71°N 23°E

71°N 23°E - 8.5” x 7” (closed) - Hard cover, 9 pages - Edition of 15 - Numbered and signed - Philadelphia, 2018

It's satisfying to see the piles of multiples coming together into an edition of 15 books and 15 broadsides (a printmaker's word for poster) after months of evolutions and many hours of sometimes tedious production work.

It started with my habitual curiosity about words, and coming across the word "dreadnought" led me to think about an off-shore oil rig named Goliat. Goliat is a dreadnought. This gargantuan object is an embodiment of the word: peerless in power, size and technological capability. Goliat is a dreadnought. I began to think of other words to describe this "unseen," yet highly significant thing. Here is the succinct text:

Goliat is a dreadnought

A shadow in the vaporshade

A formation in the miasmarine

It is everywhere, it is elsewhere

Glooming on the horizon.

On the last page I printed a QR code that, when "read" by your digital device, brings up a striking image of Goliat, which further informs and shapes our understanding of what Goliat is.

On the accompanying broadside, Image Awaits Your Attention, the same QR code is transformed through an analog process - a hand-cut, hand-stenciled, machine readable image - into a pensive reflection of itself. Below the stencil, a paragraph describes the visual image that is latent within the abstract pattern of squares that form the QR image. "Dramatically sunlit, surrounded by water and sky, Goliat glows in a brilliant orange iron oxide color. ..." Paired with the book 71°N 23°E, it makes for a layered and ontologically complex rendering of Goliat, an unseen thing.

For additional images and details about 71°N 23°E  and Image Awaits your Attention, please see at this PDF.  Both pieces were recently selected for the Guild of Bookworkers' National Juried Exhibition of hand-made books.  They will also soon be on display in my upcoming exhibition Northland in Philadelphia in May.  The opening is Friday, May 11, so save the date -  I'd love to see you, and am very excited about this opportunity to share my newest artwork with you. If you want to receive an email notification of the exhibit please join my mailing list.

Cutting the tabs by hand.