz, Blithe Spirit, Still, and other journals. Peace and War is his first haiku chapbook.

Rick balances his work at TLP by gardening, reading, and spending time with his wife, Laura Ahearn, and their young daughter, Melanie.

Photography

Bill Bonner writes, "The introduction of digital cameras deepened my enthusiasm for photography. Being able to preview exposure on the spot reduced guesswork and encouraged experimentation. 'Going digital,' I was able to win several local competitions. I enjoy using computer graphic software along with my aesthetic judgment to enhance or alter images I've taken. I am no purist.

"Currently, my ongoing work is a seasonal photographic journal of a small section of the Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park in Somerset, NJ. I maintain two websites on which I have posted nearly 2000 images with commentary (www.canalphotos.org and www.canalphotos.net)."

I presently live in Highland Park, NJ, and enjoy doing other creative photographic projects, the most recent being a joint effort with Turtle Light Press, highlighting Highland Park's main street for the town’s Centennial year.

Art

“I work in vivid colors,” says Bill Giacalone, a painter and sculptor for more than fifty years who has exhibited in galleries ranging from New York City to Barcelona. “The object is to create movement and vibration by the juxtaposition of color. The interplay of color is as important to my work as the flow of the design itself.”

After graduating high school, Bill joined the U.S. Navy and served throughout World War II on destroyers in both the Atlantic and Pacific Theatres, where he saw action in the Okinawa and Iwo Jima campaigns. He was amongst the first servicemen to see first-hand the devastation of the atomic bomb at Nagasaki. Compelled by news of the Holocaust, he went to Palestine and fought on behalf of the fledgling State of Israel in the War of Independence as a scout in the Palmach.

After the war, he studied at the Art Students League and Cooper Union in New York City and was inspired by such artists as Max Beckmann, Henri Matisse, and Amedeo Modigliani. Bill was married in 1955 and raised three children in Highland Park, N.J.

Turtle Light Press carries prints and notecards of Bill Giacalone's Butterflies series, his Jewish series, and his Musicians series.

“I just liked the way watercolors looked – they seemed to pop out, to come alive,” says David B. Black, 94, who began painting in 1988 after a 30 year career in retailing.

David has studied with numerous teachers, but has worked closest with Michael Madigan of Hamilton, N.J. He particularly likes to paint flowers and still lifes. His work is exhibited in private collections from Sarasota, Florida, to White Plains, New York.

Some have compared his style to Giorgio Morandi, an Italian painter who often depicted geometric still lifes of bottles and jars; others say his work resembles that of Henri Matisse. In either case, he has moved past content to an exploration of pure form.

“When I took a class in watercolor and I would remark that I wanted to paint more realistically, the whole class would roar, “No, don’t change your style. You have a style of your own. It’s what makes your paintings so unique.”

Turtle Light Press carries prints and notecards of David B. Black's still life watercolors.

Graphic Design

Maria Marshall was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. She started attending art classes at the Hermitage Museum at the age of six. When Maria was nine, her family immigrated to the United States. Maria received a BA in Fine Arts from Indiana University. She complimented her fine art skills with studies in graphic design at the University of the Arts, and has worked as a professional artist and designer since 1992. Maria received an MFA in Painting from Brooklyn College in 2000.

During her time in New York, Maria also worked in prominent advertising agencies where she participated in campaigns for national and international clients including Haagen-Dazs, Amtrak, Exxon Mobil, Michelin, Bentley, and Amana. While at Wolf Group New York, Maria co-curated a number of large-scale corporate exhibitions.

Maria has exhibited her own work in New York, Philadelphia, and New Jersey. Her work is included in private and corporate collections. She is currently a Professor of Media Arts and Design at Middlesex County College in Edison, NJ.

Web Design

Laura Ahearn is Turtle Light Press's bookkeeper and website manager. She is a linguistic and cultural anthropologist who works on issues of gender, kinship, and marriage in Nepal. Her most recent project is a book, Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, and Social Change in Nepal (University of Michigan Press, 2001), which is about the new courtship practice of love letter writing in the Magar village where she was a Peace Corps volunteer for several years in the early 1980's. She is interested in agency, constraints on meaning in Nepali women's songfests, and the changing meanings and values surrounding childbirth in Nepal. Currently, she is working on a linguistic anthropology textbook for Blackwell. Read more about Laura Ahearn's research.