"When I Heard the Learned Astronomer"
L&TM5K Reader la gringissima, 2011
3 3/4" x 3 1/4" x 1/4"
Accordion-fold book, I believe is the term.
Series Number 2/9
This piece recently arrived, without prior arrangement on our end, in the Castle5000 mailbox. Like most occasions of good fortune, it immediately resulted in jurisdictional bickering. I note that when I went to photograph it, I found it in the Michael5000 personal book arts collection, but I don't have any firm memory of intending to place it there. But I digress.
The yellow band around the agreeably compact closed book simply slides off, and allows an interior of four pages -- really a continuous strip -- to unfurl.
The composition of the book makes good visual use of the page folds, but the text of the piece -- from Whitman -- is spread across the length of the entire strip. This is delightful in the hands, but is a little awkward to photograph for the vertical world of the blog:
I had intended to feature several of Mrs.5000's pieces in "It's the Book Arts!" before asking other people if they wanted to play, but if fabulous pieces are going to just land in my mailbox -- our mailbox, whatever -- I'm not going to hesitate to feature them. It's all part of my plan to establish as normative that L&TM5K readers send in awesome gifts as a matter of course.
La gringissima is, as I understand it, fairly new to this form of book arts -- "my first paper book was made in April," she says. Obviously she has some serious tranferable skillz at her disposal. I probably should have asked her about doing this post.
4 comments:
This is a wonderful little book, with rich, subtle colors and intricately overlapping figures. And the long lines of the poem sort of weave in and out as you read them, and pull everything together nicely. It's true the photographs don't really do it justice. But it's found a good home, so come visit! As someone who maintains a file folder labeled "Celestial Mechanics," I figure I'm well-qualified as co-cherisher, even if I let M5K keep it in his room.
I truly like the interior, and I'm a sap for the Whitman poem, but I think I would've taken a shine to it just from the exterior--so simple but so elegant!
aw, shucks (blushes)
oooooo! i love it!
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