Bloodroot Press ~ Michigan
(Jean Buescher Bartlett)

A Fish's Open Mouth
By Jean Bartlett
1989. Edition of 14.

7 x 16" broadside. Poem and photograph of handmade paper fish by Jean Bartlett. Printed letterpress on Rives paper in three colors from handset Dante Roman and Bodoni Monotype.

Jean Bartlett: "This poem is a quiet meditation on the edges or openings of several freely associated circular forms. It uses the idea of entry as a metaphor for possibility."
$75

Impronta
By Jean Buescher Bartlett
1998. Edition of 25.

4 x 12" broadside with a selenium-toned silver print. Printed letterpress from handset Garamond and Goudy type.

Poem and selenium-toned photograph by Jean Buescher Bartlett of the Orto Botanico Giardinodei Semplici in Florence, Italy.

Jean Bartlett: "Finding an intimate space to photograph in bustling Florence was difficult and elusive. But I kept passing a formal, modest-sized building with inviting, but gated grounds that always appeared to be locked. I wondered if it was some kind of institute. One day while I was slowly walking by, someone rang the front bell and was admitted. And then I noticed other people on the other side of the gate clustered within the grounds, as well as greenhouse. Finally I got up the nerve to ring the doorbell, and I was told that the house and surrounding Orto Botanico Giardinodei Semplici were open to the public. At every opportunity during the rest of my month-long stay in Florence, I photographed this setting with my Kodak Retina IA 35mm Range Finder camera.

The custodian rode his bike to work and the bicycle was always leaning along the same expanse of greenhouse wall. He looked like the artist Brancusi, and I imagined that it was he who so deliberately arranged the collection of large, patinaed clay pots, inverting some as bases for others. Observing this man's habits, I saw him as a caretaker in the truest sense of the word. "
$75

Someone Else's Children
By Jean Bartlett
1990. Edition of 20.

9 x 11.5" broadside. Hand set in Goudy Modern type. Printed in three colors at the Yolla Bolly Press in California. Printed on Indian Straw paper.

Jean Bartlett: "This poem is about my two oldest nieces, who are mentioned in the dedication. I chose to combine this poem about the behavior of children with a specimen sheet and its typical alphabet border because they are both elemental in nature. The Indian straw paper was selected for its somewhat playful quality due to the inclusions."
$125

Truitt's Wings
By Jeanie Thompson
1989.

16.25 x 12.9" broadside. Letterpress printing and casein underpainting by Jean Buescher Bartlett.

The second in a series of interdisciplinary collaborations produced at The Institute for the Book Arts at The University of Alabama in February of 1989.

Jean Bartlett: "This poem by southern writer Jeanie Thompson is a bittersweet requiem on the fragility of existence. Written in two stanzas, it sets up a duality between life and death, and infers bilateral symmetry in its mention of hands and wings.

When designing the broadside, it seemed natural to place the stanzas side by side over the wing-like imagery evoked by the large white brushstroke underpainting."
$100