Book making as an art form has a history of centuries, and even the Victoria and Albert Museum in England has hosted an exhibition of artist books. That exhibition’s curatorial essay, in 2008, summarized the presentation of this work with “In all their myriad formats, books continue as among the most potent means of artistic expression” (Watson). And while this exhibition included work by Picasso and Louise Bourgeois, who are “some of the most influential and respected artists of our time” (Watson), those with more than a passing familiarity with small presses have perhaps had the pleasure of holding a handmade book. The experience of a handmade book is a multi-sensory experience, for artists books are physical entities, they are tactile, visual, as well as thoughtful reading experiences.
As machine printing has become within reach of anyone who can get internet access, our vision of books has become somewhat myopic; so much so that some authors shun any presentation of their work which is not a glued western codex spine with a glossy paper cover. Our idea of what looks like a book has become colonized by a narrow aesthetic of similarity, a type of uniform. Of course, mass distribution and the business model of returnable products have contributed to this toxic view, as unusual trim sizes alone can face rejection by bookshops.
Opportunities to meet artist made and handmade books did exist before Covid in the small press book festivals, and sometimes in the craft shows, that often connected visiting artists to a community. Additional examples of prosaic handmade books might have been experienced through recipe groups, children’s school projects, and heirloom journals. Information on how to make books, the varieties of binding, of process, are legion through both artist and curatorial sites (Etsy, Pinterest), as well as anthologized in books about bookmaking. Yet, a simple stack of small press books will testify to a certain strait-laced convention of machine production. Of course, handmade books are labor intensive, and the impossibility of triple digit editions might daunt both sales-or-status oriented editors and authors. Another consideration might be the funding and the production of the press itself; a university print shop and a club budget might be cause for some influential decisions.
As Covid influences online investigations, certain forms of art lose representation due to the limitations of two-dimensional depiction; we lose the fully sensual experience of interacting with the work; the tactile nature of many art forms, the sense of scale, the sense of physical presence have been negated. We can no longer be won for a moment in an experience with a hand knit angora scarf, or marvel at the fit of a book in the hand. Small presses have been forced to join the shouting on social media, and while they might be inundated with submissions as a result, too few posts exist of happy new owners of small press books. To those who love books, who revel in their physicality, there are some small presses that make handmade books, and bibliophiles ought to be including these odd-to-shelve art objects in their personal collections.
Among the most enchanting of handmade, small press books is the work of Ethel Zine and Micro Press. Each book has a collage cover that itself is sewn, and this quilt is then sewn sidesaddle around the hand collated book pages. As a periodical, Ethel is numbered and contains both artistic and literary work—poems and prose, drawings printed on a translucent paper interfaced in the text. While some small presses do revel in unusual, artist grade, or handmade papers, Ethel includes plastic or mylar sheets as cover pages, with bits of other fiber physically sewn on. The sewn aspect of Ethel is overt, as actual graphic elements of stitch type are incorporated into the book design.
As a micro-press, Ethel has had a prodigious output, listing some 30 titles available on their website. The 2019 release of Gia Grillo’s “The Moon Poems” is so physically charming, that the edition itself requires attention: the image of a cartoon astronaut appears on both covers and as a frontispiece, the spine is blue fiber with gold stars saddle stitched to pages that are hand trimmed, and the book itself is maybe four inches square. A delight to behold as a book, the twenty pages of text seem accessible and inviting. In ten poems about the title subject, Grillo’s text includes a meditation from the point of view of an astronaut that contains the horrific notion of people dumping trash onto the lunar surface ( “Poem of the Astronaut”), but also includes a scene where the returning astronaut presents a moon rock at customs
“Do you have anything to declare?”
I said , “Yes. She wanted to know if the sea
remembers her,
and asked that I bring it this.” (17).
The personification of the moon continues in further poems as an entity forlorn, yearning for “ a home/she could never reach”(20), which is a return to earth’s oceans. Grillo’s poems here are adept, and her biography lists literary publications. From an editorial perspective, both of Ethel’s zine and micro press attest to a keen eye for a literary excellence that is as captivating as the books are beautiful.
The terribly status-oriented seriousness of some small presses is thankfully absent in Ethel. The online submission guidelines emphasize an interest in “the voices of Women, The BIPOC community and the LGBTQA+ community”, while the biography in Ethel Volume 4 is a poem of four prose stanzas that begins with “When Ethel was the true mother of a solitary fish, dirty and enormous, she wrote this with her tongue in the snow” (40). The cautious bibliophile can order either the zine or a book for an amazingly modest price, given the handmade nature of these books, sewn one by one; however, full year subscriptions are also available that estimate some twenty books for a hundred bucks.
Because of its odd size, its handsewn nature, its quilty feel, it is unlikely that the owner of a literary library would stumble across Ethel in a safe distance bookshop. Nonetheless, any true book lover, lover of literary writing, or of art as a crucial aspect of our culture is remiss in not owning anything Ethel. To hold such work is to engage in “the myriad functions of books besides transmitting texts”(Watson); it is to experience the book as art object, to go beyond the text itself into the book as an entity of art, but intimately so.
Notes:
Rowan Watson “The Art of the Book” V&A. (apparently excerpted from “ Blood on Paper: The Art of the Book” and available as a pdf “Books And Artists”) vam.ac.uk
