Nancy Buchanan

Lincoln Fay’s Journal (2023)
Two-pass letterpress print.
8.5 x 11 in.
Edition of 20.

Wavelength Press is pleased to announce a new letterpress edition made in collaboration with Nancy Buchanan. Lincoln Fay’s Journal (2023) is closely tied to the artist’s family history as are her book works, Fallout from the Nuclear Family (1980) and Mother (1975), both in the Getty Research Institute collections. Buchanan’s great-great-grandfather was Lincoln Fay, an abolitionist who built a house in Portland, New York in 1860, with three cellars used as Underground Railroad stations. Fay also left a journal, written in 1830-1831, which primarily documented the brooms he made and included entries written in a simple code. A partial translation of text in code on this page reads, “O Lord I beg of thee to answer my prayers.”

“Lincoln Fay’s journal is a family heirloom,” notes Buchanan. “He was my grandmother’s grandfather. Many entries are related to Lincoln’s making and selling or trading brooms, for which he raised his own broomcorn” (a type of sorghum.)

Some pages are written in part or whole in a simple code, which is the alphabet backward. About his journal, Lincoln said:

Looking at the waste of past time and considering it a duty to improve my time whilst heaven lends me the blessing of health it always gives my life pleasure at night to look back on a profitable good day’s labour. Therefore, I conclude in old age it will be pleasant for me to see what I have been about since I commenced business in life for myself. Accordingly, I now [on] the 25th of Nov. commence a day book.

In the 1830s, broom-making was a significant industry in upstate New York, providing jobs for many families. The process of making brooms was labor-intensive and required skill. Brooms made from broomcorn were popular and of good quality. This industry was important to the local economy, especially in rural areas where farming was the primary occupation, and it helped farmers earn income during the slower winter months.

Buchanan drew a handmade broom and the page from the journal was recreated into a photopolymer plate and printed on a Vandercook SP20 Proof Press. The letterpress print, Lincoln Fay’s Journal, is offered as an edition of 20 and printed on Rives BFK cotton paper and soy inks, available through Wavelength Press and Charlie James Gallery.

Nancy Buchanan is represented by Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles. Her work has been shown in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Centre Pompidou, the Getty Research Institute, and was included in four of the Getty-sponsored Pacific Standard Time exhibitions. Recent exhibitions include: Is it morning for you yet? 58th Carnegie International, 2023 and how we are in time and space: Nancy Buchanan, Marcia Hafif, Barbara T. Smith, 2022 and The Youngest Day, Carlier/Gebauer, Berlin, 2021.She was the subject of a solo screening of her videotapes at REDCAT in 2013, and her videos have been included in group exhibitions including Agitprop at the Brooklyn Museum; RE-ACTION, a traveling exhibition originating in Spain; and Jonny at Insitu, Berlin. Buchanan is the recipient of four National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist grants, a COLA grant, and a Rockefeller Fellowship in New Media. In 2016, she organized It’s Your Party, a durational performance at UC Irvine’s xMPL Theater as the second event in The Art of Performance. Beginning with her participation as a founding member of F Space Gallery in Costa Mesa, Buchanan has been involved in numerous artists’ groups including The Los Angeles Woman’s Building and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE); she has also acted as curator for several exhibitions and projects. From 1988-2012, she taught in the Film/School at CalArts; she worked with community activist Michael Zinzun on his cable access show Message to the Grassroots for ten years and as a member of Zinzun’s LA 435 Committee; and she traveled to Namibia to produce a documentary about that country’s transition to independence from the Republic of South Africa. Buchanan lives and works in Los Angeles.