2016

8 x 6 inches; 21pp. plus laid in colophon on transluscent vegetable vellum paper digitally printed in brown ink. Unique artist’s book on LamaLi paper toned with metallic pigment Hand sewn three-piece case binding with black leather spine and bookcloth painted in copper metallic tones to match the pages. The title is engraved on the front panel below a small (1-3/4 x 1 inch) metal dragon. The book is housed in a matching slip case of black cloth over boards toned bronze at edge,s with title engraved in dull silver on the front. The images are adapted from SLAV FAIRY TALES translated and illustrated by Emily J. Harding. The text, written by the artist, is pigment printed with the images, using Lucinda Handwriting and Lucinda Grande fonts. The colophon / artist’s statement starts, “This romantic fairy tale is set in never-never land with archetypal characters and motifs” and closes with “A symbolic psychological mirror, mythic childhood stories like this may well shape our adult lives.” A sample of the text is “I am made to work hard / at menial tasks – / spinning flax into gold, / cleaning the scullery or / taking care of geese. / Or I have been placed under a spell. “Priscilla Juvelis says, “We all know these stories; not all of us realize their effects on our lives. The modern-looking metallic pages on black ground combine with the “retro-looking” images to bring a strangely contemporary sensibility to our oldest archetypes.”