New Book Art: Still Life with Game Bird & Dice (Oil)

The possibilities of printing on a single piece of paper and making a fishbone fold or a modified fishbone fold book continue to intrigue me. After I made Words Collide, I kept thinking about the structure.

Here is the latest, just in time for National Poetry Month and for Poem in Your Pocket Day (April 30, 2015): a single poem on a folded and glued sheet in the pocket of a modified fishbone fold. The design came in a dream. Edition of 45. All letterpress printed from handset metal type, wood type, and two three-color reduction linoleum cuts. That means I printed the yellow, carved out what I wanted to remain yellow, printed red, carved, then printed black on top of all. Conceptually, I was playing with borders and boundaries, having type and images spill over from page to page, and placing the poem tight against the inner fold.

The poem is called, "Still Life with Game Bird and Dice (Oil)" and was first published in the Spring 2015 issue of the online literary magazine, Miracle MonocleYou can read the poem there, hereIt was inspired by the "Fight for 15" campaign to raise the minimum wage for fast food and other underpaid workers.


Three-color reduction linoleum cut on the front cover.
The image was inspired by the 1602 painting, 
"Still Life with Game Bird, Fruit, and Vegetables" 
by Juan Sánchez Cotán,
and reinterpreted for 2015.
Black book cloth spine.

Modified fishbone fold has a pocket at the apex with the poem tucked into it.

Extended, first side. You can see the pocket more clearly at right.
The finger cutout echoes the shaped opening of the french fry bag.
The wood type words are from the poem.
DIAPERS / NOT ANOTHER PAIR OF / GAS
There are also fragments or words within the words in the poem:
FrIEs
burGErs
sHAkes
SHAKEs
SHakes

Extended, second side. Pocket at the left holds the poem.

Folded booklet with poem.

Poem inside, open.

Three-color linoleum cut on the back cover.
This image was inspired by a rubber chicken.
All printed with oil-based ink.

You can find both Still Life with Game Bird and Dice (Oil) and Words Collide in my Etsy store: nevermindtheart.

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