OEOCO (The One-Eye Opera Co.) ~ Alabama
(Mary Ann Sampson)

Letterpress poetry collaborations
Rural Life in Alabama
Other Artists’ Books
Broadsides by Mary Ann Sampson

Ragland Birds
By Mary Ann Sampson
Ragland, Alabama: Mary Ann Sampson, 1994. One-of-a-kind.

24.5 x 20" with four pages. Illustrated using prism pencils, acrylic, and clear shoe polish. Black plastic spiral binding with handpainted boards

Mary Ann Sampson lives in Ragland, Alabama, where she experiences the delights and eccentricities of rural life. One of her neighbors had a chicken farm which led to a "series" of unique books. Sampson said she could hear the chickens and their noisy conversation any time of the day or night.
$850

Howl at the Moon, Shoot Out the Lights
By Mary Ann Sampson
Ragland, Alabama: One-Eye Opera Co., 1997. One-of-a-kind.

11 x 14.5"; 20 pages. Pen and ink; colored pencils; small collage pieces; pinholes. Title page with cut out paper title tipped on. Original artwork by Mary Ann Sampson. Bound in handpainted and collaged black boards, black cloth spine with silver pen star-like accents.

Sampson began using music themes early in her art career. When she decided to choose a press name she wanted it to reflect her interest in music, especially in the operatic form. Hence the press became OEOCO (One-Eye Opera Co.).

This piece reflects that merging of her traditional art – drawing, color sense, composition, quirky slant on life – with the book form. There are two double-page spreads packed with Sampson's whimsical characters in full voice howling at the moon.
$525

A Primer for Oriental Thought
By Mary Ann Sampson
One-of-a-kind.

Mixed media book, in gray illustrated boards, with 44 pages. Red & black spattered white end papers. Abstract illustrations throughout.
$285

Heart Song
By Mary Ann Sampson
Ragland, Alabama: OEOCO, 1994. One-of-a-kind.

5 x 5"; 32 pages. Double-sided accordion. Mixed media with full page hand-drawn color illustration throughout. Housed in blue cloth covered slipcase with push-on lid. Top paper covered with same illustrations as pages. Signed by artist.

One of Sampson's earlier works with her whimsical drawings and characters.

Obviously small hearts are scattered through out the pages; but, along with this are a few subtle references to being environmentally conscious.
$450

Faulkner Suite
By Sue Brannan Walker
Ragland, Alabama: OEOCO Press, 2008. Edition of 50.

1.25 x 4.6"; 44 pages. Letterpress printed on a Vandercook SP 20 Press. Handset in Cochin and Bembo metal type. Printed on mould-made cotton Somerset Book Paper from the St. Cuthberts Mill in England. Hand-colored pen and ink drawings reproduced onto magnesium plates. Paste-paper covered boards (so that each cover is unique) with stab binding. Design, artwork, bindings, and printing by Mary Ann Sampson.

Seventeen poems reflecting and building on the legacy of William Faulkner by Sue Brannan Walker, Stokes Distinguished Professor of Creative 'Writing and Director of the Stokes Center for Creative Writing at the University of South Alabama and the current [2009] Alabama poet laureate. With a foreword by Don H. Doyle, Professor of History at the University of South Carolina.

Don H. Doyle, foreword: "Faulkner began his writing career, without great success, as a poet. He once described himself as a failed poet' and said that, like most writers, he resorted to short stories because he couldn't do poetry. and ultimately to novels because they were still less demanding. One of the things Sue Walker has done here is to recover the poetry of Faulkner, and maybe even redeem his failed career as a poet. The phrases and images in these poems continually reference and frequently outright borrow from Faulkner, always with fresh context and novel insight. The poems extract, as only poetry can do, something essential about Faulkner, The South, and the undying past."
$300

Then from All the Stones
By Dorothy Field
Ragland, Alabama: OEOCO, 2003. Edition of 50.

5 x 9.75" 62 pages including fly leaf. Handset in Bembo type. Printed on Mohawk Superfine paper. Plates for the illustrations made from gauze, landscape cloth, materials fo

Then from All the Stones is a collaboration between poet Dorothy Field and artist/bookmaker Mary Ann Sampson. The book was produced as part of the requirement toward Sampson's Master of Fine Arts Degree in the Book Arts at the University of Alabama.

Preface:

       When you walk across the fields with your mind pure and holy
       then from all the stones,
       and all growing things,
       and all animals,
       the sparks of their soul come out and cling to you,
       and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you.
                                                                              ~Hasidic saying

Dorothy Field is writer and visual artist who lives on her farm in Cobble Hill, British Columbia. Eight of the thirty-three poems had been previously published in Canadian literary journals (citations appear in the closing comments).
$275

Do the Dog
By Mary Ann Sampson
Ragland, Alabama: OEOCO, 1991. One-of-a-kind.

9.5 x 1.5"; 32 pages. Palm book structure with string binding. Drawings with a Pelikan Pen and India ink plus stampings with Carter's ink onto Arches Cover. Laid in found wooden single-cigar box with metal clasp closure.

Dogs and words frolic across the pages. Based on memories of dancing the night away doing the dog.

"When I was young I did a dance called The Dog. Don't remember the words but my body never forgot the dance…."
(SOLD)

Rejoice
By Mary Ann Sampson
1998. .One-of-a-kind.

3.5 x 2.75". Mixed media accordion book housed in stiff brown cardboard box with lid. Lid with paper-title paste-on, decorated with small squares of colorful paper along edges. Box bottom illustrated with black line stamped stars. Miniature book housed in box attached to bottom with wire. Hand-colored illustrations.

Another of Sampson’s creations from “what is hand”.
(SOLD)