Stone Eye

Since 1974, Gray Zeitz has been printing beautiful books and broadsides at Larkspur Press in Monterey, Kentucky. His first title was Richard Taylor's Bluegrass, and it inaugurated a series of publications that has included writing by many authors of regional and national note.

In the 1970s, Monterey was a thriving artists' colony that included the Bittersweet Bindery of Deborah Bosley, the first binder for Larkspur publications. The work of Bittersweet was succeeded by the beautiful hand work of Cincinnati's Carolyn Whitesel who, as had Zeitz, studied the book arts under Carolyn Reading Hammer (1911-2001) at the King Library Press at the University of Kentucky. Zeitz's first printing press was a Chandler and Price treadle press given to him by Carolyn Hammer. It has been joined by several other Chandler and Price presses as well as an antique cast iron Washington flatbed press. Types chiefly in use in the pressroom include Emerson, Perpetua, Palatino, Garamond, Goudy Old Style, Joanna, and American Uncial.

Works by Larkspur Press have been enthusiastically highlighted in Southern Living and numerous regional newspaper features. Zeitz has exhibited at Delaware's Oak Knoll Fest and at the annual Kentucky Book Fair. On November 13, 1998, the University of Kentucky Libraries hosted "Larkspur Twenty-Five," a quarter-century celebration of the achievement of Larkspur Press.