February 2016: A Poem

 COLOR: favorite

IMAGE: traced, re-drawn, lifted from outside sources

LAYOUT: minimal or restrained

PAPER: multiple colors

STRUCTURE: multiple openings (french doors, dos-a-dos, split page, etc.)

TECHNIQUE: high-tech (letterpress, offset printing, printmaking, etc.)

TEXT: collaborate with a writer or poet

ADJECTIVE: humorous

The wild card option may be used to disregard any ONE criteria

  The book for the month of February is titled, A Poem. As specified by the Artist's Ideation Cards, it is a collaborative piece, written by the author that goes by the name Anonymous. The poem is not particularly humorous... which was specified by the AIC cards.. other than the title, which is ridiculously obvious. So, using the Wild Card option... the humorous criterion has been omitted (unless your humor gauge is rather low). The book is a casebound book with a colorful Rossi® Italian decorative print cover paper and a rose-orange metallic spine paper. The title plate is letterpress printed on sage green Hahnemuhle Ingres paper. Inside, two types of paper... sage green Hahnemuhle Ingres paper and white Stonehenge print paper comprise the stiff-leaf bound text block pages.  

Front Cover

Like the title plate, the lines of A Poem have been letterpress printed with Futura Condensed type and black ink onto Hahnemuhle Ingres paper. The illustrations for each page have been created by solvent transfer of images and additional embellishment with pen & ink and acrylic paint. Each illustration page is also a fold-out french door structure.

open book, open doors

Title page doors

title page

This is the poem, A Poem...

A Poem

          - by Anonymous

Isn’t it strange that Princes and Kings

And clowns that caper in sawdust rings

And ordinary folk like you and me

are builders of Eternity?

To each is given a bag of tools,

An hour glass and a set of rules.

And each must build e’er his life is flown

A stumbling block or a stepping stone.

Princes and Kings

clowns

folks like us

50's tv show, Father Knows Best, the inspiration of folks like us

builders of Eternity

bag of tools

hour glass and rules

one's own life

stepping stones

the Colophon

Some more stepping stones...

the steps at Wulai, Taiwan

back steps to the cathedral in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil,  France

ceramic sculpture at Heller Gardens, Garda, Italy

3rd century Roman villa,  Desenzano del Garda, Italy

on a rock at Tot's Tumbling class

The Artist's Ideation Cards for March 2016 are:

COLOR: single color

IMAGE: abstract

LAYOUT: in the form of a diagram, chart, or map

PAPER: minimal paper usage (emphasis on alternative material, i.e.. cloth, plastic, wood, metal, etc.)

STRUCTURE: single sheet binding (map fold, brochure, blizzard book, boustrophedon, etc.)

TEXT: self generated

TECHNIQUE: use a technique that is unfamiliar to you

ADJECTIVE: sentimental or nostalgic

The wild card option may be used to disregard any ONE criteria