San Francisco Center for the Book ~ California

THE RELATIVE VALUE of things
an investigation of the joys, follies and contradictions of collecting, desire and valorization
By Nigel Poor
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Center for the Book, 2007.
Edition of 120.

10.5 x 8"; 30 pages. White paper covered boards. Perfect bound. Front board designed with dryer lint or hair.

San Francisco Center for the Book: "The Relative Value of Things consists of three projects that investigate the joys, follies, and contradictions of collecting, desire, and valorization. The first project is the books' front covers, each uniquely embellished with encapsulated hair or lint donated by a multitude of individuals. The second is the books' contents, comprised of color images and letterpress-printed lists documenting personal possessions discarded by the artist over time. The third project comprises the back covers, featuring meticulously drawn text that addresses the struggle to find reassurance and meaning amidst life's mysteries and uncertainties." [The back cover is from a project called Someday I Will Be As Insignificant As a Swarm of Summer Insects.]

Nigel Poor, 2007 Aperture West Book Prize submission: “The Relative Value of Things is a photographic project that also includes a fair amount of text. I see the text and images as having equal importance. Today the written list numbers over 500 objects and the photographic aspect is a simple sampling of these ‘dumb discarded things.’ The text is small and handwritten, yet large enough to read. Most of the list is written with a black rapidograph, though the words in red signify the items which have been photographed. The photographs are straight ahead images of objects. As one looks at the collection of things and words, threads begin to emerge; patterns and sensibilities can be seen. The objects range from beautiful and mysterious to humble, hopeful, and sad. They are the cast off objects of everyday life given weight by knowing they once reflected something of intrinsic value.”
$350 (Choice of lint or hair front cover board)

29 Degrees North
By Michael Bartalos
2006. Edition of 29.

5.4 x 14.6" closed, accordion. Six leaves printed on one side only.

San Francisco Center for the Book: "The title of our first publication refers to a degree of latitude shared by six destinations depicted in this artist's travelogue. From west to east, the poem and images progress from Mexico to Morocco, through India on to China, and over to Japan before terminating in Hawaii. Two-color iconic images, printed by Nat Swope at Bloom Screen Printing, Oakland, California, extend over an accordion-fold structure. The binding was designed by John DeMerritt in collaboration with the artist and features a deluxe clamshell box covered in Japanese silk with foil-stamped title and illustration."

Deluxe edition - $450 (Two copies remaining)

Trade edition - 3 x 4" with two components in paper wrapper. Poetry printed on lightweight parchment paper in accordion fold. Images printed on Superfine White Smooth 65 Cover and Ultrafelt 100 Cover. Letterpress trade edition.
$25

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De Rekening
By Nora Pauwels and John DeMerritt
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Center for the Book, 2006. Edition of 50.

6.75 x 11.5"; 72 pages. Letterpress printed by the artists at the Center for the Book. Bound in Japanese buckram with stamped title.

San Francisco Center for the Book: "De Rekening is a work built upon an artist-created system of 'fake writing' used to mark the passing of time. Inspired by the anonymous entries in 19th-century ledgers and account books, De Rekening borrows its form and repetitive structure from those utilitarian yet evocative receptacles of time. The ruled lines in the book were mechanically drawn using a pen ruling machine at Golden Business Forms in West Burlington, Iowa, especially for this edition. Pen ruling was widely used in the 19th and early 20th Century in the ledger and account book trade; Golden Business Forms is one of the last purveyors of this technology."
$350

Small Plates Series

San Francisco Center for the Book: "We've invited selected artists and writers to create books of a specific size and cohesive theme. For 2008, the books are four inches square and devoted to the theme How-To."

god's femur
An Anatomy Lesson
By Ward Schumaker
San Francisco: San Francisco Center for the Book, 2009.
Edition of 100.

4.125 x 4"; 30 pages. 15 illustrations. Letterpress printed on a Vandercook 4 press. Paper: Somerset. Typeset: Gill Sans. Handbound in heavyweight illustrated paper cover with cloth spine.

Written and illustrated by Ward Schumaker, this is one in the Small Plates series published under the Imprint of the San Francisco Center for the Book. Text designed by Lili Ong and Michael Bartalos.

Kafkaesque story of a young artist meeting up with provincial tastes (or perverted minds?) in 1965 Nebraska.

Ward Schumaker: "Yes, the story in God's Femur is true—all except the part about the painting being dirty. It wasn't. And isn't. But I was making a book out of the event, a small and short book, so I came up with a different ending. And after all this time and water-under-the-bridge, did I care? Better to look back and laugh."

About the writer/artist: "As an illustrator Ward Schumaker’s work has appeared in over 100 magazines, including Poetry, The New Yorker, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Esquire Japan, and the L.A. and N.Y. Times. He has drawn for clients as diverse as Hermès, Neiman Marcus, United Airlines, and SFJazz. He is author/illustrator of three children’s books: Dance; Sing a Song of Circus; and In My Garden. He has illustrated two limited edition letterpress books for the Yolla Bolly Press: Two Kitchens in Provence by M.F.K. Fisher, and Paris France by Gertrude Stein. … He is the creator of many logotypes, including Moose’s Restaurant (San Francisco), Columbus Bakery (New York City) and MosBurger (Tokyo). He has received awards from the AIGA, CA Illustration and Design Annuals, Print Magazine, Graphis, American Illustration, and The Society of Illustrators. His work has been featured in articles in Communication Arts, Print, Step-by-Step, Design Journal (Korea), and Portfolio (Japan). With the Smithsonian Institution, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York, he received a Federal Design Achievement Award for his work on "Unlimited by Design."
$40

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Gray Matter Gardening
How to Weed Your Mind
By Nanette Wylde
San Francisco: San Francisco Center for the Book, 2008.
Edition of 100.

4 x 4"; 23 pages. 23 illustrations. Letterpress printed paper cover. Inkjet images. Handbound.

San Francisco Center for the Book: "Nanette Wylde is a conceptual artist and cultural worker with a passion for artists’ books. She is a native of California where she makes her home with one spousal unit, one cat, and an abundance of edible and decorative plant life."

Five sections: Create an environment conducive to weeding; Determine what is a weed and what is not a weed; Remove the weeds; Understand the weed; and, Repeat as needed. "Inspiration provided by the Dharma."
$40 (Last copy)

How Birds Sing
Book design by Tucker Nichols
Poem by Kay Ryan
San Francisco: San Francisco Center for the Book, 2008.
Edition of 200.

4 x 4"; 9 pages. 6 illustrations. Letterpress printed on a Vandercook 4 press. Heavyweight paper cover and hand-bound.

Ryan's 11-line poem (posted in the Central Park Zoo) is here illustrated by Tucker Nichols.

Ryan, appointed the Library of Congress’s sixteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry in 2008, was called by Billy Collins "the Fabergé Egg" of poetry.
$40

Lyrica
Poem by Michael Hannon
Artwork by William T. Wiley
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Center for the Book, 2008. Edition of 100.

4 x 4"; 24 pages. Letterpress printed.

Poet Michael Hannon's list of two-word combinations ("deep window / paper suit / child's hat") are illustrated by Bay Area artist William Wiley's black-and-white line drawings. (Lyrica is a drug for nerve pain, which might help.)
$70

Thumb War
By John Hersey
San Francisco: San Francisco Center for the Book, 2008.
Edition of 100.

4 x 4"; 36 pages. 27 illustrations. Set in Blockhead unplugged. Letterpress printed in two colors using a Vandercook 4. Hand-bound with wooden boards and cloth spine. Front board laser-cut into finish grade plywood, with a small number of them laser-cut into chipboard.

Text: "The ancient sport of thumb war was first recorded with pictograms on ceramics unearthed at Xanadu, the summer court of Kublai Kahn in the 13th century. Though there is earlier mention of a similar game 2000 years previous through buddhist texts where combatants engaged in zhi jue di, or toe wrestling, in a similar fashion. It is believed that Marco Polo brought the game to the West when he returned from his travels. Scholars have conjectured that the game was used to settle differences between rival officers as to who was going to sleep with the most popular concubine versus who was going to have to churn the ayrag in the morning before the great sky god awoke, but no one knows for sure."
$40