Alice Austin ~ Pennsylvania

The Center for the Book, New York: "A Book Conservator for an independent research library, Alice combines her knowledge of bookbinding with her interest in unusual book forms. She creates artists' books that often function without words, using a sculptural approach to surprise and delight the viewer. A rich tapestry of color and texture make for complex, yet simply appealing artwork."

Beach Finds
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Alice Austin, 2024. Edition of 30.

2.25" x 2.85" x 12" (open). Map fold structure. Hand-cut linoleum images. Printed on Mohawk text weight paper on a Vandercook SP- 15. Housed in archival box. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Alice Austin has created a visual delight with “Beach Finds.” There are five map folds in an alternating accordion pattern. Stretching out the map folds reveal hidden colorful images of beach treasures: limpet shells, fossil rocks, seaweed, bird skull, and feathers.
$200

Blanket Bog
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Alice Austin, 2023. Edition of 25.

4" x 6" x 8" open (13 cm x 15.5 cm x 20 cm open). Tunnel book. Printed on a Vandercook SP-15, from hand-cut linoleum prints, on Mohawk Superfine text and cover weight paper. Text hand-set in Garamond italic. Signed and numbered by the artist. Includes one sheet folded booklet (2.75 x 4.25”) with text by the artist. Booklet slipped in envelope with title printed on front. Tunnel and booklet housed in an archival box .

A tunnel book-perspective of driving across the blanket bogs of western Ireland.

Alice Austin: “This five panel tunnel book evokes a drive through the blanket bog along the west coast of Ireland in County Mayo. A herd of sheep stops the car and the viewer contemplates the hillside, with piles of peat, cut and stacked to dry. … The side panels take the viewer along the road from farmland into the bog. The last panel is a five-color reduction linoleum print of the landscape. The back of the tunnel book includes a poem, … written by the artist about the blanket bog.”

stone walls found under the bog
traces of neolithic farmland.
still, sheep graze by the roadside
cairns of peat stacked to dry
people and land interwoven.

Pamphlet text by artist gives background on the bogs of Ireland as well as turf cutting. Text excerpt:

On the west coast of Ireland, around Ballycastle in County Mayo, the bog extends to the ocean cliffs, covering the land like a blanket. Saturated by the warm and rainy climate, the oxygen-depleted, acidic soil creates a unique ecosystem that supports a hardy variety of plants, animals and insects. The bog is a living, growing thing as mosses and ferns grow, die and are buried and smothered by successive growth layers. This organic matter can’t decompose in the anaerobic, acidic soil, and builds up and compresses into peat over the millenia.

$700

nesting
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Alice Austin, 2022.
Edition of 15: 1-10 deluxe, 11-15 standard.

8.25" x 7.75" x .75". Linoleum prints and handset type printed on Rives BFK heavyweight paper. Deluxe copy bound in goat parchment made by Pergamena. Signed and numbered by the artist.

“nesting” consists of five folios of different birds and nests, ending with a poem remarking on habitat loss and the wondrous joy of birdwatching.

$800 Standard
$1,200 Deluxe (Last Copy)

Grand Canal
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Alice Austin, 2019. Edition of 20.

Tunnel book: 6 x 11 x 1.5" closed extends to 13". Printed from hand-carved linoleum blocks on Mohawk heavyweight paper. Housed in marble paper covered box with a magnet closure on the foredge. Signed and numbered.

Alice Austin: "Venice's Grand Canal is depicted in this tunnel book, highlighting the chaotic mix of local fauna, gondolas, traghettos and bridges vying for space on the waterway, with the ominous visage of a cruise ship lurking on the horizon."

Panel descriptions:
          Cover: an eye shape that you look through into the Grand canal scene.
          First: an egret waiting for a fish with a background of a building facade laced with quatrefoils.
          Second: winged cherub and a traghetto (ferry) making its regular crossing of the Grand canal. The figures in the gondola depict how Venetians remain standing for the short crossing.
          Third: the famed Rialto bridge with a rower and a small boat.
          Fourth: the characteristic vase-shaped chimneys of Venice.
          Fifth: looking down the Grand Canal with an enormous cruise ship ominously looming over the scene.
          Sixth: the backside of the tunnel book - The Lion's Mouth, or bocce dei Leone - depicting letter boxes found that were placed in prominent locations, where citizens could slip a note betraying the names of enemies of the Republic.
          Sides: rowers in racing gondolas training for the "Regatta Storica".
$800 (Last 3 copies)

To the Ocean
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Alice Austin, 2018. Edition of 15.

Text hand-set in Cheltenham Italic 18pt. Printed on Somerset paper. Cover of Twin Rocker handmade paper.

Included within each box is a small book which lists the box contents. “wooden box, Wilfredo Rodriguez, Philadelphia; dog whelk, slipper snail, beach glass, periwinkle, Maine; moon snail, scallop, horseshoe crab tail, New Jersey; fishing float fragment, limpet, Ireland; not named - origami boat by Austin. Number 10 - Walnut wood box 10.5” x 11.5” ( 12.75” with handles) x 3.5

Alice Austin: "This ode to the ocean is written by the artist and contains linocuts of various shells found at various locales around the world.”

The edition was produced in three versions. The Deluxe (numbers 1 – 5) is out of print. The Special Edition (7-11) comes in unique wooden boxes which house the collection of shells along with the book “To the Ocean”. Each box, created by Wilfredo Rodriguez of Philadelphia, includes a small book which lists the contents: “dog whelk, slipper snail, beach glass, periwinkle, Maine; moon snail, scallop, horseshoe crab tail, New Jersey; fishing float fragment, limpet, Ireland; not named – origami boat by Austin.” The book “To the Ocean” is included with the Special Edition”. Edition numbers 12 -15 account for the book without any items or box.

$1,700 Special Edition (#9 and #10 available)
$1,200 Book

Optique
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Alice Austin, 2016. Edition of 17.

Tunnel book: 8" x 8" closed, extends to 8 x 8 x 12". Letterpress printed on a Vandercook press. Panels and sides are 4 overlapping letterpress-printed linoleum cuts. Printed on Mohawk cover weight paper. Housed in an ocean-blue box covered in Twinrocker handmade paper, printed with a linoleum cut image of seaweed, then paste paper painted. Box interior contains a linoleum print of a Celtic spiral design. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Alice Austin: "Optique is a tunnel book inspired by the wild, west coast of County Mayo, Ireland, echoing the unique coastal geometry of angular cliffs, blowholes, seaweed, and plants. The panels and the accordion sides are ... designs inspired by the forms and colors of seaweed and kelp of the Irish coast.

"The double-sided tunnel book also evokes a telescope, becoming an optical device. Looking through the opening, the eye sharpens its focus on an object at the other end."
$800

Box of Happiness
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia: Alice Austin, 2009. Edition of 40.

3.25 x 3.25 x 3.25" circular construction. Handset metal type and linoleum cuts printed on a Vandercook press. Paper – 50/50 from abaca/cotton and shredded money – handmade by Michele Wilson for the artist. Housed in lidded 3.5 x 3.25 x 3.25" lightweight paper box, which may be in one of three colors: blue, green or brown.

Jenna Krajeski, Alice Austin's Library, New Yorker Book Notes: "Normally when you pick up a book to add to your library you are concerned with what it contains, but sometimes all that matters is what it looks like."

The construction is reminiscent of the children's toy (called a buzzer or buzz saw) in which twine or cord passes through something like a button, so that the suspended button can be picked up by the tails of twine on each side. If you hold the ends of the twine and toss the button in a circular motion, you twist the twine that can then be pulled taunt, and the button spins. Here Austin has substituted a ball of happiness – with pages that read "eat more pie," "travel far," "sleep late," "read a map," "buy shoes," "drink coffee,"throw a party." This Western version of the prayer wheel, Austin's ball is a happy spin of colors and words.
$225 (Last 3 copies)

Dreams
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia: Alice Austin, 2008. Edition of 30.

7 x 8"; 14 pages. Printed on a Vandercook SP15 using hand-set type on Zerkall paper. Illustrated with linoleum cuts. Bound in painted tyvek boards with cloth spine.

Alice Austin: "In dreams time is meaningless and my friend was as I knew her, years ago. Upon waking, she is gone and the idea of loss is multiplied, the loss of my friend, the loss of the past, and the loss of the possibility of connecting again. The book concludes with acceptance and a hopeful look to the future."

Susan Viguers, Director, MFA Book Arts/Printmaking Program The University of the Arts: "Dreams is a meditation on loss. Addressing first one who has died, then the self, then the reader, it moves from denial to acceptance to celebration. The words are printed on the verso, understated, suspended in space. We move from them to the images, which anchor us, some sinking off the page, elliptical and iconic."
$445

TIDES
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia, PA: Alice Austin, 2007. Edition of 20.

4” x 6” closed; 16.5 x 9.8" open. Handset type printed on Twinrocker handmade paper with a Vandercook proof press. Illustrated with linoleum cuts on paste paper, which has been folded and attached to a wallet-style case. Additional pamphlet (5 x 3"; 3 leaves plus covers) laid into the folded paste paper. The wallet has been slipped into a hand-knit linen thread bag, evocative of a shroud. Housed in archival box with paper title on spine. Text by the artist.

Alice Austin: “Tides is a book of memories both visual and poetic — a tribute to a loved one."

And in a Podcast interview with Steve Miller, May 24, 2008: "[My] latest book is a memorial to my mother-in-law. I was having such a hard time grieving….So, I made the book in memory of her. That really helped me in the grieving process....It required dark blue paper ... which I then turned into a very dark blue paste paper. Imagery printed in silver with a little booklet of words that I wrote to memorialize her but not her specifically because in my work I like to have universal themes. Everything has to do with my life but I don't want it to be specific. I want anyone to look at it and bring their own experiences to it."

Text: "memories of you / I carry with me / memories / you are gone / water washes away / carry me forward"
$600

Red, Yellow, Blue
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Alice Austin, 2000. Edition of 500.

3 x 5" closed. Printed offset lithography at the Borowsky Center for Publication Arts in Philadelphia. Three double pages pop-ups. Housed in matching paper open ended envelope.

An interplay of color and paper engineering — simple like a flower.
$40

Bloom
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Alice Austin, 2006. Edition of 15.

8 x 7" five pages with one double page pop-up. Paste paper monoprints extend in a long accordion with a central floral pop up. Printed on Rives heavyweight paper on a Vandercook proof press, using hand set type. Paste paper over boards with red cloth spine. Text written by artist. In an archival box.

Alice Austin: "When I was twenty-eight, I gave birth to my first child. 'Bloom' is a book in which the topic of birth is both pondered and expressed."
(SOLD/Out of Print)

COVID year
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Alice Austin, 2021. Edition of 10.

7.75 x 10.75" with 20 linoleum prints. Text in Garamond. Letterpress printed on Zerkall book paper. Ginkgo leaf end sheets. Hosta leaf cover. Housed in a clamshell box. Signed by the artist.

Alice Austin: "A book of 20 linoleum prints, is a presentation of pandemic thoughts and occurrences, with a focus on the seasonal plants from my garden.

"The current pandemic situation has an upside in one sense - more uninterrupted studio time, which allows more attention and continuity while working on projects. My garden has become a particularly welcome refuge and source of inspiration as spring unfolds and the flowers bloom — pandemic or not."
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Milk Butter Eggs
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Alice Austin, 2004. Edition of 16.

5.75 x 7.75" accordion structure. Cover is two etchings. Interior with four etchings on Rives lightweight. Foreground is relief printed on Mohawk coverweight. In archival box.

Alice Austin: "My book is a visual reflection on the repetition of the daily chores at my household. The cover is an abstract shape, perhaps a dinner bell, perhaps a feather duster, surrounded by a grocery list - the eternal milk, butter, eggs. The interior of the book has a foreground of the city block I live on - the endless row houses. When opened and set up, the book makes a geometric shape, a complete circle or a long line of all vertically oriented rectangles that echo the shape of the houses and the shape of the windows. Looking through the four windows you see the kitchen, then the laundry line and dishes (twice), and finally the view looking out of the kitchen while having a coffee break. The book is a quiet meditation on the routines of daily life. "
(SOLD)