View a selection of digital images in the Yale Center for British Art's online catalogue
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/2038114
Classification:
Books
Notes:
"This book carries a poem about a 'Father's Garden' that is used as an image of the type page as a garden of exits and entrances, a garden of furrows of type from which much may grow--a sacred garden, a garden representing Jerusalem; a garden in which 'Our father's juice flows everywhere,' a plot within a plot ... The book is processional: the poem is slowly revealed as the lines, the furrows of type, are exposed, and the masculine and formal Gill bold in which they are set is slowly picked apart and the more feminine and elegant Bembo italic replaces it. The thing loosens up ... The formal aspects of the layout are moved around and allowed to dance as each verse is finished, there's a formal dance with the elements and there's also a flowering of typographical material, inspiration for which I took from an Arabic or Turkish book in the British Museum. As each verse finished, I revealed one of the typographic equivalents to the three religions of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. I printed solids on the surface of the paper, and sometimes printed inside the Chinese folded page. Then I varnished the pages. The inks show through the varnish, making the page faintly translucent and parchment-like. It's a riot really, but pretty solid in terms of procession and methodology. I'm very pleased with the book."--Ken Campbell, from The word returned.
Exhibition History:
"Of Green Leaf, Bird, and Flower" : Artists' Books and the Natural World (Yale Center for British Art, May 15, 2014-August 10, 2014)