“Make-ready” is a general term that describes the process of preparing a press for printing. It is also used to define the waste-paper stock that passes through the press before color, registration, and ink density are adjusted and approved by the press operators. In order to conserve paper, printed sheets of make-ready from earlier runs are often fed into the press until the next form’s settings are correct, resulting in the arbitrary superimposition of disparate images on these sheets.
  

"Esopus Make-Ready" consisted of a representative selection of nearly 50 of these waste-paper sheets collected from press runs of the magazine at Westcan Printing in Winnipeg, Canada. They are not only fascinating artifacts from the sheet-fed printing process; many of them are visually arresting collages created by the pressmen themselves. The exhibition also included a single-channel video featuring footage taken during the press run of Esopus 14.

– PRESS RELEASE [PDF]