Dixie Compass: Short Stories, Prints, and Photographs
By Ke Francis
1997. Edition of 50.
An octagonal shaped book 19" diameter linen-over-board with print inset with Velcro closure. 40 pages in hand-stitched, two-page signatures, Text set in fourteen-point Century type and printed Mohawk Letterpress. Woodcuts use an all-rag Lennox. Binding by Larry Cooper of Gardyloo Handmade Books. Contains five digital photos, 14 woodcuts, and three digital prints.
"Dixie Compass" focuses on images and stories that elaborate on life within the four points of the Dixie Compass (all marked South).
$1,200 |
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Celestial Hitchhikers
By Ke Francis
Memphis / Florida
1994. Edition of 50.
13 x 9.25" Linen over board cover with hot foil stamping and letterpress title. Binding by Larry Cooper of Gardyloo Handmade Books. Paper upon which the text and images are printed is Arches Text Laid. Images printed by direct methods: lithography from bi-metal plates, woodcuts from wooden blocks, and photopolymer plates from Adobe Photoshop Drawings. Letterpress artist statement printed from hot lead type on Arches text. Contains eight digital transparencies, eight color woodcuts, a seven-page short story by the artist, hand drawn/printed litho of Jack Kerouac as a young man, and a fanfold of maps with roads that spell Jack Kerouac on the US map.
This book plays the romance of the dream of hitchhiking (inspired by Kerouac's On the Road) against a dark short story dealing with the reality of the road. The monument to Kerouac consists of a list of roads that spell his name across the map of America.
$750 |
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Penumbra
By Ke Francis
Tupelo, Mississippi: Hoopsnake Press, 1994. Edition of 250.
10.5 x 14.5"; 36 pages. Letterpress printed on 80 pound Mohawk Superfine. Type cast on the artist's Model Thirty one Linotype casting machine. Text set in twelve point Century. Portfolio set in Spartan and Linotype Gothic. Titles handset in Spartan and Gothic foundry type in combination with handset Century. Compact disc of artist reading story. Short story illustrated with multi-colored woodcuts. Includes a bound in portfolio of ten woodcuts. Designed, written, and printed by Ke Francis. Paper over board, with a cloth spine, binding by Larry Cooper of Gardyloo Handmade Books.Housed in cloth covered clam shell box with cavity for CD.
A short story by Ke Francis about memories and how we share them with others: "the smell of my grandfather's workbench"; "the way my heart beats when I get up early and walk in the field in the winter mist and flocks of starlings take flight from the cedars and wind their way to the sky in powerful black arcs"; "the sunset that faded from an intense magenta-red just over the tree line, to a deep violet nearly overhead;" and many more.
Geraldine Prince, Director for the Centre of Continuing Studies at Edinburgh College of Art:: "The book Penumbra incorporates a CD of the artist reading his work, a use of modern technological resources which underlies the fact that for Francis, art manifests itself not just as a visual sensation, but as felt experience and, in the case of the musicality of his own readings, something the audience can hear. Gauguin's sentiment about the the 'sound' of Brittany is familiar enough. Writing in 1888 he declared that 'When my clogs ring out on this granite soil, I hear the dull, muted, powerful tone which I seek in my painting.' For a European, Francis's Mississippi parallels Gauguin's Brittany - geographically and culturally remote from an acknowledged 'centre', but with a folk culture rich in inspiration, metaphor and story. For a European, therefore, not recognizing the cultural heritage of Mississippi as a distinct entity would be like not addressing the cultural heritage of Flanders, for example, or Scotland in the 21st century."
$750 |
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Jugline: A Fish Tale and a Portfolio of Prints
By Ke Francis
1992. Edition of 250 copies. An Editorial Copy.
Contains "The Walking Catfish," a story written and illustrated by the artist. With a portfolio of prints related to the pastime of fishing. Hardbound in paper over board, with a cloth spine and encased in a clamshell box. Illustrated with black and white woodcut prints from type high blocks. Portfolio contains nine black and white prints, one black and red print, and one fold-out eight-color print. Each print is individually numbered and signed by the artist.
$1,200
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