Effects of Water on Nature & Humans

[Abstract Orange]
Emeritz, Lauren, book artist.
Water.
Washington DC: Abstract Orange, 2024.

Number 12 of 20 copies signed and numbered by the book artist. Lauren Emeritz is a book artist, letterpress printer and graphic artist who founded and runs Abstract Orange. She creates prints and books by hand using a Vandercook press and wood type, including type she designs and carves herself. Lauren holds a BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Delaware. She is the President and Creative Director of Abstract Orange, a graphic design firm in Washington, DC, and a letterpress associate at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Hyattsville, Maryland. Her work can be found in many institutional and private collections. She is currently the president of the Chesapeake Chapter of the American Printing History Association.

In this quietly forceful new work designed and printed on handmade paper, Lauren explores both the positive and negative effects of water on nature and on humans. A few words of text printed in blue on the rectos describes the movement of water "water flows...joining rivers...traveling to the ocean...freezing into ice...melting back into the sea....forming clouds...drifting...raining down....shaping the land...shaping the people." This benign text is juxtaposed with ominous words printed in orange on the versos describing the negative impact of water through such words like runoff, pollution, tsunami, oil spill, mudslide, and acid rain.

Printed on beautiful blue or yellow papers using handsome type created by the artist. Bound in blue book boards with the title printed in orange on the front cover and spine. and the title again printed in blue on the rear cover, with the statement "papermaking is the process of beating fiber into pulp & forming the pulp into sheets, the process uses lots of water." In fine condition. Measures 7 x 10.75 inches. Unpaginated [40 pages]  (#37195)

Price: $1,500 

Artist's Reaction to Violence in Iraq and the Middle East
Unique Artists' Book

Beck, Anne, book artist.
Void.
Garberville, CA: Anne Beck, 2003-2024.

A beautiful unique book from artist Anne Beck. Beck is an interdisciplinary artist working collaboratively & independently in a wide variety of media from paper, print & book making to painting & textiles to social practice. Through her work, Anne explores the roles of amateur naturalist and lay surveyor of the current landscape – collecting specimens & recording data, cataloguing that which seems useful, and investigating further that which seems impermeable. This is all in the context of envisioning a sustainable path forward for herself and the planet, which is often a playful exercise in the face of absurd & complex circumstance. Anne is a core member of The Printmakers Left, an international collective working together for over 20 years now on artist books, printed matter & installations. She is also half of the collaborative team behind The Rhinoceros Project exploring the communal & revolutionary power of sewing circles & hand paper making.

The artist describes the making of this book, aptly titled Void: "The book was created by original drawings and paintings atop out-takes, trials and misprints from the making of The Circular Ruins - a collaboration with The Printermakers Left - mostly created while watching shock & awe unfold on the television screen at the beginning of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It has been revisited, redacted and recovered over the past several months as the events in the middle east serve as a reminder that while so much has changed, so much has also stayed the same." The mysterious and intriguing book is described by the artist as having "dreamlike, watery, anatomical and cyclical imagery that slides between the eternal and the precarious natures of life on earth."

It is casebound with an open spine, hand-sewn by the artist. It is covered with handmade book cloth, a mulberry paper backed linen with cyanotype and pisolithus ink staining in shades of blue and cream, with an image of a human figure on the front cover. The pages were created using watercolor, gouache, cyanotype and toner prints, color pencil and graphite. Images of human figures appear on some of the pages. There is a typewritten title page on rag and mulberry papers. In fine condition. Measures 8.5 x 10.25 inches closed. Unpaginated [about 26 pages]. Fine. (#37201)

Price: $1,400 

Handmade Paper of Japan
Includes Sample Papers

[Bird & Bull Press]
Berger, Sidney E.; Thomas Keith and Harriett Ramsey Tindale.
The Handmade Papers of Japan.
Newtown, PA: Bird & Bull Press, 2001.

Number 57 of 170 copies, signed on the title page by Sidney Berger. The Bird & Bull Press was one of America’s oldest private presses, started in 1958 by Henry Morris – who describes a private press as “someone who prints books or ephemera related to his personal interests…” By starting the press Morris was hoping to “make use of the product of a new hobby – hand paper-making.” Many of the books published by Bird & Bull dealt with book related subjects, such as paper-making, printing, illustration, book binding, and typography. Henry Morris and his press thus played an important role in the study, preservation, and dissemination of printing history. In 2013, Morris announced that he was ending his press's 55 years of activity due to advanced age and difficulty finding exciting projects. This magnificent book reprints the original text of the 1952 book by Tindale, and includes a biography of Tindale and account of the genesis and production of the book by scholar Sidney Berger.

Following the text of Tindale's book as Volume II, the press compiled as Volume III a beautiful contemporary collection of samples of Japanese papers provided by the Japanese Handmade Paper Association along with two samples of Chinese papers and a section of Japanese papers labeled Volume IV: The Watermark Collection. Bound by the Campbell-Logan Bindery in black cloth with a quarter bound in morocco orange with a black title label. Gilt ornament of Japanese writing to front cover. Printed on Zerkall Mouldmade Paper at the Bird & Bull Press with Dante types. Prospectus inserted. Housed in an orange cloth covered clamshell box with black title label to spine. Very slight sunning to front cover of the clamshell. Book is otherwise in fine condition. Measures 9 x 12 inches. 197 pages plus several extra-illustrated half-titles printed on an assortment of Japanese papers. Fine. (#37186)

Price: $2,600 

18 Interviews with Transgender People
Small Edition

[Blue Rose Press]
Taxman, Emilee.
Patchwork Voices.
Madison, WI: Blue Rose Press, 2023.

A small open edition (under 20 copies). An interview with 18 transgender people, recording their answers to the question: What was a defining moment of your transition? Each interviewee is also documented with a print of an original portrait of them drawn in ink and colored pencil by the book artist. This book was made at UW Madison. Bound in pink cloth boards with blue spine and white silkscreened title and gender symbol to front board. A drumleaf binding printed digitally with elements in color. According to the artist: "My art is an exploration of emotion: my own, those of the people I am close to, and those of the communities I belong to. I use my books and prints to illuminate frequently underrepresented subjects. I explore the subtleties of how people think, feel, remember, or identify, drawing on major life changes that influence identity and ideas of the future. In navigating these subjects, I engage in a deeper form of self-expression. I represent my thoughts, my fears, the emotions that keep me up at night."

Emilee Taxman (b. 1997) is an artist and printmaker best known for their interactive letterpress printed books and broadsides. Their work explores major life changes that influence identity and ideas of the future, primarily through the lenses of mental illness and transgender experiences. Taxman has worked at Distinctive Bookbinding, Center for Book Arts, and San Francisco Center for the Book, and received the Hamilton Wayzgoose Academic Merit Scholarship in 2022. Their books are in library special collections across the country, including in Yale University’s Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library and the University of Iowa’s main library. They have recently completed their M.F.A. in Studio Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Unpaginated. [38 pages.] Fine. (#37288)

Price: $200 

A Humorous Look at Parisian Printing History
French Bon Mots / Type Specimen / Leaf Book

[Caliban Press]
McMurray, Mark book artist and printer; Roy Caldwell (translator); Jef Aerosol, Guy Berard, Melissa Schulenberg (illustrators).
Leçons de Livre pour Calyban, or Prosper's Parisian Printing Parade.
Canton, NY: Caliban Press, 2008-2009.

Number 29 of about 114 copies. According to Mark McMurray, this marvelous book was published in conjunction with Cat's Head Press of Quebec. It is a book of bon mots, bagatelles, and tableaux de l'imprierie as told to an American. It is also a sometime type specimen and leaf book. It is an inventive and fascinating book comprised of fourteen leçons, lessons, in English and French concerning the Arts of the Book and various other old and new topics. In an announcement for the book, it states that the lessons and topics are collected from found and fabricated texts by the two main semi-fictional characters, Cal & Prosper, exiles on a visit to Paris to learn the art of printing. Lecons recalls printers past and present who have produced books in Paris and McMurray has created his own look at printing history in Paris.

Bound in flexible quarter dark vellum with grey-brown paper boards, with white spine label to front cover. Printed in several colours on cylinder and hand presses from foundry, monotype, photopolymer and wood types set by hand, machine composition, and computer. The primary type is Garamond, with additional faces that include Fournier, Caslon, and Nicholas Cochin. An international range of papers are used, including Rives and Arches, as well as a vintage Barcham Green handmade, St-Armand handmades from Montreal, Kochi from Japan, and handmade lokta from Nepal. There are striking images and tipped in pieces that include an original pochoir by Jef Aerosol of Samuel Beckett, an original relief print of Nanacy Cunafd by Melissa Schulenberg, a stencil by Guy Berard, and various found images and stencils. Issued with a separate sheet of "Lecons Notes" which explain some of the images and text. From Melissa Schulenberg's portrait of Nancy Cunard (original relief print) to figures from the 1493 "Liber chronicarum" to woodcuts to found images, this tour of Paris delights. There is one of McMurray's signature volvelles and there is a small "gold" man (cut-out paper doll) in the Treizieme Lecon, "Who's that?" - It is collaged on a page of Arab text opposite a map of the Quartier Latin with text in French and English guessing at his identity. Housed in a gray paper boarad slipcase. In fine condition. Measures 8.25 x 12 inches. [48] pages. (#36967)

Price: $530 

Homage to Emily Dickinson
Eco Printed Covers and Papers with Embedded Flowers
Dutch Book Artist

[Double Dutch Design]
Emily Dickinson, poet; Merike van Zanten, book artist.
A Route of Evanescence.
The Netherlands: Double Dutch Design, 2020.

This is a unique artist's book from the highly regarded book artist, Merike van Zanten. Merike focused on book arts, letterpress design and printing in the United States beginning in 2003 in the US, but re-established studio in The Netherlands around 2020. She has participated in numerous exhibitions, residencies, and workshops during her career. Her work can be found in a number of libraries, including the Bainbridge Museum of Art, The Walker Library of the History of Human Imagination, Boston Atheneum, Stanford University, Baylor University and the University of Miami. Merike is an accomplished artist using eco printing techniques. Eco printing is a process whereby only natural materials are used such as leaves and flowers that transfer their pigments onto a substrate when subjected to heat and pressure. The process produces exceptionally beautiful designs and colors. This work, which she describes as an eco printed book displays the beauty of this technique, which creates various designs without the use of paints and ink.

Bound in rose cloth boards with leather eco printed covers. The eco printed pages are printed on Arches Aquarelle paper with parchment paper transfers. The artist also incorporated handcast abaca with embedded flowers. Housed in a burgundy cloth covered slipcase. A lovely book in fine condition. Measures 6.25 x 7.75 inches. Unpaginated [20 pages] (#37177)

Price: $1,350 

Deluxe Edition with Original Copper Plate
Mezzotint illustrations
Poem about things falling apart

[Éditions Verdigris]
Vas Dias, Robert, poet; Judith Rothchild, book artist; Mark Lintott, typographer and printer.
Images of Entropy.
Octon, France: Éditions Verdigris, 2023.

Number four of four deluxe copies presented in a clamshell box and accompanied by one of the original copper plates used to create the mezzotint illustrations. There were also 23 copies of the standard edition that are housed in a slipcase. Judith Rothchild's exquisite mezzotints were inspired by the images of disorder and decline evoked in this powerful poem by Robert Vas Dias. Fittingly, the verso of the free front endpaper has the famous line from W.B. Yeats:"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold." Vas Dias is an Anglo-American poet born in London in 1931. He is the author of seventeen poetry collections in the USA and UK, has edited or co-edited four literary journals – two in the USA and two in the UK – and is the editor-publisher of Permanent Press, which he founded in Michigan in 1972. Signed and numbered by artist Judith Rothchild and also signed by poet Vas Dias.

The book is structured as a hard-cover leporello, a style of parallel folding with the folds alternating between front and back; a concertina fold. that can also be opened as a codex. The binding has brown paste paper covers with the title printed in gray on the front cover and black titling to orange spine. The text is letterpress printed on Hahnemüihle paper in Garamond 16 pt. type by Mark Lintott. Printed both in black and in debossed text. The four mezzotints are protected by loose tissue guards. Housed in a clamshell box covered with the same paper as the book on its front cover and with a similar design on the back cover. The original copper plate is framed on the inside front cover of the box. In fine condition. Measures 8.5 x 14 inches. Unpaginated [about eight pages]. (#37190)

Price: $2,200 

Eroticized Retellings of Classic Tales: Frankenstein, Peter Pan, The Time Machine, Etc.
Deluxe Edition - in fine bindings and box with extra suite of prints
Letterpress Printed with Original Illustrations

[First Bite Press]
Dolin, Stephanie K., book artist; Miranda Culp and Jef Delman, authors; Laurelin Gilmore, illustrator.
The Canon of Aphrodisia Four Volumes.
Portola Valley, CA: First Bite Press, 2023.

Number 9 of 25 deluxe copies of this four volume collection. There were also 100 copies printed for the standard edition. First Bite Press was founded by Stephanie K. Dolin to produce fine press books with original erotic and romantic writing. Dolin writes on her press website: "First Bite Press publishes limited edition books in a genre of fiction that is currently not being produced by fine press printers. Romance novels, including those with “steamy” scenes, are the highest grossing genre in fiction. illustrators. Beautiful, high-quality, hand made books to showcase the author’s stories are rare. As a result, what we often lack in fine press books is the fun and exciting exploration of the human condition and imagination through intimate experiences. It seems a natural fit for the tactile experience of reading a handmade book. After a successful career in the legal technology field, Dolin turned her attention to learning the skills necessary to publish, design, and produce limited edition books. With her work at First Bite Press, she wants to create beautiful books where all of the components of a book from the content to the sewing of the bindings, coalesces into a pleasurable, thoughtful experience for the reader."

Each of the four volumes in this beautiful and intriguing set has a different title and three stories taken from classic fairy tales and literature. In their introduction the authors write: "Unlike much erotic or fan fiction that concludes with happily ever after, in these stories we let classic horror, fantasy, noir, fable, tragedy, sci-fi, fairy tales...maintain their organic integrity." Thus the stories include their versions of The Time Machine, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, Wendy and Peter Pan, Cinderella, Tom Sawyer, and Pygmalion among others. Volume I is titled "The Dark Deed;" Volume II is titled "Manners & Merrymaking;" Volume III is 'The Upper Hand;" Volume IV is "The Mortal Transcends."

This deluxe set includes the four volumes each with a hand painted frontispiece, different colored leather spine, leather headbands, and decorative stamping and titling on their brown covers. The collection is housed in an elegant green cloth covered telescoping box with an acrylic window to show the spines. Details include handmarbled papers and a portfolio of five hand printed erotic illustrations that is not included in the standard edition. Printed on Rives Lightweight paper using Perpetua and Joanna Typefaces. In fine condition. Volumes measure 3.5 x 6.25 inches. Volumes I-III each have 77 pages; Volume IV has 91 pages. (#37183)

Price: $2,100

A Book of Little Moments Between Major Life Events
Movable Flaps with Card Pulls

[Flying Fish Press & Triangular Press]
Julie Chen and Barbara Tetenbaum.
Glimpse.
Portland and Berkeley: Triangular Press; Flying Fish Press, 2011.

Number 75 of 100 copies. Signed by the highly regarded book artists, Julie Chen and Barbara Tetenbaum. In their statement about the book, they write: "Working together again after almost a decade (Ode to a Grand Staircase, 2001), Glimpse WAS a new collaboration … inspired by a conversation about how a person translates their life experience into a narrative form: prominent events may stand out as the nameable moments, yet it is the space between these events that life, in fact, is lived." The mid-century photo album structure contains text written by Chen, examining this question. Her text is printed on both surfaces of each of the fifteen hinged sleeves. Windows in the sleeves reveal small glimpses of pull-out cards, each written and printed by Tetenbaum. The cards contain dates and events of the non-important moments of her life illustrated with diagrams, grids, and mundane imagery.

Glimpse is letterpress printed using a combination of photopolymer plates, found images, wood blocks, wire, and handset type. It is enclosed in a brown cloth covered box with a multi-color title label and a magnetic closure. In fine condition. Box size: when closed: 8 1/8 inches x 11 3/4 inches x 1 1/8 inches. Unpaginated. (#37216)

Price: $1,500 

Connection Between Geometry of Typographical Forms and Archetypes of Mankind
Letterpress Printed
Swiss Book Artist

Hänni, Romano.
The Archetypes of Mankind in Elementary Typography in Twelve Typographic Images / Die Urformen der Menschheit in der Elementaren Typographie in zwölf typographischen Bildern.
Basel: Romano Hänni, 2022.

Number 25 of 44 copies. According to the artist: "This book was born out of a decade long intention to experiment with color, the basic forms of elemental typography, and printing with a manual proof press. The decisive impetus for this was the Vifa color mixing book of the former Vindonissa ink factory from 1956." Each page of the 12 abstract geometric formations has a dominant color and is composed of the basic forms of elemental typography: point, circle, quarter circle, semicircle, line, square, rectangle, and triangle. Hänni begins the book with detailed "rules of the game" explaining the imagery and underlying gridwork for each image. He concludes with an essay explaining the connection between the geometry of the typographical forms to the archetypes of mankind: The effects of the geometrical forms "touch depths of the psyche that cannot be reached with spoken words or printed characters ... They lead to the primordial basis of all things, to the root of our being, to the primordial light, to the eternal, and to the divine. Their use in everyday life disregards and destroys their spiritual and healing effect. In the alphabet these primordial images remain preserved. But in order to understand the characters, knowledge of their meaning is required, as the archetypes inherent in them remain hidden."

Accordion bound with white hard covers. Hand set and letterpress printed in twelve colors on a manual, cylinder proofing press. The interior was printed using about 150 forms and 220 printing passes. In a white illustrated dust jacket with sample designs of all twelve colors used in their purest form. Includes a side-stapled full color supplement with photographs of the artist's layout sketches, drawers of type, and steps of the printing process. Both are housed in a slipcase with white paper title label to spine panel. [20 pages plus 12 page supplement.] Size: 22.1 x 27.5 cm. Produced over a period of two years during the pandemic. Fine. (#37257)

Price: $1,500 

Inspired by Euclid's Elements of Geometry
Movable Pieces and Embroidered Shapes

Hiebert, Helen, book artist.
Tangential.
Red Cliff, CI: Helen Hiebert Studio, 2017.

Limited to 30 copies signed and numbered by the book artist, this is A.P. #4. Helen Hiebert is a noted paper artist who constructs installations, sculptures, artists’ books and works in paper using handmade paper as her primary medium. She teaches, lectures and exhibits her work internationally and online, and is the author of the several how-to books about papermaking and papercrafts.

Hiebert writes of this fascinating production: "After viewing the 1570 edition of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, I was drawn to Chapter 11, which focuses on polyhedra - platonic solids. I find it interesting to imagine how Euclid constructed his ideas in the physical world, since paper was invented later. I am intrigued by the many ways in which a flat sheet of paper can transform from two- into three-dimensions. I was drawn to the tiny flaps glued into the pages of the old copy of Euclid’s Elements, which allow the reader to explore the physical relationships between lines, angles and surfaces.

I built the basic polyhedra into the pages of the book (which are double-sided cotton handmade sheets). Each form lies flat on the page (like an architectural floor plan) with visible cut and score lines. The shapes can be lifted from the page (but not removed) and folded to create each polyhedra. The text is adapted from Euclid’s Elements and is direct, simple and didactic. The text is letterpress printed, and I hand stitched the name and a flat rendering of each three-dimensional shape (tetrahedraon, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron) on a sheet before each shape.

Each folio is double sided. The color sequence (most visible on the spine) flows through the ten chromatic color fields, appearing sequentially. The geometric shapes begin flat and white, but when folded into their solid forms, they appear as colored shapes. As the pages turn, the shapes become more complex, beginning with four triangles that fold up into a tetrahedron and ending with a 20-sided icosahedron. The shapes in this book are meant to be formed on the page and then unfolded, allowing a mental image of each polyhedra to live in the mind beyond the physical experience." All of the papers in this book were created by Hiebert using 100% cotton rag fiber. The text was printed by Tom Leech at the Press at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe in Dante type. The geometric shapes were hand cut and scored. Claudia Cohen bound the book and made the black cloth box in which it is housed. In fine condition. Box size: 12-1/2 x 9-1/2 x 1inch. Book size is 12 x 9 inches. (#37284)

Price: $2,400 

Exploration of the Concept of Time - Through Linguistics

Hulsey, Sarah, book artist; Jorge Luis Borges; Italo Calvino; Alan Lightman.
Allochronologies Three Volumes.
Somerville, MA: Sarah Hulsey, 2024.

Letter D of fifteen deluxe copies lettered A[-O. There were a total of 75 copies of this book, with this deluxe version, 50 three-volume sets numbered 1-50, and ten individual volumes numbered i-x. Sarah is a renowned book artist whose complex and inventive works are widely recognized in the book arts world and are extensively collected by university and other institutional libraries. From her website: "Sarah Hulsey is a visual artist whose work draws upon on her background in linguistics, which she studied under Noam Chomsky at MIT. She was first attracted to the field because of the surprising, apparently contradictory fact that language is incredibly complex and yet universal throughout humankind. Though languages appear to vary greatly, they have deep commonalities, and this underlying “universal grammar” represents a rich, subconscious knowledge that we all possess, with little awareness of its inner workings."

An introduction to a talk that Sarah gave at the 2024 Codex Symposium describes this book as follows: "Allochronologies explores alternate notions of time, all conceivable according to the laws of science, that do not adhere to our ordinary experience. Hulsey takes some of the more surprising ideas of modern physics (multiple universes, a universe that oscillates, reversal of time's arrow) and translates them into a multi-volume artist book. Each volume takes one kind of chronology and using fragments of fiction by some of the great 20th century writers, creates a book that physically embodies that conception of time." The third volume in Allochronologies explores a text by Alan Lightman in which time moves backward. Hulsey writes in that volume, "I printed the short story "2 June 1905" from Einstein's Dreams four separate times. The final version is the way Lightman wrote it; the third is the story with all of the sentences reversed; the second is the story with all of the words reversed; and the first is the story with all of the sounds reversed.  So "5091 Noodj 2" = "2 June 1905"; "Zmeerd Z'nystsnie" = "Einstein's Dreams" and so on. The reason I wanted to reverse the sounds (and then figure out how in the world to spell them using English orthography) rather than reversing only the letters is that I have a background as a linguist. I am interested in different units of language--sentences, words, syllables, sounds, and the ways in which they are grouped in language. Reversing the sounds means that one has to practically say the words aloud in order to try to work them out backwards, which draws attention to this level of the linguistic faculty." 

The texts of all three volumes were printed letterpress from Univers type on Mohawk Superfine paper. The images were printed from polymer plates. This deluxe edition's three volumes have quarter yellow leather bindings and printed gray paper covers with abstract designs and the volume number on the cover. The volumes are housed in a handsome slipcase covered with gray cloth with a yellow cloth horizontal line and a yellow leather spine with the title. The contents of each volume is as follows. Volume One: "April March," the central story in this volume is excerpted from "A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain" by Jorge Luis Borges, originally published in 1941. Translated from the Spanish by Andrew Hurley" and appearing in "Collected Fictions" published by Penguin Books in 1998. This volume has pages 9-44, including several pages of symbolic representation. Volume Two: The story in this volume is excerpted from 't zero' by Italo Calvino, originally published as "Ti con zero' in 1967. Translated from the Italian by William Weaver as "The Complete Cosmicomics" and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2014. The image running throughout is a wave form of the soundtrack of Carl Sagan discussing an oscillating model of the universe on the PBS series "Cosmos." The text is printed both at the top and bottom of the pages, with the bottom text appearing to be upside down. Unpaginated. [17 pages] Volume Three: "2 June 1905' is excerpted from "Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman by Pantheon Books, 1993. Numbered pages 9-18. A beautiful set in fine condition. Measures 10 x 6.75 x 1.75 inches.  (#37115)

Price: $3,600

A Unique Artists' Book on Memory

Kokin, Lisa.
Memoria Technica.
2002.

This is a unique altered book by Lisa Kokin,and signed by her. She is a noted book artist who also creates art with sewing and alterations, as well as with button work and assemblage. She also is known for acting as a mentor and coach to people in the arts. The book is both evocative and mysterious. Lisa describes the book "Memoria Technica, defined by Webster's as an artificial aid to the memory; a mnemonic aid. I paired random sewn images taken from an old dictionary with abraded photos that in some intuitive way seemed to go with the images. I also used some text from a very old Spanish book. That's really the basis for the book. An intuitive pairing of old found photos with sewn imagery. Kind of random, like memory seems to be. Not linear or necessarily rational."

This work incorporates a variety of materials and techniques. It is structured as an accordion book. There are claimed vintage photographs, designs and images made by stitchery, random snippets from an old book in Spanish and more. The covers are green and cream book board with the title stitched on the front cover and an old photograph of an anonymous woman affixed. Black thread is used to bind the covers. A yellow gilt ribbon with a bow wraps around the covers. Housed in a brown cloth covered box with patterned papers and stitching on the cover of the box. An inventive work in fine condition. The book measures 7.5 x 7.5 inches closed. It can be unfurled to about 50 inches. The box is 11 x 11.25 x 2.5 inches Unpaginated.  (#37155)

Price: $4,800 

An Alien Sighting? Follow the Trajectory of an Unidentified Flying Object ...
Letterpress and Pochoir

[Luminice Press]
Williams, Thomas Parker and Mary Agnes Williams, book artists.
Vantage Point.
Philadelphia: Luminice Press, 2024.

Number 3 of 10 copies, this being one of five in the deluxe case, signed and numbered by the book artists. Book artist and printer Thomas Parker Williams began creating artists' books in 1998 while also painting. As of 2009 he has limited his art practice exclusively to artists' books. In that year he also began collaborating with his wife, photographer Mary Agnes Williams. In 2013 they started Luminice Press, incorporating letterpress printing into artists' books and broadsides. The artists draw on a range of conceptual sources in creating their books, including mathematics, music, literature, theology, philosophy, astronomy, natural sciences, and Eastern thought. Books by Williams or the Luminice Press may be found in 88 public collections around the country.

This fascinating book was created as a response to a mysterious event witnessed by the book artists on May 16, 2020. While sitting on their patio in the evening, they were surprised by something in the sky they could not identify. It moved extremely quickly from point to point, changing direction twice. There was no sound, acceleration or de-acceleration and it disappeared after four seconds. In an effort to understand this unusual object, Thomas compiled data from various sources and used AutoCAD to draw a master 3D model of the area. This enabled him to establish sight lines, the object's trajectory and propose two possible flight paths.

The book is round and 9.375 inches in diameter and opens to 72 inches when unfolded. There are eight pages on Stonehenge print paper illustrating various commonplace night-sky activities the book artists have seen from their patio many times over the years involving lightning, birds, hummingbirds, planes, the rising moon, etc. It is accompanied by a digitally printed insert of four panels that illustrate the calculations of the path and trajectory of the mysterious object. The original text is hand set in Janson, Janson Italic, and Goudy Italic and letterpress printed. The illustrations are oil-based pochoir, using 50 colors and 50 stencils. With a black acrylic case with a trajectory design on the top. The book comes with an insert with instructions on how to open and close the book due to its intricate radila hinge structure. Housed in a black cloth covered clamshell box with a white title label to side. In fine condition. Accompanied by a working paper when purchased. Box measures 11.25 x 11.75 inches.  (#37227)

Price: $2,250

The Covid "Handshake"

[Midnight Moon Press]
Burrell, Ginger, book artist.
The End of the Handshake.
Morgan Hill, CA: Midnight Moon Press, 2020-2023.

Number 6 of 23 copies signed by the book artist. This is another timely artist's book from Ginger Burrell. Ginger’s primary medium is artist books. Her work includes photography, monotype and composite imagery and explores a range of topics from the personal, to the political, to the universal. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and her books are held in private and public collections.

She says about this book: "The Covid-19 pandemic made us re-think so many of our behaviors: grocery shopping, in-person offices, public transit. But most of all, the pandemic changed the way we greet and comfort one another. Handshakes became nods, or salutes, hugs became crossed arms over our chests or hands matched - touching through glass. Kisses were often mask-to-mask or not at all. Even with the Covid-19 pandemic officially “over,” most of us still ask before greeting in any manner that involves close proximity. Gone are the days when we automatically extend a hand to shake or open our arms to hug. Will this be generational? Is it a fundamental change to our social construct? The End of the Handshake documents the many different kinds of greetings we’ve tried and adapted to replace traditional ways of touching, of affection, and of social bonding."

The book demonstrates the various ways people greeted each other during the pandemic through a series of 10 photographs of two people in masks. This is an accordion structure bound in black cloth covered boards. A round white label on the cover has the title and an image of a handshake. Archival inkjet printing on Epson Premium Presentation using Birch Std. font. The original photographs were taken by the artist. The book is presented in a re-sealable Biohazard bag. In fine condition. Measures 4.5 x 6.25 inches. Unpaginated [15 pages]  (#37250)

Price: $300 

The Labeling and Stigmatizing of Women - based on relationship status

[MOB of Two]
Sara Press and Tiana Krähn.
An Arrangement.
Sebastopol and Penngrove, CA: MOB of Two, 2024.

12 of 20 copies. Trollop, slut, floozy, strumpet. These epithets describe a woman who trades on her charms. Missus, girlfriend, beloved, betrothed. These might also describe a woman who trades on her charms. Many sexual relationships have a transactional element, regardless of whether true feeling is present. Financial support is just one of the needs that can be met in such an exchange. Where does one draw the line between what is criminal and what is celebrated? Why does a contract for permanency elevate the arrangement? This book presents a series of portraits on increasingly shabby walls.

Reduction prints, sequence and carefully chosen titles point out language’s power to confer respectability. Once named, a relationship takes its position on the spectrum of morality. We reject the stigma placed on women outside of marriage who choose to use their own bodies as currency. We acknowledge the many different circumstances in which one might encounter or offer Love for Sale. Printed with letterpress, monotype, and linoleum reduction prints. Includes inserted giclee prints of eleven original paintings. Size: 5.5 x 9.5 inches. Fine. (#37278)

Price: $1,800 

Exploration of the Letter Q - in response to the effects of Q-anon
Calligraphy, Original Painting, & Letterpress Printing
Variant Edition - with a Unique Painting Enclosure

Moore, Suzanne and Friends.
Rescuing Q. Quandaries and Queries.
Tucson, AZ: Suzanne Moore, 2024.

Variant edition of 26 copies, numbered A to Z, of which this is Letter B. In preparation for creating this book, questions were composed by the artist and offered by friends and family. The questions were of existence, passion and playful curiosity. Answers were supplied by Suzanne, her friends, relatives, and even Kermit the Frog. According to the artist: "This exploration in text and imagery presents some of the endless possibilities of how Q variations - and accompanying questions - are distinct - colorful, or “black and white”, playful or more controlled, tiny or expansive - varying widely - as do human personalities and varying viewpoints.

I began this edition in 2001, imagining it as a way to explore printmaking techniques as I considered the possibilities designing this singular letter - Q. I made a series of manuscripts (2008, ongoing), using excerpts of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. Rilke’s words of advice and cautions, among them: to be attentive to nature, and to “live the questions”, reflect the potential of opening mind and soul to “live everything now”, and to the power of inquiry. The hijacking of the letter Q for the darkest social and political purposes made me reconsider my work to explore this quirky and curious 17th letter of the alphabet, building on the manuscripts that led to this edition. As the effects of Q-anon shake the American psyche, politics and society and it seemed like NOW was the time to make these books, with the text now composed of all manner of questions, by me, and contributed by colleagues, friends and family. Rescuing Q is part of my focus on reclaiming Q for all the best purposes - to extol Q, as a key to Latin-rooted words of inquiry and “the search”. inspire sincere questions with an open mind, and exploring myriad answers, and providing an antidote to the How does sincere questioning inspire and generate deeper conversation, and how do we initiate conversations from common ground, to enquire more deeply, consider new options, and invent new commonly beneficial solutions?"

Designed and created by Suzanne Moore with her original paintings, prints, collage, deep-etch embossing, gilding, and hand coloring in pencil and gouache. Letterpress printed with polymer plates created from drawings by Moore and solar plates by Sandy Tilcock at Lone Goose Press (Bisbee, AZ) with collaborative typography (including the questions) letterpress printed by Jessica Spring at the Springtide Press. Bound in black Cave Paper by Don Glaister. Each book includes a unique monoprint or painting in a paper folder that matches the binding of the book. Housed in a black cloth covered box with paper title label to spine. Unpaginated.

Suzanne Moore is a painter, printmaker and lettering artist, whose eclectic interests meld in the diversity of her artists' books. She weaves word and painted image with form, content and structure into spaces which invite the reader to engage, examine and inquire. Her books blend abstract and representational imagery, rich color and surface treatments with textual content and contemporary lettering to create work that obscures the line between word and image, legibility and abstraction. Suzanne's work is exhibited widely, and her books have been acquired for private and public collections in the U.S. and Europe. Among them are the Pierpont Morgan Library, The Library of Congress and the rare book collections of Smith College, Wellesley College, Harvard University, Bowdoin College, Princeton, Yale, Columbia University, and the University of Washington. She speaks about her work and teaches in the US and abroad on contemporary manuscript book design, conceptual ideas in book design, and on the painting and collage techniques. She is one of three Americans on the team who created contemporary interpretive illuminations (2001-11) for the St. John's Bible, the Wales-based project lead by Donald Jackson. Commissioned by the Abbey at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, this is the first hand written and illuminated Bible created in 500 years. Fine. (#37212)

Price: $3,800 

Collective Crisis - During Covid-19
Includes a Companion Volume and Film About the Artists and the Making of the Book
Letterpress & Relief Printed

[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 37 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 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. 

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 

Extermination of Bison in Pennsylvania
Told Through Text and Large Watermark Illustrations of Bison

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

Number 7 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. (#37194)

Price: $1,000

Collection of Imaginary Sea Creatures - Created with Seaweed
Scientifically Accurate Text on Life of a Copepod
Dried Seaweed Included in Box

[Salt Point Press]
Wight, Gail, book artist; Melanie L.J. Stiassny, introduction to copepods.
Copepodilia Collectanea.
Jenner, CA: Salt Point Press, 2022.

Number 6 of 20 copies signed and numbered by the artist. Salt Point Press is the imprint of Gail Wight. 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 currently Associate Professor at Stanford University Department of Art and Art History and Director of Graduate Studies in Studio Art and Experimental Media Arts.

Copepodilia Collectanea presents an imaginary menagerie of copepods – minuscule aquatic crustaceans – created using seaweed pressings. High resolution pigment prints of the pressings retain the textures and dimensionality of the original pressings. Text by Melanie Stiassny, ichthyologist at the American Museum of Natural History, introduces the fundamentals of copepod life. The book is structured as an accordion and in a paper wrapper with multi-colored images of plants, with white title and artist name to front cover It is housed in a sectioned clamshell box. The clamshell box is constructed of archival book board covered with pigment prints of plants on Moenkopi kozo, with a cream colored linen backstrip. Each box contains a unique piece of seaweed from the Pacific coastline in northern California.The archival pigment prints are on Canson Infinity Aquarelle, and the letterpress pages at the beginning and end of the book are printed on Rives BFK with mulberry hinges. When opened, the entire book stretches to nearly 33 inches. In fine condition. The box measures 8 x 8 x 3 inches. Unpaginated [80 pages]. Fine. (#37204)

Price: $1,800

Arabian Nights - Persian Stories
Persian Calligraphy
Letterpress Printed

[The Allen Press]
Burton, Sir Richard Francis, English translation; Dr. Francis Carmody, introduction; Michèle Forgeois, pen and ink drawings.
Persian Stories from the Arabian Nights Three Volumes.
Greenbrae CA: The Allen Press, 1980.

One of 140 copies. This is a particularly lovely book from The Allen Press that pays splendid tribute to the great English translations by Sir Richard Francis Burton of these tales that were a distinct section of the 'One Thousand and One Nights. ' The Allen Press was a private press founded in 1939 by Lewis and Dorothy Allen and based in the San Francisco Bay area. By 1980 they had completed 46 fine letterpress books. This was the forty-fifth limited edition of the great exotic classic of world literature. They describe the book in their prospectus as the most colorful and elegant edition that they have produced. They continue to say that "these Persian stories give a fantastic picture of a society outside Christian and western tradition. The Moslem [sic] does not regard his tale completed when the hero marries the heroin; he ushers you with a flourish into the bridal chamber and narrates with gusto everything he sees and hears. This is especially true of this unexpurgated translation by Sir Richard F. Burton."

The green bindings for the three volumes are in the tradition of the French édition deluxe. The sheets are unsewn and sections gathered in three folders of green all-rag Canson & Montgolfier cover paper from France. Printed on hand-made all rag paper made exclusively for The Allen Press. The text typeface is Arrighi, based on an Renaissance cursive, selected to harmonize with the Persian calligraphy. The printing uses Persian colors of gold, deep blue, orange and green. The text of two columns to a page is in blue, with the columns divided by Arabic script in green from the Koran. The titles of the stories are printed in orange. There are seven full-column blue pen and ink drawings in Islamic style done by noted artist Michèle Forgeois. There are also twelve Persian calligraphic symbols and figures stamped in 23 carat gold leaf. Housed in a clamshell box covered with a silk-like blue fabric imported from France. Accompanied by two copies of the prospectus. This is a lavish production from this influential press. In fine condition save for light dampstains to bottom of the covers of the clamshell box. Measures 9 x 13 inches. Unpaginated.  (#37191)

Price: $600 

Abecedarium - Nightmare Inspired
with Pop-Ups

[Troctopus]
Emiland Kray.
N is for Nightmare. 3 Volume Set.
Troctopus, 2023.

According to the artist: "N is for Nightmare is a project that has evolved out of the act of archiving, organizing, and exploring my nightmares since 2016. The monsters in my dreams have been represented, not as characters of terror, but as friends, comrades, and lovers. Through that act of compassionate representation, this series catalogues my attempts to come to peace with these monsters of my own creation and can be conceptualized also as an act of self love."

A set of three volumes bound in blue, red, and green cloth with embossed letter "n" and volume numbers to each front board. This at times comical nightmarish alphabet book features pop-up letters, illustrations, and 26 nightmares. "A is for the albino alligator that chased me into an egg shaped sleeping chamber ... I is for salt and pepper flavored ice cream ... Z is for the Zombies that tried to eat me and then sign me up for Chase banking." Letterpress printed from polymer plates in an array of colors. Housed in a yellow cloth covered slipcase. Light wear to bottom edge of slipcase. Case size: about 8.25 x 8.5 inches.

Artist's Statement: "My artwork poses questions about the mechanics of how we remember – the complexity that exists within those entangled systems. I visually introduce instances of slippage in our recollection of the past and the decay of memory towards nostalgia. Through my work, I gather and sift through intangible archives: dreams, nightmares, and memories themselves to find how these essences make statements about the importance of memory but also the futility and temperance of life. I use the systems of remembering hidden within the body to make statements about identity, fear, and longing but also to search for the morphology of nostalgia. With a combination of watercolor, ink, game design, and book arts I create tension between the real and the surreal and uncanny. This combination disrupts the recognizability of the archive and thus also disrupts the stability and the seductive nostalgic essence of the past. These techniques pose the past as questionable, memory as simulation, and evidence as incomplete. My work seeks to make visible our growing pains and to reject comfort in the notion of a perfect genesis." Fine. (#37228)

Price: $800 

Homage to Moby Dick
Character Portraits with Quotes - Letterpress Printed

[The Melville Press]
Melville, Herman; John Sheller, editor and preface; Catherine Kanner, designer and artist.
Cetus The Whale.
Pacific Palisades, CA: The Melville Press, 1996.

Number 165 of 200 copies signed and numbered by the artist. This remarkable book, Cetus The Whale, was the first work published by the Melville Press. The press was born from a passion for Melville's work and is devoted to publishing books that capture the spirit of his vision. They describe this book as "an illustrated companion to Moby Dick," but it is much more, given their reverence for Millville and his masterpiece. The editor, John Sheller, writes in his insightful preface: "“There are mountains of the written word. Scripture is inspired of God. Neither the creation of scripture nor the voice of the Holy Spirit were silenced at the end of the New Testament. Dumps full of books have piled up since, some even claiming credentials of divine inspiration. Only a few in their vision and craft reveal truth so clearly that many can agree the result is inspired. Moby Dick is such a book.” He continues to say that Moby Dick is scripture and that is the answer. Catherine Kanner's striking portraits of the crew of the Pequod (excluding Ishmael) are essential to the book's interpretation of Moby Dick. Sheller states: "They are a weaving of the original materials with new hands. They bespeak the artist's vision of the men who in their relations reveal truth." The portraits are accompanied by quotes from Moby Dick or Paradise Lost.

Bound in dark blue silk cloth with a silver foil Cetus constellation stamped on the front cover and silver titling to spine. Each of the eleven stars represents a character from the book. The endpapers were hand painted by Kanner and each is unique. The book was designed to be viewed as a codex, but with an accordion binding that allows the book to be opened fully so that the portraits may be viewed as a gallery, The accordion design was developed by Allwyn O'Mara. The verso of the first page has a unique debossed design of a harpoon. The book was letterpress printed by John Robinson at The Tortoise Press in San Diego. The typeface is Bembo printed on Arches 88 paper. Housed in a plexiglass slipcase. A beautiful book in fine condition. Measures 7.5 x 10 inches. Unpaginated [34 pages]. Fine. (#36926)

Price: $1,500