Volta is my homage to Wallace Berman.
It’s also an assemblage and a little magazine that’s published whenever I can make it happen.
I named it after James Joyce’s one and only (failed) business venture — The Volta Theater at 45 Mary Street in Dublin. The Volta Theater was opened in 1909 and was Ireland’s very first movie house…although the very first movie to ever screen in Ireland didn’t take place at The Volta…which is probably why The Volta failed.
Some have even claimed The Volta as myth, as far as it being Ireland’s very first movie house, but that really doesn’t matter, does it?
The first issue of Volta was published in an edition of 50 copies, all of which were sent to the friends, the enemies, and the heroes of the synaesthesia press.
Essentially Volta is a junk shop of sorts, as I take whatever paper scraps I have laying around from completed projects, found scrap paper from thrift stores, and various found objects that I’ve yet to use, and then I just run ‘em through one of my presses — after I set the type and proofed it all.
Well, I don’t run the objects through my press, but I use them to house whatever it is I’m printing…which will be included in future issues.
Contents for the inaugural Volta include a poems by Bulowski, Brautigan, Litzsky, Denander, and Catlin; there’s one of the many “overs” I had in my archives of the Childish woodcuts that accompanied “The Strangest One of All”, as well as an assemblage / found piece by Jim Pritchard.
John Martin called Volta a “brilliant little piece of publishing”, which made me squeal like a little girl. I squealed even louder when he sent me 6 Bukowski poems for future issues.
Volta can’t be bought; it simply arrives at your door.
