Lauren Emeritz~ Washington D.C.
(Abstract Orange)

Abstract Orange Press is run by Lauren Emeritz, a graphic designer, letterpress printer, and book artist. She creates prints and books by hand using a Vandercook press and wood type, including type she designs and carves herself.

Civil Rights Act of 1964
ByLauren Emeritz
Washington DC: Abstract Orange, 2024. Edition of 20.

7 x 11"; 12 leaves (Title page plus 11 loose leaves). Text printed in dark green ink on lightweight chipboard. Page number printed in bright orange lower right of each card. Housed in wrap around jacket of neon green paper with title printed on cover in dark green. Velcro closure. Signed and numbered on the back by the artist.

This piece is printed and designed by Lauren Emeritz and is based on the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). This federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, and religion in employment, education, and access to public facilities and public accommodations. Each sheet has brief text or “sound bites” addressing the provisions within the Civil Rights act.

Equal Voting Rights
Equal Access to Public Accommodations
Access to Public Facilities
Access to Public Education
Expand Civil Rights Commission
Equal Access to Federal Programs
Equal Employment Opportunities
Compile Voting Registration & Data
Move Civil Rights Cases to Federal Courts
Create the Community Relations Service
Legal Procedures for Civil Rights Violations

$1,200

Water
By Lauren Emeritz
Washington DC: Abstract Orange, 2024. Edition of 20 variants.

7 x 11"; 48 pages. Letterpress printed on handmade paper. Bound in paper covered hard boards. Signed and numbered by the artist. Designed and printed by the Lauren Emeritz.

Lauren Emeritz: "Following my ‘Earth’ book, I decided to make a book about another classic element: water. I learned paper-making, a process that uses a lot of water, so the book would use water as the previous book used UV light. The primary blue text in the book follows the flow of water in nature, from raindrops to streams, to rivers, to oceans, and back to the shore. That text overlaps distorted orange type representing other negative aspects of water, such as floods, acidity, disease, and drought. The work is meant to evoke the beauty of water, problems that arise from water, and how these things shape our lives.

“The book … uses mineral spirits to dilute the orange ink, creating a painterly effect (inspired by the work of Helen Frankenthaler). The handmade paper in the book was painted with a blue paint wash. It is primarily cotton paper but uses some recycled fibers as well."
$1,500

Corita Rules!
By Lauren Emeritz
Washington DC: Abstract Orange, 2022. Edition of 45.

5 x 7"; 8 panels, unpaginated. Letterpress printed using handcut wooden type. Accordion fold extending from the front foredge of cover. Initialed and dated by the printer.

A book by Lauren Emeritz which is inspired by the work and rules of Corita Kent (1918 -1986). Kent’s “10 rules for students, teachers, and life” can be found at www.genuis.com.

www.corita.org: "Corita Kent, also known as Sister Mary Corita, was an artist with an innovative approach to design and education. By the 1960s, her vibrant serigraphs were drawing international acclaim. Corita’s work reflected her concerns about poverty, racism, and war, and her messages of peace and social justice continue to resonate with audiences today.”

In her homage to Kent, Emeritz uses bright colors in her papers. She pulls words from the ten rules and prints them in bold type -Trust, Experiment, Focus, Work, Create, Persist.
$200

SPACE: Known/Unknown
By Lauren Emeritz and Sarah Matthews
Columbia, Maryland: Matthews/Emeritz, 2022. Variable Edition of 14.

5.75 x 9”. Letterpress printing. Sewn binding. Pages created from the project prints. Each book in the edition has the same structure but the printing and inclusions are different. Handmade envelope on back interior containing information about the project. Band closure made of the prints. Signed and numbered by both artists.

Artist statement: "’SPACE: Known / Unknown’, is a collaborative project between Lauren Emeritz & Sarah Matthews. They explore the universe of book arts using ‘space’ as a metaphor and immerse themselves in the possibilities of letterpress and sculptural book techniques

“’SPACE: Known / Unknown’ incorporated hand-carved letters, Stars from Galileo's ‘Sidereus Nuncius’ (Starry Messenger), wood and metal type and printing blocks, to create a set of five prints. Three of the prints feature quotes … while the other two prints are abstract compositions of letters and stars. The prints are printed on French Paper Pop-tone Black using transparent white, silver, yellow, and orange inks. Emeritz & Matthews used a Vandercook Universal 1 and Vandercook 4T to print 200 copies of each print; 1,000 prints total.

“’SPACE: Known/Unknown’ then became a book art project. Emeritz & Matthews folded, glued, sewed, foil-stamped, die-cut, and bound the prints to create a multitude of book structures, including: Flag Books, 1-page Accordion books, Star books, Sewn books, Japanese Stab books, Roll books, and fishbone books.”

MCBA statement: “Emeritz & Matthews (E&M) use the form and function of letterpress printing and book arts as a vehicle to express their creativity. They tapped into their existing bookbinding knowledge and explored other unknown book structures. E&M researched Galileo Galilei’s book called ‘Sidereus Nuncius.’ Galileo’s charting and illustrating of the constellations inspired them. You can find the illustrations embedded within the letterpress prints that E&M designed and printed.

“Lauren Emeritz’s work explores making things by hand. She combines traditional and modern techniques to create bright, colorful pieces to bring joy to the universe. Lauren’s favorite color is orange, and she incorporates it in everything she does.

“Sarah Matthews’s work documents the struggles of finding answers to long-standing questions about race, equality, and gender and breaking through barriers while shining a light on social injustice. She loves to layer multiple forms of printmaking and creates artist’s books from those prints. Sarah’s favorite color is yellow, and she was excited to incorporate it into this collaboration.”
$800

HOPE
Words by Emily Dickinson
Book design and printing by Lauren Emeritz
Washington DC: Abstract Orange, 2021. Edition of 10.

5.25 x 7.25" paper covered box with one opening. Letterpress printed. Initialed and signed by the artist.

With this book Lauren Emeritz is using type and papercutting to visually express a line from a poem by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886). The poem was originally titled "'Hope' is the thing with feathers - (314)". Emeritz has printed the first two lines of the poem “Hope is the things with feathers / that perches in the soul” on the verso opening. On the recto side there is a one inch deep box that contains bright orange paper feathers.

The bright colors of yellow and orange does seem to fit with the idea of a brightly colored bird that lifts ones spirits. The analysis of the poem by www.litcharts.com says:

This poem is one of a number of works by Dickinson which work as a kind of extended definition, taking a particular word and casting it in a new, surprising light. Often, Dickinson does this through taking abstract concepts and applying concrete ideas or images to them—which happens in this poem by making "hope" into a bird. Of all Dickinson's "definition" poems, this is probably the most well-known. The opening line makes the poem's intentions clear—it will aim to explain how hope is like a bird, and why that connection is important in the first place.

$450 (Last Copy)

Declaration of Human Rights
Designed & Printed by Lauren Emeritz
Washington DC: Abstract Orange, 2020. Edition of 20.

28 x 18 cm; 31 cardboard sheets (Title page plus 30 loose leaves). Text printed in dark blue ink. Page numbers printed in orange ink on bottom right of each card. Housed in blue cardstock trifold with velcro closure. Tittle printed on cover in blue ink. Signed and numbered by the artist.

This piece printed and designed by Lauren Emeritz is based on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948. Emeritz printed excerpts from the Declaration with her usual attention to detail - color, type, layout and material. She created the prints by hand using traditional printing presses and typographic forms combined with some modern techniques. She begins with article 01 "ALL HUMANS ARE FREE & EQUAL" and ends with article 30 "NO ONE MAY DENY THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS".

The portfolio of prints is a testament to her internship in letterpress design at Hatch Show Print in Nashville, Tennessee in 2017. The Hatch Show Print has a history of printing broadsides with a style of simplicity, “the effortless balance between type size and style”.

EVERYONE IS
ENTITLED
TO THE SAME
RIGHTS &
FREEDOMS

$700

Leaves of Grass.
By Walt Whitman
Abstract Orange Edition
Washington DC: Abstract Orange, 2019. Edition of 36.

5.25 x 7.25" case bound box with foldout to form triptych. Text and image letterpress printed. Designed and printed by Lauren Emeritz. Signed and numbered by the artist.

"Leaves of Grass, Abstract Orange Edition" was published on May 31, 2019 in celebration of Walt Whitman’s 200th birthday.

Lauren Emeritz: “"The book explores ideas central to Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass including transcendentalism, or the inherent goodness of nature, and realism, depicting familiar things as they are. It captures both the complexity and simplicity of nature by juxtaposing dimensional paper grass texture and a quote about nature and wonder. The book is not a reprinting of all of Whitman's words but an art object that encapsulates the feeling of Whitman."

Although the box opens like a traditional book it becomes a triptych. The focus is the center which is a “shadow box” with several rows of cut green paper of various shades to resemble blades of grass. The box of grass is sided with a portrait of Whitman on the left with quote “All seems beautiful to me.” On the right is a quote from “Song of Myself” with a large 200 printed in the bottom right corner.
$650

Shapes
By Lauren Emeritz
Washington DC: Abstract Orange, 2018. Edition of 20.

5.25 x 7"'; 18 pages. Single sided accordion fold extending from the back pastedown. Colophon printed on back pastedown. Bound in gray bookcloth with title in orange gilt on front board and spine. In a protective stiff plastic slip case opening at the top. Designed, laser cut, letterpress printed and bound by Lauren Emeritz. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Emeritz has printed a colorful book of shapes using orange, blue, and black inks. Each shape is displayed twice on facing pages. The left side shows the image in white with color background in ink. The right side shows the shape printed in ink with a white background. The seven shapes and colors are:

Circle – Orange
Square - Blue
Triangle – Orange
Arrow – Gray
Heart – Orange
Star – Blue
Hand – Orange

$375 Standard
$100 Miniature

Hand Carved Numbers
By Lauren Emeritz
Washington DC: Abstract Orange, 2017. Edition of 20.

5.25 x 7"; 24 unnumbered pages including back pastedown. Accordion structure extending from the back pastedown. Four upward fold out double pages. Drawn, hand-carved, designed, printed and bound by Lauren Emeritz. Letters carved out of linoblock, pine and basswood. Letterpress printed using a Vandercook on Strathmore printmaking paper. Bound in blue cloth covers with title in red gilt on front cover. Signed and numbered by the artist. Fine.

Lauren Emeritz: "When I letterpress now, I use a combination of techniques. For small text and logos I usually use polymer. For hand-drawn type I usually carve linoleum or wood blocks. Each process has its advantages and I try to be intentional in my process, using the one that will best suit my goals for the project.."

For this project Emeritz used hand carved numbers. One number (from 1-9, followed by 0) is printed from a hand-carved letterpress block on the recto of each page. Numbers are printed in orange, blue, black and blind. A line of squares in the corresponding number is stamped in blind on the verso of each page for numbers 1-9."
$375

Hand Carved Numbers [Miniature]
By Lauren Emeritz
Washington DC: Abstract Orange, 2017. Edition of 100.

1.75 x 2"; 24 unnumbered pages including back pastedown. Accordion structure extending from the back pastedown. Drawn, hand-carved, designed, printed and bound by Lauren Emeritz. Letter press printed. Case bound in blue cloth with title in orange on cover and spine. Signed and numbered by the artist.

This is the miniature version of Lauren Emeritz’s larger format edition of numbers. One number (from 1-9, followed by 0) is printed from a hand-carved letterpress block on the recto of each page. Numbers are printed in orange, blue, black and blind. A line of squares in the corresponding number is stamped in blind on the verso of each page for numbers 1-9.
$100

Hand-Carved Alpha-Bet.
By Lauren Emeritz
Washington DC: Abstract Orange, 2016. Edition of 20.

5 x 7”; 29 leaves with the 29th as the back pastedown. Accordion format extending from back pastedown. Drawn, hand-carved, designed, printed and bound by Lauren Emeritz. Letters carved out of linoblock, pine, basswood and plywood. Letterpress printed using a Vandercook on Lettra 200 paper. Bound in orange cloth with title stamped on front top right corner of cover. Colophon printed on rear pastedown. Signed and numbered by the artist.

In blazing orange Emeritz created an alphabet by hand carving the letters then printing on her Vandercook press. She printed using her favorite color of orange with each letter having its own page.

Lauren Emeritz: "I live in DC, so there is lots of cool artsy stuff. I love the Smithsonian Art Museums, the National Gallery of Art, the Library of Congress — they have so much amazing art and printed pieces! The Library of Congress was on my bucket list for a number of years. I finally made it there for an American Printing History Association (APHA) event. It was awesome and now I try to go back every couple of months.

"I made a Hand-Carved Alphabet book that I sold to the Library of Congress. ,,, It was one of the most exciting and validating events in my life. I started the project several years earlier without any particular goals or directions. Through a series of events, the book ended up in a show on a table next to works by Edward Gorey and Frederic Goudy! As a type nerd, Goudy has a special place in my heart!"
$500

Hand-Carved Alpha-Bet [Miniature]
By Lauren Emeritz
Washington DC: Abstract Orange, 2016. Edition of 300.

29 pages; 1.75 x 2”. Case-Bound. Accordion extending from the back pastedown. Mulberry paper hinges. Letterpress printed. Bound in orange cloth boards with title on front cover. Signed and numbered by the artist.

This is the miniature version of Emeritz’s large format edition of “Hand-Carved Alpha-Bet”. As with the larger version the miniature alphabet book was printed with letters that were hand carved in wood by the artist. Each letter is a capital letter printed in orange.
$100

Earth
By Lauren Emeritz
WLauren Emeritz Washington DC: Abstract Orange, 2023.
Edition of 20 variants.

7 x 11”; 20 pages (unpaginated). Cyanotypes with letterpress-printing on BFK Rives. Text in bright orange printed on a blue background with illustrations in white. Exposed Book Board Cover with bright orange spine with title in blue. Cover in blue with bright orange title. Drum leaf finding.

Abstract Orange: "’EARTH’, the latest work by Lauren Emeritz, uses Cyanotypes and Letterpress-printed text on BFK Rives to express a message from the Earth to the humans who inhabit it. The foreboding message creates urgency around climate change and its impact on humans. The book structure is a drum leaf binding allowing the images to fill the spreads. The BFK paper with torn edges and exposed book board cover creates an elegant but raw feeling. The artist created the cyanotype images using natural elements, plastic, and UV light. "

Dear Humans
Although my climate is changing I am not worried
I will survive
You will battle for resources
Or drown or Freeze or Starve

(SOLD/Out of Print)