Blue Heron Press ~ Nebraska
(Karen Kunc)

Corruption
Poem by Srikanth Reddy
Images by Karen Kunc
Lincoln, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 2021. Edition of 25.

8.25" x 5.75" closed, 8.25" x 11.5" open; 26 pages. Photopolymer relief plates and handset letterpress type on artist-made cotton paper with pulp painting. Folded pages encased in covers of handmade paper with a woodblock printed blend. Bound with a long-stitch. Signed and numbered by Kunc.

Blue Heron Press: "The poem ‘Corruption’ is by Srikanth Reddy, used with permission, from his book ‘Facts for Visitors’ (University of California Press, 2004). He weaves oral recitation into speculation on manuscript traditions and the inevitability of ephemeral life. Artist Karen Kunc is the calligrapher, papermaker, and bookmaker, using images all derived from her ink drawings on found book pages. The physical layers of ink over stain residue creates in effect a palimpsest, offering a poignancy and dry humor to the eternal cycle."

“… The present is a word for only those words which I am now saying.”

$400

Release
Poems by Wassily Kandinsky
Book design by Karen Kunc
Lincoln, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 2020-2021. Edition of 25.

7" x 4" closed, extends to 56"; 16 pages. Etching, woodcut and letterpress on various Japanese Nishinouchi papers, and artist-made blue kozo. Accordion fold structure. Housed in a folder of blue silk moire covered boards. Handset Century, 14 pt type. Printed, bound and published by Blue Heron Press at Constellation Studios, Lincoln, Nebraska. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Karen Kunc: " Release evokes the inexorable tension of our times and the realization of irrevocable change. This work is a visual metaphor of transition and a memorial to our loved ones passed. "

The poems are from Wassily Kandinsky's Sounds (Klange) originally in German, published in a livre d' artiste in Munich in 1912. Translated by Elizabeth R. Napier, Yale University Press, 1981
$750

A Year
By Karen Kunc
Lincoln, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 2019. Edition of 12.

7.125" x 4.25 closed, extends to 26"; 6 pages. Etching and letterpress on Fabriano Zecchi yellow paper. Accordion folded into a Cave Paper teal folder. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Karen Kunc: "I cracked my right arm at the end of October — I fell off my bike in a slow motion fall onto my outstretched right arm…! - and so could not do my big woodcuts, or much printing for a while, so I worked on these small copper plates. I could draw with small marks and the details, and really enjoyed the change of pace. Of course I recovered quickly in about 4 weeks, and printed these at the end of 2018, and of course, thinking of the turn of the seasons and year at the time.

"The letterpress 'text' is a visualization of dialogue or poems, with a flow and growth pattern suggested. The series ends with the landscape of the kite caught in a tree … or the inevitable balance between manmade and nature, that is a subtext to my work."
$240

Type Cities
By Karen Kunc
Lincoln, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 2018. Edition of 8.

7.5 x 4.5" closed, extends to 53". Accordion structure. Letterpress on handmade paper. Covered boards. Paper title label inset on front board. Signed and numbered by the artist.

The text is an excerpt from Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities describing Aglaura:

The city that they speak of has much of what is needed to exist whereas
the city that exists on the site, exists less.

Invisible Cities, conversations between an aging Kublai Kahn and Marco Polo, is a collection of 55 short descriptions of fantastic cities. Aglaura is one of those.

Invisible Cities: "So if I wished to describe Aglaura to you, sticking to what I personally saw and experienced, I should have to tell you that it is a colorless city, without character, planted there at random. But this would not be true either: at certain hours, in certain places along the street, you see opening before you the hint of something unmistakable, rare, perhaps magnificent; you would like to say what it is, but everything previously said of Aglaura imprisons your words and obliges you to repeat them than say. Therefore, the inhabitants still believe they live in an Aglaura which grows only with the name Aglaura and they do not notice the Agalura that grows on the ground."
$200

Treatyse
By Karen Kunc
Lincoln, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 2017. Edition of 30.

9 x 6"; 6 pages. Accordion structure. Etchings printed in black, polymer relief in grey, and pochoir accents in color. Printed on artist-made watermarked paper of linen and cotton. Accompanied by a tipped-in poem in handset type on woodblock printed vermillion Japanese paper. Bound by the artist into covers of Cave paper-covered with spine of silk bookcloth. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Karen Kunc: "This book is a hybrid form in process and media that grafts and compiles vignettes alluding to historical texts on gardening. The images are graphically vibrant, with inherent energies and rhythmic flow of natural progressions and ornamentation, suggesting the 'tree of life,' twinning vines, the philosophers stone, and cascading floral abundance. Between are 'horror vacui' spaces of text-like swirls and watermarked light writing. Minimal color gradations highlight the structure and flow of the book; white dots & circles activate the eye and serve as attention points and an alternative language of hand marks or notations. All brings to mind gatherings of illuminations on specialized knowledge and 'natural magic.'"

The poem is by Karen Kunc in a stream-of-consciousness style. Colophon: "Treatsyse is influenced by 'A Gardener's Labyrinth' by Thomas Hill (born c. 1528) printed by John Wolfe, 1586, in London."
$950

Endless Eternal Elusive
Woodcut by Karen Kunc
Poem by Grace Bauer Lincoln, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 2016. Edition of 15.

11 x 3" closed, opens to 11" x 15". Woodcut on Nishinouchi paper. Letterpress on handmade paper of cotton/abaca. Handset type of Romulus with Cheltenham Italic. Sewn binding into flax covered boards with wood type title and silk bookcloth spine. Woodcut printed endsheets. Signed by the poet and artist. Numbered.

Karen Kunc: "A print of elemental forms and natural references inspires a poetic voice that questions and establishes metaphors bringing full circle to printed intent and layered meanings."
$600

Incessant White Noise
By Karen Kunc
Avoca, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 2013.
Deluxe Edition of 10; Trade Edition of 30.

Deluxe (Out of Print): 11" x 5" closed, 11 x 35" open; 13 folds. Woodcut and letterpress on Japanese Nishinouchi. Irregular accordion folding from front pastedown. Boards covered with etching & mixed media decorative papers.

Trade:11” x 5” closed, 11” x 35” open. Woodcut and letterpress on Japanese Nishinouch. Digital print on Asuka. Irregular accordion folding, into folio of covered boards with etching and mixed media decorative papers.

Karen Kunc: "The cantilevered folds of a looming structure have subtle visual cues that seep and inundate behind and within. This edifice is made vulnerable by the hype and chatter of rumor and echoes; it is permeated by the consuming, swirling network of insistencies – the distractions of the media world we have created - that penetrates our every hour...fascinating, fanciful, insidious, precarious. "
$300 Trade edition (7 copies remaining)

Ephemera
Poems by Robert Pinsky
Prints by Karen Kunc
Avoca, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 2009. Edition of 50.

6.25 x 10.25" closed, 10 x 42" extended; 12 pages. Accordion structure with gatefold center spread. Text letterpress printed in Cochin 11 point. Line drawing from photopolymer plates printed letterpress on a Vandercook 320. Woodcuts printed from birch blocks on a Takach etching press onto Japanese Nishinouchi paper. Bound into covered boards with decorative woodcut-printed paper and end sheets, and with a goatskin spine.

Blue Heron Press: "In words and images, micro-to-macroscopic layers of poignant meaning and memory are an intimately held and transient wonder, just as light melds recto and verso printing into one light-born envelope. Intimations are caught and lost in the act of reading, viewing, meditating, immersing. A fortuitous invitation from Longwood University, Virginia, pairs Robert Pinsky (Poet Laureate 1997-2000) and book artist Karen Kunc."
$950

Field Trip
Poems by Twyla Hansen
Images by Karen Kunc
Avoca, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 2002. Edition of 200.

6 x 6" square when folded, 94" when opened (and hung). Text typeset at the Bradypress in Nebraska.

This multi segmented book moves through nature's profusion, desiccation, and human encroachment, ideas which were explored in a collaboration between the two artists. This project was made possible by the Artist in Residence program at the University of the Arts. Kunc's vibrant color lithographs are on one side of the panels and Hansen's poems are on the other. This is an ecological treatise printed from polymer relief plates onto Daphne fiber paper from Bhutan.
$65

Truly Bone
Poems by Hilda Raz
Etchings by Karen Kunc
Avoca, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 1998. Edition of 50.

7.5 x 7.5” square closed; unfolds to 15 inches. Hand printing processes integrate layers of color from aquatint washes, deeply bitten skeins of etched lines, and letterpress typography. The images are etching, spit-bite aquatint and drypoint from multiple copper plates using sixteen colors on Italian Alcantara cream paper. Romulus type. Signed.

Words of self-reflection and revelation about physical mortality and the search for meaning. Kunc, in her intriguing style, creates a rich, tactile frieze of images which pulse with biomorphic abstractions, geometric permutations, and natural icons.
$500 ( Last 4 copies)

Sketchbook
By Karen Kunc
Avoca, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 1990. Edition of 18.

5 x 7", 22 pages, typeface Neuland. Woodcut and letterpress on a variety of Oriental papers, with hand coloring. Multi-color, sewn binding with brown Canson paper covers. Single words accompany photo line engravings. Printed on Japanese paper in bright and deep color overlays.

Colophon: "Sketching, testing ideas long held and discovering new -- watermarking handmade paper; superimposed overlays of woodblock printing; actual-scale drawings from letterpress engravings; hand embellishments and binding; pages of new history from old prints -- a stream of order -- entangled, surprising, incongruous -- a source book."

Karen Kunc: "Extremely colorful and rich, this book is composed of small, detailed drawings and small pieces from larger prints, creating a micro- to macrocosmic view of an intimate visual language. This is a personally revealing exploration of ideas and experimentation."
$500

Lore of Gold
By Karen Kunc
Avoca, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 1986-1987. Edition of 20.

6 x 9", 12 leaves, multi-color with sewn binding and blue hemp covers. Woodcut and letterpress on Okawara paper. Text in typeface of Garamont.

A pairing of early texts with Kunc's contemporary art. The text is taken from three sources: The Stone of the Philosophers, an undated 17th-century work by George Starkey; the Golden Tractate of Hermes Trismegistus (fourth or fifth century); and, Of the Nature of Things by Paracelsus (Theophrastus von Hohenheim) from 1650. All three concern the process of making gold.

"Now you shall understand that the Ancient Philosophers made division of the Water to separate it into four substances; one to two and three to one; the one third part of which is colour; which is a coagulating moisture; but the other two thirds are the Weights of the Wise.

“Take an ounce and a half of the humidity; and the midday Redness, the soul of gold, take a fourth part which is half an ounce. Of the citrine Seyre take similarly half an ounce. Of the Auripigment take half (which are eight) thus making a total of three ounces; and you must know that the Vine of the Wise is drawn forth in three, and the Wine of it is perfected in Thirty...."

Karen Kunc: "Text and full page woodcut illustrations alternate to create a vision and mystery surrounding the art of creation. Nature is animate within the medieval understanding and this contemporary imagery."
$500

Everything / something
By Karen Kunc
Avoca, Nebraska: Karen Kunc, 2001. One-of-a-Kind.

7 x 5 x 2"; 16 pages. Screenprint and gouache on wood pages. Exposed sewn binding. Housed in handmade box.

Karen Kunc: "This richly filled unique work evokes a reading of micro-macro landscapes. Throughout, simple declarative text plays with the idea of consequences. natural forces, from the specific to the universal."
(SOLD)

Evocations
Quotes from Hafiz
Avoca, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 2006. Edition of 25.

4.75 x 9.25" closed; extends to 108"; 19 pages. Accordion structure. Text printed letterpress from handset 11 point Romulus. Copperplate etchings. Printed by the artist.

Colophon: "From a distillation of museum visits worldwide, these classical gestures evoke the blessings and power inherent in the work of the hand. The poems are excerpts from the Sufi master, Hafiz (1320-1389), translated by Daniel Ladinsky."

Karen Kunc (from her general artists’ statement): "The book is a classical form. Its function is accepted, known. Its feel is familiar. My images within this form allow for a validity, a 'real'-ness, and 'right'-ness. It is like seeing the truth. This comes about by this acceptance of the knowledge in books and our familiarity with its form.

"But artists are also pointing out this tendency to blindly accept the printed page, and what is the meaning of so many words. Where do the words come from, who says them, and for what reasons? We all must be wise to real meaning, and important and meaningful experiences. And learn a willingness to follow curiosity and questions. The resource for all of us is within books and by reading, because so many voices exist, unclouded, within the pages of centuries. And when we 'read' the voice is inside ourselves."
(SOLD/Out of Print)

History Book
Text by Gao Xingjian
Avoca, Nebraska: Karen Kunc, 2002. One-of-a-Kind.

5.25 x 7.25"; 16 pages. Screenprint, watercolor, and etching on gampi paper. Includes collage and beeswax on brazilwood veneer pages. Pasted binding. Housed in decorative wooden handmade box. Leather tie closure.

Text excerpted from Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian, recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature in 2000, and translated from the Chinese by Mabel Lee.

Karen Kunc: "My work as an artist/printmaker addresses issues of the landscape and our natural surroundings as direct influences from my Nebraska heritage, my daily experiences and viewpoints in the landscape of the plains and from extensive travel, and as artistic interpretation and contemplation on larger issues of the eternal life struggle, of endurance and vulnerability, growth and destruction."
(SOLD)

O&
By Karen Kunc
Avoca, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 1991. Edition of 20.

6.5 x 6.25”. Relief and intaglio woodcuts on handmade Roma paper (dark red-brown). Letterpress on Nidegen with handcoloring. Sewn binding.

Colophon: "Woven wattle, wheat waves, hay rolls, fence rows, mangers, chutes -- malleable, entwined, shaped, sequenced permutations of shifting screens -- herein the true rococo of my mind, memory and Impatient Hand draws origin and symbol further."

Karen Kunc: “A visually and structurally, playful work of folded and shaped pages, that allow for multiple juxtapositions of images, color, line, open space and shifting screens. Symbolic suggestions of wind swept spaces, fence structures and natural forces as part of the artist's vocabulary are tactile elements for a powerful graphic statement. “
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Small Gifts
By Karen Kunc
Avoca, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 2004. Edition of 18.

5.5 x 3.5" folded; opens to 63", 18 pages, with color etchings and aquatints printed on handmade paper of grasses and cotton rag. Letterpress printed text. Accordion folded into covered boards.

Karen Kunc: "This richly colored and detailed book reflects the seasonal transition of light, and the arrival of life. The etchings were created and proofed by the artist while in residency in Finland with generosity of friends and gifts. The aura of a special mid-summer is captured - and literally etched - for a handled memory."
(SOLD/Out of Print)