Edible Alphabet
By Claudia Cohen
Seattle, Washington: Claudia Cohen, 2010. Edition of 30.

4.2 x 4.5"; 44 pages including free end papers. Stenciled pochoir. Calligraphy. Stamped words. Bound with parchment documents. Housed in a clamshell box covered with papers marbled by Karli Frigge of the Netherlands.

Heavenly Monkey Press: "Claudia's most recent project (created during the summer of 2010), similar in spirit to Bookbinding Ephemera and Chasing Paper, An Edible Alphabet combines her love for letterforms, fanciful page compositions, and binding structures that convey intimacy when held. Each page reproduces from stencils a letter in three alphabets, surrounded by the names of foods starting with that letter. These words are taken from Claudia's large collection of early 20th-century rubber stamps, used in restaurants to create the daily menu. Some words are also written in her own elegant cursive. The paper used is a wafer-thin vintage laid, French folded and sewn long-stitch onto a vellum structure with three slips, and laced into an outer case made from pieces of 18th- and 19th-century parchment documents."
$500