(Deborah Phillips Chodoff) Move³: A movable Book. Artist’s book by Deborah Phillips Chodoff. [Katonah. NY] 20032007. Three double-page spreads. 10” x 11” x 1”. Materials used are: book board, hand-printed paper (Arches); inkjet prints on Legion Fine Art Paper; found objects; hardware items. Collages on board. By manipulating the movable parts on the cover you can play with the words ‘removable’ and ‘movable’ but not ‘immovable’, which is firmly glued in place. Laid in a black box with casters and a black string that both holds the lid closed and serves as a pull-string. An edition of 3 copies. Signed and dated in pencil on the back cover. Fine.

“The directive, which came by mail one day, to create a “movable book”, intrigued me. In pondering the question, “What exactly is a “movable book”? I found myself at the hardware store buying hinges, clothespins, pulley wheels, magnets, casters, and other accessories of movement rather than studying my how-to pop-up manuals. The word “move” was my starting point; I added new prefixes and settled on “removable” and “immovable” as complementary concepts. “ – Deborah Phillips Chodoff.

“Pages 1-2 (Removable): Photographs document the act of removal and objects likely to be removed; inkjet collages show the tools and substances of removal; parts of the pages are removable, held in place by magnets; hand-printed paper patterns were made by spraying and removing shapes.

“Pages 3-4 (Movable): Inkjet collages show moving parts, including scans of parts moving; part of a page is a removable disk that fits onto a bobbin and spins when a string is pulled, much like a Yo-Yo; hand-printed paper has patterns made by stamping and moving inked objects.

“Pages 5-6 (Immovable?): Aside from the ‘immovable’ bolt used to keep the bobbin in place, what in the universe is truly immovable? A crab fossil and images of stones in water underscore this question of permanence.” – Chodoff.

Related posts:

1. For the Love of All Things Damaged, artist’s book/object from Kerry McAleer-Keeler
2. The Age of Partial Objects, by book artist Dean Dass
3. Key to the Imagination, a book from artist Kerry McAleer-Keeler

(Circle Press) The Left-Handed Punch. By Roy Fisher and Ron King. Guildford, Surrey. 1986. 35p. 15.5” x 11..5”. Puppets, created with screenprints by Ronald King, handcut by Mary Adams and Anne Forgan, assembled and collated by Jessica King. Set in Castellar and Baskerville with manuscript stage notes, all in red and black, on french-folded sheetsof heavy Somerset rag made paper. Printed silkscreen and letterpress. Loose sheets in a titled wrapper. Housed in ared cloth-covered portfolio, titling in gilt on white on the front cover and spine. In a blue and cream striped cloth slipcase, die-cut to expose the portfolio title. One in an edition of 80 copies signed by Ronald King and Roy Fisher. Fine. Scarce.

Ron King has created an amusing and grand production of Punch with puppets assembled from screenprint images ingeniously constructed on the page.

“This book was the fifth collaboration between Roy Fisher and Ronald King, being, in the words of the prospectus, ‘a new version ofthe comical tragedy of Punch and Judy’. The story is based upon the anonymous text first published by George Routledge & Sons in1860 and illustrated by George Cruikshank, which King had found in a small modern paperback version … Fisher and King’s version was presented in the form of a play, consisting of a prologue, six scenes, and an epilogue, illustrated by numerous photo-collagevignettes and seven … drawn tableaux. … the chief feature of the book [is] thirteen cut-out articulated figures, the principal dramatis personae – the production of which alone involved more than 120 printings – ten of which [have] movable parts but remain attached to the page.” – Cooking the books, p. 82.

Related posts:

1. Circle Press – Late August on the Coast
2. Circle Press — An African Folktale
3. Eighteen lithographs by Henry Moore

A seminal breakthrough in the annals of late 20th century Artists’ Book publishing

(Circle Press) Anansi Company. A collection of thirteen hand-made wire and card rod-puppets animated in color and verse by Ronald King & Roy Fisher. The Circle Press. [London.] 1992. 15 unbound sections 15.75″ x 12″. Designed, silk-screened, hand-stenciled and letterpress printed by Ron King onto 500 gsm Arches rag-made paper, held in a card wraparound and inserted into a heavily blocked solander box, 17.75″ x 13.5″ x 4.5″, which is covered in three different colors of cloth. Thirteen of the sections are french-folded and pocketed inside to hold the puppets and carry the poems, which are set in Monotype Walbaum. Puppets made from hand-bent brass wire and card, measure 12″ overall and are easily extracted from the box. An edition of 120 numbered copies, signed by Ron King and Roy Fisher. Fine.

This is the seventh collaboration between King and Fisher and undoubtedly the most elaborate and ambitious one to date. The content is mainly derived from material gathered together by Walter Jekyll for his book Jamaican Song and Story, published in 1907 for the English Folklore Society. This version is basically a contemporary rendering of aspects of those familiar tales central to Caribbean culture, concerning Anansi, the spider-man, and his company of animal friends.

The outside of the sections are covered with quotes in Caribbean patois and lines of music set down by Jekyll in his book and accompanied by a colorful carnival procession of figures and designs invented by the artist. The book involved over 500 hand-workings and is one of the most remarkable and innovative artist’s books of the period.

Related posts:

1. Circle Press – Late August on the Coast
2. Circle Press — An African Folktale
3. 60 Beautiful Books