Rising Sea Levels in Nile River Delta
Egyptian Book Artist

Aly, Islam, book artist.
Delta.
Cairo: Islam Aly, 2023.

Number 19 of 50 copies signed, numbered, and dated by Islam Aly, the artist. A coptic bound triangular shaped book with boards covered in full green leather and gilt title stamped to the front board. Leather straps ending in brass triangles wrap around the book to hold it closed. Text and images are laser-cut on Fabriano paper. The book is housed in a blue cloth covered box with etched plexiglass side panels and a drawer-like structure that pulls open.

The artist describes his book about rising sea levels in Egypt: "The book "Delta" uses the symbol to represent a change or difference in quantity between two values in mathematics and science. The term "Delta" also refers to Lower Egypt, where the Nile River delta is located. This delta is one of the world's largest, stretching from Alexandria to Port Said. However, rising sea levels put much of the northern delta, including the historic port city of Alexandria, at risk of being submerged in the Mediterranean.

"Delta" highlights the global crisis of rising sea levels and its impact on deltas worldwide. It contains a descriptive poem for the Nile Delta by Nicholas Michell and features images of sea monsters from The Carta Marina by Olaus Magnus, initially published in 1539. 

Sea monsters have been a part of human folklore for thousands of years and are often depicted in artwork and stories as symbols of danger and the unknown. These images serve as a reminder of the risks and uncertainties of the ocean and remain a symbol of the unknown.

The contrast between the descriptive poem and the sea monsters underscores the gravity of the topic and its importance. Delta is enclosed in a box with two transparent sides that display laser-cut images. The front features an old map of the Nile Delta, and the back shows an old map of Alexandria port." Size: Box is 9 x 9 x 2.5 inches; Book has 8 inch sides.

Islam Aly is an Egyptian-born book artist and teacher based in Cairo, who studied book arts and art education at the University of Iowa. His books explore the possibilities of historical bindings in contemporary book art practices They have appeared in international exhibitions in the United States and abroad, and in private and public collections including the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Library of Chile, Yale University, and Bibliotheca Alexandrina. In an artist's statement he writes: "When I make a historical book structure, I go through a learning process. I learn the history as well as the different physical aspects of the binding such as how a book form is constructed in a specific sequence. I learn about the use of different materials such as paper, wood, leather and dyes. I learn to make choices in selecting and replacing traditional materials that I don’t have access to. I use these different experiences to enhance my work in making artists’ books and to use historical and cultural references from these structures in the actual content. In essence, I wish to explore new ways to use the rich structures of historical books in contemporary artists’ book practice and incorporate contemporary content into strictly historical structures." Fine. (#37805)

Price: $1,800

Importance of Blanket Bogs & Peat in Ireland / Environmental Protections
Tunnel Book (with accompanying booklet)

Austin, Alice, book artist.
Blanket Bog.
Philadelphia: Alice Austin, 2023.

Number 8 of 25 copies signed and numbered by the book artist. Alice Austin is a printmaker, book artist and painter living and working in Philadelphia. She has been on the faculty at the University of the Arts, teaching book structures, and has also taught workshops at the Center for Book Arts in New York, Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ireland, The Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, and other institutions. She earned a BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art and has been an active member of the Guild of Book Workers since 1998. She worked as a rare book and paper conservator for over 20 years at the Library Company of Philadelphia. Her work is widely held in private, public and special collections worldwide.

This is a colorful five panel tunnel book that evokes a drive taken by the book artist through the blanket bog along the west coast of Ireland in County Mayo. From the colophon: A herd of sheep stops the car and the viewer contemplates the hillside, with piles of peat, cut and stacked to dry. Printed from hand-cut linoleum prints, the side panels take the viewer along the road from farm land into the bog. The last panel is a five-color reduction linoleum print of the landscape. The back of the tunnel book has a poem written by Austin about the blanket bog. The book is accompanied by a small pamphlet in an envelope with the colophon that describes the area in Mayo County with bogs, the importance of peat, and how the bogs are currently protected, The tunnel book is housed in a gray paper clamshell box. with title label on one side. In fine condition. Size: 4 x 6 inches. Fine. (#37127)

Price: $700

Rising Water Levels in New York City
A Comic Look - pet dogs are replaced with ducks and streets have become canals
A Paper-cut Book

Coron, Béatrice (book artist).
New York Redux.
New York: Béatrice Coron, 2012.

One of 3 copies. Created in the year of Hurricane Sandy, this book addresses rising sea levels and shows parts of NYC underwater. Rather than dwelling on tragedy, Coron chooses to focus on the theme of New York reinventing itself to accommodate. She depicts a duck show in place of the famous Westminster dog show. In the panels that do not depict the duck show, ducks are shown as taking the place of dogs in people's apartments and on the streets (which are now Venetian style rivers to be navigated by gondola). Hand-cut on black Arches paper. Size: 10 x 8 inches closed; 37 x 6.75 extended. Housed in a black folder with title, artist, and birds on front cover and ribbon ties.

Coron describes her book work: "For the last 20 years, I have been exploring visual storytelling in artist books, paper cutting and public art. Collecting memories from individuals and communities, I stage narrative allegories in silhouette to create a dialogue with the viewer in playful fantasies. These visual chronicles record archetypal stories that transcend time and space. I have been fascinated by the relation of people to their space and the sense of belonging. Using papercutting where everything is cut from a single piece of Tyvek, the profusion of individual stories makes a coherent whole world." [From her website].

Cristina Favretto, Head of Special Collections at the University of Miami describes her work in Coron's "artfragments" portfolio: "There is a palpable joy in the work of Béatrice Coron, the kind of joy we felt as children in unwrapping a particularly enticing holiday gift. But...for Béatrice the gift is a sheet of Tyvek...or paper, and the stories to be unearthed and unleashed within and through the medium." Fine. (#35275)

Price: $1,200

Rising Sea Levels in Florida

Covell, Anne.
Sea Change.
San Diego: Anne Covell, 2023.

One of 25 Variable Copies. "Sea Change is a letterpress printed artist book and companion print series that uses catastrophe modeling to map the projected impact of sea level rise on the Florida Peninsula if action is not taken to combat climate change. In this book, state and regional maps of the Florida Peninsula repeat page by page with hand-cut paper corrections that reflect projections for coastal impacts for up to ten feet in sea level rise. The corresponding text on the verso of each repeating image of the Florida Peninsula rises on the page in tandem with index tabs that visually mark predictions in two foot increments. Each map correction is letterpress printed, hand-cut, and pasted on the page directly over the previous correction. As projections increase, the layers of corrections overlap and fill the page, physically marking an evolving landscape with permanent adhesion.

The system of mapping used in this book was inspired by research and study of the print holdings of the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Florida in the Map & Imagery Library, most notably Miami, vol. 1, 1921 containing a record of 28 paper corrections dating from 1928 - 1950. Originally created to allow fire insurance companies to assess risk and liability to urbanized areas within the United States, these maps were published in volumes that were bound and corrected by “pasters” who were employed to cut and glue over outdated maps until a new volume was produced.

Sea Change is bound using Benjamin Elbel’s Onion Skin Binding technique. The spine of each page is glued and layered to the previous page and trimmed on a guillotine so that the cross-section cut resembles an onion, or in this case, a topographical map or the ripples of moving water. The book is housed in a partial slipcase with a printed image of the present day Florida Peninsula on front. When the book is removed from the slipcase, a remnant image of the Florida Peninsula as it would appear under ten feet of sea level rise is revealed.

Sea Change was letterpress printed from photopolymer plates by Boxcar Press on an SP-15 Vandercook Proof Press in the UF School of Art + Art History Type Shop on Somerset Velvet and Masa papers. The map layers were cut by hand and attached with wheat paste in the Sanborn “pasters” tradition. The book is housed in a grey archival case, and the maps are housed in a paper folder within a protective plastic pocket. Book Size: 9.5 x 12.5 inches. Map Size: 9.5 x 12.5 inches.

Sea Change is the 2019 artist’s book edition from the Marjorie S. Coffey Library Endowment Residency at the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. Designed and printed by Anne Covell during a semester long residency in the fall of 2019. Fine. (#37717)

Price: $1,750

Urban Water Usage, Disposal, Conservation, & Reuse
Mexican Book Artist

Guerra, Antonio, book artist and author.
Tláloc.
Mexico: 2025.

Number 4 of 5 copies, signed by the artist in silver ink. An artists' book on the urban archaeology of water - its usage, disposal, conservation, and reuse - dedicated to the Mexican god of rain, Tláloc.

Artist's Statement: "In my daily walk I found drains, manholes, signs, and other elements of urban furniture that work perfectly as engraving matrices. They are witnesses of the years and keep the iconography of each city; so I started taking impressions, this led me to think: Where does the water we use, or the rainwater go? This is invisible to our eyes, but it is there, in the bowels of the earth, and we are responsible for it. How much of that water could and should we reuse? With this work dedicated to Tlaloc (Mexica god of rain), I want to share these questions, as well as the beauty of the objects found."

This artists' book includes a collection of three large fold-out images silkscreen printed from manhole covers in the Mexico City and Miami, Florida. The original images were taken during walks by the artist via frottage - or rubbings. The prints are housed in a grey cloth covered portfolio with a silkscreened Aztec glyph of the Mexican rain god, Tlaloc and embossed title to front panel. The signed colophon with an explanation of this project is printed in Spanish inside the front cover. A pocket containing the folded prints is pasted down to the rear panel. Grey ribbons hold the portfolio closed. Paper size: about 30 x 20 inches, open. Portfolio size: 16.5 x 11 inches. Fine. (#37820)

Price: $1,500

Extinction of the Western Black Rhino

[Lone Oak Press]
Rorer, Abigail, book artist; Don McKay, poem.
Extinct. The Western Black Rhinoceros.
Petersham, MA: Lone Oak Press, 2022.

Number 11 of 56 standard signed and numbered copies. Master wood engraver Abigail Rorer is considered one of the finest engravers working today. She founded her Lone Oak Press in 1989 and has published many beautiful works that often focus on nature - animals, flowers, trees, and water. Abigail has also provided lovely illustrations for other private and commercial presses. Her fine press books have been in numerous exhibitions in the U.S., U.K., and Ireland. They can be found in many public and private collections. 

Abigail writes in her prospectus about this important new work, saying that it is the first book in the "Extinct Pentalogy" series. Originally she had planned one larger volume covering five diverse animals, four that are extinct and one that came perilously close. But she decided that each animal deserves its own tribute. The western black rhinoceros was declared extinct in 2011 and all remaining rhinoceroses are endangered. She writes on her website: "Extinction as a theme has been a focus of The Lone Oak Press for a few years now, beginning with the publication of our book Extinction in 2015. We are living in the age of the Sixth Extinction, the Anthropocene: the Human Epoch. Human activity has made such an impact on our planet that climate patterns are changing, glaciers are melting, the ozone layer is thinning, and species are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. For such a magnificent and noble animal as the rhinoceros to be on the verge of total extinction is tragic and unacceptable. The rhinoceros has lived and flourished on this earth for tens of thousands of years. Within only a relatively short period of time, the last two hundred years or so, with the advent of guns, the Industrial Revolution, exploding populations, and other factors, we have decimated the rhino population and brought it to the brink of total extinction. This book is a way to honor a subspecies of the black rhinoceros that disappeared in 2011 and to highlight the plight of all species of rhinoceros.”

Bound in a gray and black paper created from a hand-draw closeup image of rhinoceros skin over boards with a gray leather spine and red title label. The rear board includes a bullet sized hole in the board with red leather showing underneath – a visceral reminder of the contents of the book. The text was set in Dante and Othello type. The text and engravings were printed on Zerkell paper. Many of the engravings are multi-block color with some hand-coloring. Amy Borezo of shelter Bookwords bound the books. With prospectus. Housed in a slipcase covered in matching gray paper with rhino skin print In fine condition. Measures 7 x 9 inches. 52 pages. (#36666)

Price: $1,200

Wildfires and Climate Change
12 Artists' Books in a Reliquary Box

Lowdermilk, Susan; Donna Thomas; Peter Thomas; Andie Thrams.
Hope?
Eugene, OR; Santa Cruz and Coloma, CA: 2022.

Number 3 of 32 copies. A collaborative project about climate change and activism prompted by the catastrophic wildfires of 2020 and onward that burnt through the forests of Oregon and California, where all of the involved book artists reside. This resulting piece of 12 artists' books, which the artists refer to as a "reliquary" box includes artifacts such as a vial of ashes gathered from the remnants of the burnt forest. It was created "to bear witness to the devastation of western forests and grapple with the question of hope during this pivotal movement in the Anthropocene epoch."

The four artists involved gathered in 2019 during the Codex book fair to discuss creating this project, which was originally intended to focus on trees and forests. When they were able to meet again in 2021, after experiencing catastrophic wildfires near their homes, they hiked in Yosemite. On their hike they discussed broadening the scope of their project to "a more significant consideration of climate change," what can be done about it, what "hope" meant to each of the participants, and what information could be shared through the project. The group gathered research, specimens, and inspiration as they spent a week camping in the McKenzie River watershed area. They also met with Forest Service scientists, a forest management company, photographer, and an Emergency Manager responsible for responding to wildfires. Finally, they began designing their books and the reliquary box collaboratively, creating wood and linocut illustrations, making paper, setting type, and printing (artist statement). The resulting books incorporate burnt wood gathered from the forest, ashes, hand made paper, painted wood, and more.

A variety of structures are included such as: a scroll book, a flexagon, a coptic bound booklet, a folder with removable sheets, and an accordion with pop-ups. Techniques include: letterpress printing, gouache, watercolor, linocut, woodcut, photograms, relief prints, pressure prints, digital printing, and paper marbling. All of the books and artifacts are held in a wooden box along with a 40 page trade paperback book with artists statements by each of the four participants as well descriptions and pictures of all included books. The reliquary box was constructed by Taylor Millar with repurposed Douglas fir and locally sourced coast redwood from near Lagunitas, CA. It features a hand-stamped brass title label and an interior paper label with printed colophon. Fine. (#37662)

Price: $4,000

Loss of Clean Air Act (and other American rights)

[Luminice Press]
Williams, Thomas Parker and Mary Agnes Williams.
American River.
Philadelphia: Luminice Press, 2022.

Number 11 of 12 copies. In this powerful new book from the Luminice Press, Thomas and Mary Agnes Williams present a scathing indictment of the erosion of democracy in the United States. The preface states:

"In America, we are losing our freedoms, one by one.
Clean Air – the freedom to breathe air not polluted with toxins
Safety – the freedom to live without fear of deadly guns
Women’s Autonomy – the freedom to control their own bodies
Voting – the freedom to participate in our democracy
We are losing America."

The book's text juxtaposes the intent of four congressional acts that guaranteed American protections - clean air, gun control, reproductive rights, and voting rights - with text from the recent Supreme Court opinions that overturned or restricted these protections. The accordion structure of the book offers the text on one side of the pages with the other side offering six panels with striking abstract color illustrations of disappearing water representing democracy's erosion. Bound in a blue and black paper covered boards with a black Washi linen spine. The text is letterpress printed from polymer plates. The six illustrations are original images hand printed on folded panels with 41 pochoir mylar stencils. The book measures 7.25 x 9.25 inches. The illustrated panels are 7 x 17.75 inches unfolded and open to 106.5 inches. In fine condition. (#37695)

Price: $1,500

Climate Change, Wildfires, Covid, Racial Injustice, Threat of Totalitarianism
Includes making-of book and video

[Moving Parts Press]
Rice, Felicia, book artist and printer; Theresa Whitehill, poet; Inge Bruggeman, preface to The Heavy Lifting Companion.
Heavy Lifting.
Mendocino CA: Moving Parts Press, 2022.

Number 38 of 60 copies, signed by the book artist, the poet, and the binder, Craig Jensen. There were 48 copies of the standard edition and 12 copies of the deluxe edition. The books are accompanied by a digitally produced book The Heavy Lifting Companion, and the film On Heavy Lifting, all housed in a clamshell book box. Every book in the two editions is accompanied by the film, "On Heavy Lifting" on an SD card, but the deluxe edition also includes a second clamshell box that holds a laser cut printing plate and a digital viewer loaded with the film and eight other shorts.

This magnificent bookwork from Felicia Rice and Theresa Whitehill is a complex production that conveys the important messages that the artist and poet created from their collaboration. From the press website: "Heavy Lifting is a fierce work that names the darkness in the belief that the first stage of recovery from grief is acknowledgment, and that the precursor to action can be anger. It is a response to a call sounded by artist/educator Paul Soulellis in 2021: 'Publishing has always been political, but has it ever felt as urgent as it does right now in the global distress and intersecting crises of the past year? There’s a desperate need for new language to express publishing’s renewed urgency and importance. …let’s turn away from old, legacy publishing models towards something new: an ethics, craft, and politics of urgent making.”

The genesis for this project sadly was a devastating megafire in August 2020 that destroyed almost one thousand structures in Santa Cruz, where Rice had lived and worked for fifty years. The fire took her home, her letterpress shop and an entire inventory of artists' books. She and her husband were able to relocate to her family home in Mendocino to try to start over. She fought back by starting work on a new book project that addressed the personal crisis of losing her home and shop to fire, but also what she termed the collective crises experienced during this time - Covid, climate change, racial injustice, the threat of totalitarianism, and immigration among them. Her collaboration with her friend and colleague Whitehill began after the poet sent her a poem that Rice knew she could use as the driving force for the new book. Whitehill subsequently composed fourteen deeply emotional poems for their now joint project. Ultimately this project grew into much more than an edition of sixty artist's books. Rice and Whitehall developed a commercially printed companion book, an experimental video, and a listening tour throughout northern California. (Rice and Whitehill were interviewed and wrote in detail about their collaboration and its broad influence and effects in the Mendocino Real Estate Magazine issued in January 2023. It is available on the website: https://realestatemendocino.com ).

This is an accordion-fold book and clamshell book box covered in Brillianta book cloth by Craig Jensen of BookLab II. Typeset in Stempel Garamond and Faster One types and printed from lasercut and photopolymer plates on Arches Watercolor paper. Images created by Rice and printed from lasercut wood plates made by Rice and photopolymer plates made by The Artichoke Press. Letterpress and relief printing by Rice using a Vandercook proof press. The book is comprised of two nested accordion-fold panels: Panel 1 “Birds”: 10 x 14.5 x 80 and Panel 2 “Crises”: 10 x 12.5 x 100 ; Panels extended: 15 end-to-end. Book: 10 x 14.5 x .75 Clamshell Case: 11 x 15.625 x 1.625 . In fine condition. (#37238)

Price: $2,700

Endangered and Threatened Frogs

[Ravenpress]
Bailey, Alicia.
Evanesco - A Selection of Beleaguered Frogs.
Aurora, CO: Alicia Bailey at Ravenpress, 2020.

Produced in a variable edition of no more than 9 copies of which this is number 4. A collection of 17 endangered frog species, each hand painted (reproduced digitally), and briefly described with terms such as "population decreasing." Labeled ink drawings of frog anatomy are incorporated into each illustration. A circle graph showing frog populations as extinct, critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, near threatened, least concern, and data deficient accompanied with hand-written percentiles in red adorns the bottom of the case for the book. Along the interior edges of the box the following text is printed: "Blake believed that the object of being human is to learn how to be human. Will we learn to be human in time? To live up to our full capacities in time to save ourselves? To save the world that is vulnerable to us? To fail will bring on a greater tragedy than we can possibly imagine."

According to the artist: "This project began with a batch of biology notebooks from my great-aunt Ruth's archive that were created in 1920 as part of her undergraduate education. I inked over several of her pencil drawings detailing frog biology, treated the pages so they would be receptive to oil paint, then painted a variety of frogs, one to a page. Scanned at high-resolution, these images were printed on hand-dyed Mohawk Superfine Text paper with archival digital inks. The images were each mounted on a core of museum board wrapped with elephant hide paper with further details about the depicted frog hand-written in red ink. The pages are bound using a wire edge structure, onto metal rods. The book and box covers have been treated with shellac, then overpainted with gesso, oil, and wax. The covers each have a hand-painted frog behind laser etched mica labels. The diamond shaped book is housed in a custom box with text laser etched into the tray's corner pieces. The base of the box has a print out of a circle graph with a hand-written legend under a layer of cast acrylic."

Alicia Bailey has been creating artists' books, limited edition books, and sculptural books since the mid-nineties. Her work has been featured in dozens of exhibitions and is held in many collections around the world. This book is held in the collection of the British Library. Size: about 8 x 7 x 2 inches. [20 pages.] Fine. (#35446)

Price: $1,200

Extermination of Bison in Pennsylvania
Features Large Watermark Portraits of Bison

[Rocinante Press]
Wilson, Michelle, book artist.
Bison Time.
Oakland, CA: Rocinante Press, 2022.

Number 8 of 10 copies signed and numbered by the book artist. Michelle Wilson is an interdisciplinary thinker, whose work involves papermaking, printmaking, book arts, installation, and social practice. Her practice includes frequent collaborations with other artists; in particular her ongoing collaboration with Anne Beck as the Rhinoceros Project. In her artist's statement she writes: "My work takes the form of paper, installations, sculptures, prints, artist books, collages, and social practice interventions, all based on handmade paper I make myself. This paper is typically from plants I grow myself, or invasive plants I harvest, for which my studio practice becomes a means of clearing habitat space for native ecology. Paper is traditionally considered a substrate; however in my work the very fibers of its making transcend this to become signifier, content, documentation of history and place, and embodiments of site-specificity. My work addresses a changing world, and the complexities of meaning, sentiment, and consequences therein."

Bison Time is a musing on the history of buffalo (bison) in Pennsylvania and their extermination there. The book reflects on material metaphors and how what is lost is remembered. This work was made entirely by hand in the unseeded occupied Ohlone territory of Huichin, now known as Oakland, California. The papers in this book are handmade in the Western tradition from a mixture of cotton and abaca with watermarks cut by hand. Papers were printed with hand carved linoleum blocks and photopolymer plates. To create this inventive and impassioned book, Wilson used watermarks to illustrate each of the figures that accompany the text that document the history and extinction of bison in Pennsylvania. The work comprises eight loose pages, each with a framed watermark with an image of a bison. The pages are housed in a clamshell box. The clamshell box is covered in handmade paper dyed with walnuts by the artist to resemble buffalo hide. A white paper illustration of the head of a bison is affixed to the front cover. In fine condition. Measures 10 x 13 inches. (#37451)

Price: $1,000

Climate Change / Mass Extinction
Earth's History Told from 104 Million Years in the Future

[Salt Point Press]
Gail Wight, book artist.
Ostracod Rising.
Jenner, CA: Salt Point Press, 2024.

Number 6 of 26 copies signed by the book artist. This is a spectacular new artist's book from Gail Wight's Salt Point Press. She offered the following as background on her creation and thought processes for this work: "The main images, timeline clouds and globes are my original watercolors that were then scanned and then added to the page layouts before printing. The main images focus on small creatures from each time period, rather than the more familiar macro animals. For instance, a parasite symbolizes the Triassic, rather than early dinosaurs. The only visual of a mammal is the wooly mammoth tusk in the Pleistocene. All information is factual – and fact checked by a naturalist from the CA State Park system – up through the mid Holocene. After that, the future is imaginary. However, it’s based on conversations with scientists about what they think the future might hold, and further reading on the topic. I chose 104 million years in the future as an ending date for two reasons:

1) It’s long enough for significant changes to take place, but not so long as to lose the focus of the book (our role in those changes).
2) 104 is the fever temperature at which humans start to lose their minds, so it seemed like a nice poetic number."    

Ostracod Rising tells the story of Earth’s past from 104 million years in the future. Beginning with the formation of Earth in the Hadean Eon, each page factually describes a distinct period of time throughout the ages. It then moves from our current Holocene into an imaginary yet highly plausible future consisting of the Anthropocene, Benthoscene, Silerecene, and finally the Ostracocene. Each page’s timeline covers the emergence and extinction of species, changes in atmosphere and climate, geologic and oceanic events, and the occasional asteroid collision. Large watercolor images of small creatures dominate each page, alongside other elements including day length, atmospheric content, continental drift, and the distance to our slowly receding moon.   This edition of Ostracod Rising is pigment printed on individual Hiromi asuka papers and bound with Awagami moenkopi unryu. Text is in Broadway and Cochin types. The Portfolio in which they are housed is bound in luxurious Asahi bookcloth in deep eggplant, and lined with lokta. The wrapper is heavy Hiromi asuka printed with  drawings of single-celled organisms. An inner 4-flap wrapper holds the book.

From the colophon: Ostracod Rising was originally produced as an installation for Future Tense at the Beall Center for Art + Technology, part of Getty’s 2024 Pacific Standard Time Art: Art & Science Collide. Thank you to both the Beall and Getty for support. Thank you also to Charon Vilnai and Steve Wight for editing, and to Rhiannon Alpers for problem-solving. Thank you to Allison Stegner, Elizabeth Hadley, Tony Barnosky, and Jasper Ridge at Stanford University for inspiration and for my first deep-time introduction to the extraordinary, ubiquitous, and full-of-possibilities ostracod. 

Gail Wight is a well known book artist whose work is in many public and private collections, including the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Baylor University, the British Library, California Polytechnic State University, George Mason University, Harvard University, Lafayette College, Monserrat College of Art, New York Botanical Gardens, Philadelphia Free Library, San Francisco State University, Stanford University, Tufts University, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, University of Southern California, Yale University, and numerous private collections. Her handmade books focus on the resilient yet precarious flora and fauna that live at the edge of the Pacific Ocean in the southern territories of the Pacific Northwest. They explore hybrid practices combining new mediums and technologies with the traditional craft of bookbinding. Wight works in experimental media focusing on issues of biology, the history of scientific theory and technology. She is a Professor Emerita at Stanford University, where she served as Director of Experimental Media Arts and Graduate Studies in Art Practice. This complex and fascinating work from Gail Wight is in fine condition. It measures 16 x 22 inches. Unpaginated. (#37848)

Price: $3,000

Endangered Pangolins

Shattuck, Carolyn.
On the Brink: A Little Known Mammal on the Brink of Extinction.
Rutland, VT: Carolyn Shattuck, 2021.

One of 10 copies. This inventive work by Carolyn Shattuck joins previous artist's books she has produced to call attention to endangered animal species such as elephants and rhinos. The little known mammal in this work is the pangolin. She states that it is one of the world's most trafficked mammals, prized for its scales, which are used primarily for medicinal purposes in China and Vietnam. The book is a complex production that displays Shattuck's skill in using various book structures to convey meaning and context in the books she creates. An accordion style structure reveals a hand-painted pangolin in its painted forested environment. A foldout text lists the many ailments and other purposes that the animal's scales supposedly address. Printed on BFK Rives and painted with water colors. Housed in a black slipcase with title label on front.

In addition to creating artists' books, Shattuck is a painter and creator of paper art. She exhibits her work nationally in numerous juried exhibitions and has received many awards. Her books have been collected by a number of special collections libraries at universities throughout the country. She teaches Book Art workshops in New England and Florida. She describes her work as "an expression of living life to the fullest while being aware of its risks." In fine condition. Measures 12 x 8 x 2.5 inches. (#35487)

Price: $850

Homage to Sea Turtles
Includes Information on Endangerment Status and Ways to Help Them

Shattuck, Carolyn.
Turtle Book V11.
Rutland, VT: Carolyn Shattuck, 2024.

A small, variant, open edition. An homage to sea turtles, inspired by a visit to a sea turtle hospital. It includes text about seven different types of sea turtles, their endangerment status, threats to turtles, anatomical diagrams, a brief history of the turtling industry, turtle portraits and poems, ways that people can help them, and more. Coptic bound with brown, blue, and white decorative paper covered boards. A printed title label is pasted down to the front board. On BFK Rives paper with cord, hooks, archival film, and gel pen. [28 pages.] Size: 9.5 x 7.5 x 1.5 inches.

Carolyn Shattuck is a noted printmaker, using monotype, dry point, painting, stencils and mixed media. In addition to her printmaking skills, Shattuck is architectural in the way she executes the intricate constructions for her artist's books, which highlight her interest in social and environmental causes. Her books have been collected by a number of special collections libraries at universities throughout the country. Fine.(#37840)

Price: $1,200

Endangered African Painted Dogs & Lions

Shattuck, Carolyn, book artist.
Trophied.
Rutland, VT: Shattuck Studio, 2023.

Number 6 of nine copies signed by the book artist. This is another inventive work from well-known artist Carolyn Shattuck that displays her skill in using various book structures to convey meaning and context in the books she creates. In addition to artists' books, she is a painter and creator of paper art. Carolyn exhibits her work nationally in numerous juried exhibitions and has received many awards. Her books have been collected by a number of special collections libraries at universities throughout the country. She teaches Book Art workshops in New England and Florida.  

Carolyn is passionate about revealing the fate of endangered wild animals that are sought and killed for the use of their bodies for medicinal purposes, for their body parts, or for hunting trophies. This artist's book calls attention to the peril of African lions and painted dogs. It joins her previously created books about imperiled elephants, rhinos, and pangolins. She writes in the book: "Lions are rapidly losing ground. Highly valued, they are often poached for their body parts which are then used in traditional medicinal remedies or their heads are mounted by trophy hunters as status symbols." She continues: "Trophied emphasizes the need to respond to this downward spiraling truth about the animals on our earth who are vulnerable."  

This book utilizes an adapted accordion book structure to create a green environment where two brown adult lions and two cubs pop up when the book is opened. There is also an arbor where two painted dogs are standing. The book is bound in a green, felt-like paper with a paper title label to the front cover. The covers are perched above the contents by four paper covered blocks. The inside of the front cover has a paper page affixed that describes the predicament of African lions. The inside of the rear cover has a white paper volvelle affixed on a sheet of black and white paper. There is also a small page with information about the perils of painted dogs. The book is constructed with various papers including Lama Li, Epson, Mixed Media, and Hahnemuhle Velour. The book is housed in a black paper covered slipcase with a yellow title label. In fine condition. The book measures 13 x 5 x 3.5 inches when closed. (#36943)

Price: $900

Endangered Monarch Butterflies
Pop-Ups

Shattuck, Carolyn, book artist; Emily Dickinson, poem.
Wings.
Rutland, VT: Carolyn Shattuck, [2021].

Number 3 of 5 copies, signed and numbered by the book artist. Carolyn Shattuck is a noted printmaker, using monotype, dry point, painting, stencils and mixed media. In addition to her printmaking skills, Shattuck is architectural in the way she executes the intricate constructions for her artist's books, which highlight her interest in social and environmental causes. She exhibits her work nationally in numerous juried exhibitions and has received many awards. Her books have been collected by a number of special collections libraries at universities throughout the country.

Shattuck is interested in endangered species and bringing their plight to the forefront. This vibrant production addresses the endangerment of the Monarch butterfly. She writes in this work: "The migrating monarch was added to the 'red list' of threatened species and categorized as endangered...Scientists blame the population decline on habitat loss, climate change, and pesticide and herbicide use." The colorful butterfly images she has created of the Monarch is accompanied by a poem by Emily Dickinson titled "The Butterfly's Day." 

The book is bound in black paper covers with colorful scribbles as a design. It is structured as a carousel by which the covers can be placed back to back and the book is then self-standing. The butterflies pop up as the book is opened and the pages turned. The four Monarchs are constructed with black Lama Li paper and transparent film. They appear to rest on pink flowers. With blue ribbon ties. The book is housed in a black slipcase with a white title label on the front. In fine condition. Measures 7.5 x 6 x 1.5 inches. (#37304)

Price: $400

Climate Studies - data from earth's glaciers

Simmons, Rachel.
Particulate History.
Orlando, FL: Rachel Simmons, 2022.

Number 20 of 20 copies. Signed by the artist. A poetic artists' book inspired by climate data extracted from the earth's glaciers. Double accordion book structure featuring polar imagery and visual poetry.

According to the artist: This book "was inspired by the scientific method of harvesting historical climate data from the earth’s glaciers by drilling and extracting long frozen cylinders called ice cores. Air pollution, volcanic glass shards, greenhouse gases and industrial chemicals circulate across the planet and become trapped within air bubbles in the ice, preserving samples of the earth’s atmosphere over hundreds and thousands of years. Scientists can travel back in time by studying these layers of frozen time, allowing them to measure and date volcanic eruptions, rising CO2 emissions, temperature fluctuations and even fallout from thermonuclear bombs. I learned about ice cores when researching for my first trip to Antarctica and quickly became fascinated by their physical embodiment of time and knowledge. As I crunched my boots across deep snowfall, I couldn’t help thinking about the history below my feet."

She continues: "The flexible, tactile structure of the book invites manipulation and presents multiple views based on a reader’s individual exploration. One can peer through cut windows to spy turquoise icebergs or read visual poetry on the mysterious nature of history captured in ice. The work was also influenced by my memories of riding in a zodiac through chunks of ice in the Antarctic Peninsula while hearing glacial ice falling into the bay. The book reads, 'Glittering white almanac, buckled by pressure, by time, pages floating/flowing, temporarily. A slow metallic crack echoes across the bay.' The broken textures and aqua color palette evoke the ice, snow, dust and the relentless wind that scours the glaciers. I used found items—plastic carrying bags, ribbon and rubber mesh— to press textures into a Gelli plate to make unique marks in the ink. The six images of the icebergs, also found in my earlier book Tracking B15, came from photographs I took in a glacial lagoon off the Lemaire Channel."

Handmade paper wrappers with fold around magnetic closure and title label to front panel. The interior is a double accordion containing typewritten text and monotype and relief prints on Thai Kozo with gesso, thread, and collage. Housed in a Size: 12 x 6 x .25 inches, closed; 24 x 6 x 4 inches, open.

Rachel Simmons is a book artist and print maker that organizes and participates in socially engaging community projects. Her work is informed by science, philosophy, memory, creativity, and activism. She teaches at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL, directs the Rollins Book Arts Collection, and serves on the board of CBAA, The Association for Book Art Education. Her work can be found in public and private collections across the U.S. Fine. (#37844)

Price: $585

Climate Change - evidenced through changing natural park landscapes

Simmons, Rachel; Lee Lines, geographer.
Visible Climate.
Orlando, FL: Rachel Simmons, 2023.

Number 6 of 15 deluxe variable copies. An artists' book on climate change as evidenced through a collection of photographs of natural park landscapes paired with memories from the artist and historic postcards. Each copy includes a print-on-demand artists' book and a different original mixed media drawing from the Visible Climate series. Each drawing is unique as each is made with photo transfers, watercolor, and charcoal pencil. The book is bound in full color illustrated paper covered boards. A set of five postcards featuring illustrations from the book are attached to the interior of the front board. Both items are housed in a white paper covered box with information about the project taped to the front panel.

According to the artists: This book "is the product of more than 175 hours of field work in our national parks, researching and documenting climate change impacts, followed by a collaborative process of translating visual evidence into an artists book to shed light on the impacts of climate change in some of our nation’s most iconic landscapes. To create the work, Lines’ original digital photographs (and two historical national park images) were reduced to black and white, transferred to Stonehenge paper, hand-colored and then re-digitized by Simmons. This multi-step process created a selective loss of information and degradation, while the hand-colorization references and challenges romanticized landscapes from postcards produced when the parks were first mass marketed to early 20th century visitors. Lines’ handwritten captions — based on his field work in the parks— imagine the voices of park visitors over decades as they encounter changing habitats, receding glaciers, and drought-altered landscapes"

Book Size: 10 x 8 inches, oblong; Drawings: about 8.5 x 11 inches.

Rachel Simmons is a book artist and print maker that organizes and participates in socially engaging community projects. Her work is informed by science, philosophy, memory, creativity, and activism. She teaches at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL, directs the Rollins Book Arts Collection, and serves on the board of CBAA, The Association for Book Art Education. Her work can be found in public and private collections across the U.S. Fine. (#37846)

Price: $575

Coal Mining - Lasting Health, Environmental, & Socioeconomic Impacts

Stackonis, Devon, author and book artist.
Retaining Walls: Surface Removal, Erosion, Resistance, and Recovery or Some Psychological Descriptions of Environmental I.
Madison, WI: Devon Stackonis, 2024.

Number 5 of 10 copies signed and dated by the book artist. Retaing Walls is an impressive and heartfelt production rooted in ancestral lineage, resource extraction, and inhabitation of the Pennsylvania Coal Region. Echoing the form of 19th-century dental manuscripts, this book of text and eleven etchings addresses the lasting psychological, health, environmental, and socioeconomic impacts of an obsolete industry. Devon writes of her work on this book: "Spanning the last decade, my work has dealt with my ancestral labor history, resource extraction, and inhabitation of the Pennsylvania Coal Region. Ancestors on both sides of my family immigrated to Pennsylvania in the late 19th century and worked in coal mines tunneled into the distinctive Anthracite veins which run along the Appalachian Mountain range. My great, and great great grandfathers who worked in these mines had their lives cut short in the industry, with few surpassing the age of forty. Several generations later, some members of my family still reside there, amidst the steep mountains and black piles of coal waste, rivers tainted orange with acid mine drainage, and dilapidated mining structures which remain. In my research surrounding coal mining disasters and occupational health hazards in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, I began exploring the shared language of teeth and the coal mining industry in my writing as well as conditions that apply to both: extraction via drilling and pulling, collapsing roofs and interior spaces, receding and eroding surfaces, retaining walls and supports, and the more common connecting phrase, mouth of the mine.

Over the past 15 years, I have endured my own medical and dental problems, cranio-facial chronic pain, and several ineffective surgeries and procedures. As I was undergoing intensive TMJ treatment and postural therapy over the past three years, I thought much more about teeth and jaw alignment, and how repetitive labor, prolonged stress or misuse can change or limit the function of one’s body. In this work, I consider epigenetics which involves intergenerational transmission of trauma. Existing in an impoverished community, drinking affected water, and being exposed to industrial waste will certainly affect one’s health; however, a parent’s exposures, elements of lifestyle, and traumatic experiences can also be passed to the next generation. This book intimately explores these themes with a semi-fictional narrative based on my experiences in Central and Northeastern Pennsylvania. I express observations of my own chronic pain and vague diagnosis and of people I lived with at the time and strangers whose behavioral tendencies or physical ailments mirrored the conditions of the landscape in uncanny ways. The dream-like visual imagery invites association with the abstracted teeth forms, furthering the connection between the health of the land and bodily well-being. To some extent, we are all products of our external environments. To care for and maintain our own bodies, we must also care for the environments we inhabit. The etchings are rendered from observed dental molds and cast impressions, which within this work serve as a symbol for extraction at the human-scale and more broadly as a symbol of extraction in the world: altered landscapes, uprooted communities, and the human cost of extractive industry.

The binding is in brown cloth with gilt titling and teeth images on cover. There are eleven copper-plate etchings done with chine-collé, and the text is letterpress printed on Rives lightweight paper. The book is housed in a brown cloth clamshell box with a leather inlay on the cover with gilt images of dental tools, and tray of embedded actual dental tools (also used to make etched lines) underneath the book. In fine condition. Measures 9.25 x 10.5 inches. 30 pages including colophon. (#37454)

Price: $1,500

Climate Change
Deluxe Edition in Special Leather Binding

[Viewpoint Editions]
Krause, Dorothy, book artist.
Losing Ground.
Marshfield Hills, MA: Viewpoint Editions, 2008.

Number 1 of 6 copies in the deluxe edition signed and numbered by the book artist. There were also 100 regular copies.This is a powerful artist's book that Dorothy Krause created to explore the intersections of traditional and digital media to create artist's books that bridge between these two forms. In her artist's statement she writes: "I am a painter by training and collage-maker by nature who began my experimental printmaking with reprographic machines. It embeds archetypal symbols and fragments of image and text in multiple layers of texture and meaning. It combines the humblest of materials, plaster, tar, wax and pigment, with the latest in technology to evoke the past and herald the future. My art-making is an integrated mode of inquiry that links concept and media in an ongoing dialogue - a visible means of exploring meaning.

In its content, Losing Ground is an eloquent plea for awareness of our role as stewards of the environment. Using images from her prior work spanning more than a decade and text from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it combines traditional processes and print-on-demand technology to share its important message. Perhaps even more notable is a page with text from the Bible book of Malachi: "Behold the day commeth that shall burn as an oven." To create the book, the many images Krause chose from her work were collaged in Adobe Photoshop into 12 x 12 inch double page spreads. The images themselves are for the most part in the hot shades of orange and seem to visualize the earth as if it were in the midst of some ghastly chemical fire. An image on one page of a clock superimposed on the head of a piece of classical statuary, dotted line through the blank eyes, with a backdrop of an aerial map of arid agricultural fields makes the message clear without a word.

This deluxe edition was bound by Harcourt Bindery in aubergine Nigerian goatskin with an embossed 8 x 8 inch copper title plate inset into a debossed area on the cover. The inset was manipulated by the artist with acid washing. The title is blind-stamped in the center of the copper plate. The text pages were printed on an HP Indigo 5500 press and were then manipulated by Krause with graphite, metallic pigments, and gold and silver leaf. The paper used was Mohawk Options 65 cover made from 100% post consumer content with renewable wind power. The font used for the text was appropriately named "Dirty Ego." Housed in a custom rust colored clamshell box. In fine condition. The book measures 12 x 12.25 inches. Unpaginated [40 pages]  (#36419)

Price: $2,500

An ABC Bird Themed Dance of Death

[Wiesedruck]
Horowitz, Sarah.
Vogel Totentanz: 29 Etchings.
Washington: Wiesedruck, 2018.

Number 31 of 40 copies that included five deluxe copies. Vogel Totentanz is a bird dance of death alphabet book inspired by Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death woodcut alphabet. After the Black Plague ravaged Europe in the late 14th century, death as inevitable regardless of status or age became a pervasive motif in art and literature. My present-day Totentanz is a reflection of that idea in context of our environmental crisis. Birds are indicator species for overall environmental health and human well-being [from the artist's website].

The 29 etchings were drawn from specimens at the Cashmere Museum, the Wenatchee Valley College collection, and the Burke Museum in Washington State along with other found remains. Diotima types were used throughout. The text was letterpress printed on Zerkall Book paper by Arthur Larson of Horton Tank Graphics. This regular edition is bound in a bird-footprint-etching printed blue paper and housed in a slipcase. Binding and slipcase by Claudia Cohen. In fine condition. Measures 6.875 x 5.5 inches. Etchings are 2.5 x 2.5 inches. [60 pages.]

Sarah Horowitz has been awarded multiple grants and has held residencies at several arts centers including ArtBellwald in Switzerland. She taught printmaking at Portland State University for over ten years and was a member of Atelier Mars printmaking workshop during her time in Portland. Her press is named for the Wiese stream that runs through her grandparents backyard near Basel, Switzerland. Much of her work is printed on a Charles Brand Press once owned by Leonard Baskin. Her work is held in private and institutional collections across the U.S. (#35483)

Price: $2,800