An almost complete edition of an old German Meyers Lexikon was given to me by a friend who was leaving the country. I looked for some time at the worn, dilapidated volumes standing on a book shelf, and I became fascinated by their wonderfully aged leather spines with golden letters. Once they all looked alike; now each one has taken on a different patina expressing a personal character. With Faded Past I am transforming these wise but out-dated volumes into a new book, giving them a second life. Anyone who loves to flip through dictionaries might have the same fondness looking at the running heads on the tops and bottoms of the pages. I spent quite some time compiling weird pairs of sounds to use as text in this book; they had to be alliterations. You will find pairs such as Cosmic Couch and Wordy Worm. The days where we open an encyclopedia instead of a computer to obtain knowledge are vanishing fast; the case of Webster vs. web might turn out to be a lost battle. The reverse sides of the pages show images of tools and typefaces I photographed at the print shop in the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany. Letterpress printing is another example of a disappearing craft.