April 2025 ~ A second volume of writings by composer, translator, folklorist, aphorist, poet, and wanderer Hans Jürgen von der Wense is in the works! Stay tuned for a fall 2026 publication date!
Road to the Desenberg, North Hesse, Germany, 19 March 1941. RPPC from the archive of Heddy Esche.
Upcoming & Recent Publications
BOOK ~ A Shelter for Bells: From the Writings of Jürgen von der Wense
Composer, translator, folklorist, wanderer, aphorist, encyclopedist, poet, and consummate mystagogue of the landscape Hans Jürgen von der Wense was born in Ortelsburg, East Prussia, on November 10, 1894. His astonishing body of work includes thirty thousand loose sheets of writings on natural history, mineralogy, poetry, folklore, weather, walking, and music, to name but a few of the subjects that were a focus of his studies. In addition to these writings, his archive includes numerous diaries, three thousand photographs, and six thousand letters. A Shelter for Bells is the first book of von der Wense's writings published in English and brings together extracts from his loose sheets, diaries, and letters. Translated by Kristofor Minta and Herbert Pföstl; edited by Kirston Lightowler.
EDITION ~ Herbert Pföstl, Schrift-Landschaften
Our first Edition includes prints of Herbert Pföstl’s nine original Schrift-Landschaften drawings along with a text written by filmmaker David Gatten. The Schrift-Landschaften described by Pföstl: "As incantation in repetition, these landscapes of script are walks in writing on fields of paper. Resurrected fragments, summoned as vows: exercises to gain time." The drawings, composed of a single thought fragment, written in Pföstl’s distinctly small script and covering an entire page of worked and worn paper, were created through a practice of quiet reflection. One is reminded of the particularities of calligraphic expression and the meditative processes required to create needlework samplers, chronological tables, weather diaries, or even telegraphic code. Pföstl’s Schrift-Landschaften, however, come from a deep reading of and reliance upon literature; these lines are fragments from books gathered over many years and transformed into a landscape of incantations for the artist. What at first appears a wilderness of words on paper soon resolves into a garland of vows concealed within the text.