Alberto Casiraghi of Pulcino Elefante Press

In another captivating segment of the film Proceed and Be Bold!, a documentary about printmaker Amos Kennedy Jr., Elena Bertozzi introduces Kennedy to Alberto Casiraghi, the founder of Pulcino Elefante Press in Italy. (The image of Casiraghi's art here comes from the Musicartz Berceto website.)

Here is more information about Casiraghi, from Ardea Arts , where he is a collaborator:

The founder of the Pulcino Elefante Press, Casiraghi letterpress prints small editions of books in collaboration with individual artists. He has also published several collections of poetry (In the Close Distance; The Cherries are Distracted; Poetry of the Reserve). Among his books are Ordinary Reliquaries and In the Whale Fields in collaboration with Antonio Papaglia.

He has produced a prodigious number of editions. The catalog of his books published by Vanni Scheiwiller in 1997 includes his first 1743 books. Last year he published over 500 books in editions ranging from 9 to 42. In his own words, Alberto is the bread baker of publishers, the only one who prints fresh books daily.

I love the way the film brings together two dedicated printers, one in Alabama and one in Italy, with Elena Bertozzi helping them cross the boundaries of geography and language. They find a way to collaborate – co-elaborate – around their common obsession.

Elena Bertozzi of Ardea Arts

Amos Kennedy's friend and lover Elena Bertozzi plays a large role in the film Proceed and Be Bold!, discussing his work, their relationship, and showing a bathroom in her house where the walls are covered with his posters. She opens a wooden trunk of handwritten letters she's received from Kennedy, talking about the anomaly and value of that form of communication (and later, in another context, she answers him with a digital love letter.)

Bertozzi completed a Ph.D. in media and communications in at the European Graduate School in Switzerland, with a dissertation called "At Stake: Play, Pleasure, and Power in Cyberspace." Before that, she earned her M.S. in immersive mediated environments and telecommunications at IU in Bloomington. Now she is an assistant professor of multimedia arts and digital communication at the University of Wisconsin in Whitewater.

Bertozzi is also director of Ardea Arts, "a bridge between the print and digital worlds." The group defines itself as "artists, designers, writers, musicians, educators and information professionals. Some of us are on the cutting edge of new technologies while others of us are in the Luddite camp, but all of our work is firmly grounded in craft. We aim to create products which simply and elegantly fulfill their function."

I find it fascinating that these artists have a connection to IU, and I'm enthralled by their mission – it unites creatives and enables them to collaborate without defining and delimiting them on the basis of "new technology" fault lines.

And I must say: I do like Elena's name! Come to think of it, I like Kennedy's, too. The "play of the signifier" leads me to more "living ghost" members of my artistic family.