The book A Play on Color: Interaction of Color in Letterpress is an investigation of letterpress prints, in honor of Josef Albers' book Interaction of Color. The images are directly inspired and reinterpreted based on the pages of the 50th anniversary edition and from viewing the original screen prints. The play of color and perception are a beautiful treatise on color theory. The artist added text as commentary as the book unfolds to reveal the composition in color.
The prototype for A Manifesto was printed at Penland School of Craft as a part of a workshop delving into my personal core values. The edition of 12 printed in Starkville, MS explores craft, tactility and collaboration. The book has three parts that come together around the hand, head and heart. The hand represents letterpress craft and making physical connections, the head with connecting ideas with each other through words and the heart is community, collaboration and a shared experience. The words touch, make and ponder play across the pages with images that relate to the three core principles. All three come together around touch.
CraftThink is a collection of essays to which I added my voice both in the introduction and in the use of expressive typography throughout. I believe the craftsman is a thinker and creator, problem solver and inventor. This title and the execution of each page embodies my belief in skilled craft and original ideas as a partnership for strong design. The titles of the articles are included in the blind emboss on the cover and the page numbers are blind embossed on the contents page which is repeated on the interior pages. The fluorescent pink letterpressed titles are echoed in the binding and on the inside covers fluorescent pink paper.
My first manifesto was centered around the idea of touch and had seven related ideas. This book was my investigation into the idea of connecting to the viewer.
TOUCH: Make contact.
Touch speaks of connections and exploration, of a physical point of contact between
you and a thing or you and another person. Feel that desire and use different experiences to grow your creativity and make connections with others.
PLAY: Play with objects.
Play keeps your mind young and inspires more creative ideas. Play opens your point of view and your approach to objects. You hold things, peek, turn them over, make connections and build imagination. Play widens your perspective.
TICKLE: Make a giggle.
Touch with a tickle and be rewarded with a laugh. Touch is healing. It promotes growth, safety, assurance, confidence and happiness.
GESTURE: Communicate with signs.
Express yourself with hand signals and gestures. The language of hand position and
motion is a powerful tool of communication. Simple gestures and big strokes of
movement communicate direction, closeness, quiet and organization. The gesture punctuates silence and strengthens the spoken word.
DRAW: Draw on surface.
Don’t be afraid to draw; It inspires ideas. A loose stroke or quick sketch can capture emotion and convey the essence of an idea. Your hand allows exploration; it draws relationships, makes connections, and builds ideas. Draw with pencil and pen, with brush and ink, heavy and light, dots and lines, to illustrate your thoughts.
DIRTY: Get dirty.
Explore materials and nature using wax, mud, clay, graphite and charcoal. These are all components of the earth. What is created must be able to disintegrate into the basic building blocks. Create with the earth in mind so that the trace left behind on you and on the future can be erased.
WASH: Clean up.
The act of washing hands reveals your hands as the layers of dirt come off and clean hands connects you with yourself. Get to know yourself. Not just the act of washing germs, but removing of paint, ink and dirt from having left a trace and your hands are discovered again.
This book in two parts is a semi autobiographical account of the storm as told through my experience combined with accounts from residents of Galveston. The account of the storm starts from the initial warnings to the impact of the storm to the first few weeks of recovery. Looking back now with prolonged cleanup along the gulf coast, I feel the books lack the rawness of the storm. The intent was to create expressive typography that flowed along with the story of the storm. There was to be cuts and slices, rips and tears to the pages that would hint at the loss and devastation experienced in Galveston.
After a series of failures, I found I was more committed to the process than the work. I wanted a tactile summary of my investigations. I took sketches, notes and imagery from throughout my investigations and layered it in black and white with chine-collé additions of yellow paper to cover the final images. I bound the piece as french folds with letterpressed type studies hidden within the binding, hinting at their existence through the colors of ink and thread on the spine. The simple typographic pythagorus’ hammer and other studies can only be revealed by peering between the bound pages.
