Item Details
Blight [Artist Book/Making Copy].
Tacoma, WA: 2020. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Quiet, sophisticated, and remarkably powerful, Gabby's newest work is an exquisite blend of book art and binding. Gabby has, from early in her career, gone beyond her roots in design binding, creating the text, art, and printing for several books now. Just as her design bindings push limits and explore possibilities, so does her art and print work. It is a remarkable evolution.
"Ralph Emerson wrote this poem, "Blight", in July of 1843. He spoke out on climate change and the ways we could shift course by not blindly following others. In describing his travels to Europe while writing on life and nature, Emerson said, "same faces under new caps and jackets, another turn of the old kaleidoscope."
I took some liberties with Emerson's poem, surrounding his words with photographs captured at Owen Beach in Washington state on a rainy winter day in 2019. This public beach, in the middle of an urban old-growth forest, will close for a year beginning in fall of 2020 to mitigate the effects of climate change and rising sea levels. Emerson's words of anger and disappointment at environmental destruction only resonate more with our current climate of melting glaciers and raging fires. As we continue to twist the kaleidoscope, I remain optimistic we will find a way to rearrange these fragments and improve the view for future generations." [artist statement]
This copy a 'making copy' adds tests of inks, gouache, type, and design on a lot of the pages on the main book. The clamshell box includes a drawer of three separate folios of ink, photo transfer, and gouache. Inset into the drawer are two test covers as well, more like miniature bindings of the big book. One is just the case and one has a separate small binding to test the structure. Housed in a custom box. Fine in Fine Archival Box. Tight, bright, and unmarred. Brown textured paper boards (by Hook Pottery Paper) in a modified case binding, letterpress printed with handset type on inkjet photo transfers, silkscreen printed panels, and acrylic painted Kozuke paper (printing completed at Springtide Press with assistance from Jessica Spring); housed in an archival dropspine box. 4to. np. Illus. (color plates). Numbered limited edition of 28, this being AP1. Signed by the artist. Item #11157
Price: $7,250.00