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Emily Martin
~ Iowa |
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Emily Martin, About: “Emily Martin earned an MFA degree in painting, from the University of Iowa in 1979 and made her first artist’s books at that time. Martin joined the faculty of the University of Iowa Center for the book in 1998 where she teaches artists books, paper engineering, and traditional bookbinding classes. Martin makes limited edition artists books first as the Naughty Dog Press, now using her name only.” SFCB “From the Bench of Emily Martin” (July 2021): “Book artist and University of Iowa Center for the Book professor Emily Martin shows us her home studio and discusses some of her pandemic projects and how those have evolved into new ideas.” https://vimeo.com/572139924 |
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Clues series |
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Oscar Wilde: In Earnest and Out 13 x 9.25". Five volvelles. Letterpress printed using polymer plates on different shades of BFK paper. Each volvelle laid in paper folder. Enclosed in a cloth covered clamshell box. Signed and numbered by the artist. Naughty Dog Press: "A set of five volvelles portraying five faces of Oscar Wilde backing five faces of characters from Wilde’s play 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. The inner wheels turn to allow the reading of lines from the play and other of Wilde’s writings." Emily Martin, YouTube video introduction: "I became aware of Oscar Wilde in college when we studied him. He was celebrated in his time in the late eighteen-hundreds as a writer of all sorts in particular as a playwright. He was at the height of his celebrity when he was accused of being a sodomite. Sued and not only lost the suit but then was convicted for committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons under section 11 of the 1885 of the criminal law amendment act. And this act was not fully repealed in England until 2003. "'The Importance of Being Earnest' was one of his famous important plays. It is social commentary and very witty. It has a number of characters who trade lines with each other throughout the play. This artist's book is a series of volvelles in which Oscar and five of the characters from his play have a dialogue of sorts using lines from the play and Oscar's lines are all from other of his writings. "Oscar Wilde served two years in prison. He emerged in broken health, impoverished, and cut off from his family. He exiled himself to France and died three years later in November 1900. His plays have never been out of print and are regularly staged in theatrical productions and films. Oscar Wilde's pointed observations are as apt now as when he first put pen to paper." |
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Cross Words 5 x 3.5"; 8 leaves plus end pages. Printed from polymer plates made from rubber-stamped texts on a Vandercook SP15. Pamphlet bound in duplexed Bugra paper. Signed and numbered by the artist. Emily Martin: "This paper was given to me by Andrew Honey, conservator at the Bodleian Libraries, during my residency at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press in the fall of 2018. The full water mark says India, Oxford with a crest of the University of Oxford, and made in Great Britain. Andrew has very little information on this very thin and very opaque paper other than it was intended for the printing of bibles. I have wondered if it was intended for bibles to be taken to India by missionaries. At about the same time that I was given the paper, on the North Sentinel Island, [one of the Andaman Islands in he Bay of Bengal] administered by India, a Christian missionary was killed by members of the Sentinelese tribe despite strict prohibitions on outside contact. The Sentinelese are the only uncontacted tribe on earth inhabiting their own island. They are extremely vulnerable to diseases and social breakdown in the event of contact with outsiders. They have repeatedly made clear their desire to be left alone. … The end sheets were also given by Andrew Honey." The artist's 'cross words,' actually two or more words that cross at their shared letter(s) to look like a Christian cross, combine the intense xenophobia of the Sentinelese and the zeal of Christian missionaries. But the real glory of this small book is the paper – soft, thin, and strong. |
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Is That What You're Wearing?
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| Sweet Dreams By Emily Martin Iowa City, Iowa: Naughty Dog Press, 2010. Edition of 50. 4 x 5"; 20 pages. Printed on Rives Lightweight paper using inkjet and letterpress printing. Lithos Pro and Baskerville fonts. Hahnemühle Ingres deep green cover paper. Double pamphlet binding. Emily Martin: "A short story of my childhood sleep problems with assorted illustrated nightmares." In between lines of Emily's story are the comforting words: "Now I lay me down to sleep." $35 |
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| Unsupervised By Emily Martin Iowa City, Iowa: Naughty Dog Press, 2010. Edition of 50. 4 x 3"; 14 pages. Double-sided accordion. Inkjet printed on Mohawk cover stock. Marbled paper band closure. Emily Martin: "An accordion book with 5 colorfully dressed figures and a text discussing my clothing choices and how they have changed now that they are no longer being scrutinized daily by others." Text excerpt: "For most of my life I have lived with other people and most of them seemed to have some sort of opinion about the clothes I put on. ... Now in my fifties I live completely alone. For the first time in my memory I go around unsupervised. Since no one else is watching me I am starting to notice some things about my behavior ...." $20 |
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Sleepers, Dreamers & Screamers 9.5 x 7 x 2"; 12 pages. Accordion construction with five double page pop-ups. Printed letterpress with hard covers. First and last pop-ups constructed using assorted Asian, Western and dollhouse papers. Three middle pop-ups constructed using a handmade cotton and Philippine gampi paper made for the project by Bridgett O'Malley of Cave Paper. Text and figures printed in letterpress on BFK white and buff papers from polymer plates. Font is American Typewriter. Housed in cloth clamshell box with paper title on spine. Paper title label on front of matching cloth covered book boards. Emily Martin: “’Sleepers, Dreamers & Screamers’ was begun in 2001 and derailed by events of 9-11. The text was rewritten in the aftermath. The complete text is ‘We've all had nightmares. Vivid as they may be there is always that sweet release upon waking. But what happens when events in our waking lives surpass even our most horrific dreams. Where is our release now?’’ |
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| Many of Martin's works deal with everyday happenings around family and home. | ||
Out There In Here Two tunnel books (10.5 x 10.5" each) bound facing each other within two unconnected orange cloth-covered boards (outside dimensions 10.75 x 10.75 x 1.25"), which allow the tunnel books to be opened and viewed concurrently. Paste papers, ink transfer drawings, and laser printing on Mohawk Superfine paper. Images in the left-hand tunnel laser printed then colored using paste paints and fingers. Images in the right-hand tunnel made using an ink transfer monoprinting technique. Text laser printed. Laid in a cloth covered clamshell box. A double tunnel book allows two parallel realities to be presented simultaneously: the artist's mother, victim of dementia, exists "in other places and other times"; the family sees a different and more troubling reality. Emily Martin: "My mother has frontal lobe dementia. From the beginning her diagnosis was very troubling for her and the rest of the family. As time has passed and her dementia has progressed the family continues to note her deterioration and mourn her loss to us. She, however, is less and less aware of her changing state. She is more and more often in other places and times where she is busy and happy. None of us can follow her where she goes but there is nothing to be gained by trying to remind her of where she really is." Colophon: "I made this book in response to the call for entries from the Guild of Book Workers for the Horizon exhibit. Long before the exhibit call, I had been trying to work out a vague idea of inside and outside. I knew there was something there but it wasn't enough at that point. When I started thinking about who might be inside and then outside and why, it began to coalesce....This is not the first book I have done involving my mother, and it will probably not be the last. My mother has always been one of my biggest supporters and I thank her." |
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Siftings 11 x 6"; 70 pages. Printed letterpress and inkjet on Arches Text Wove in Gil Sans. Images pressure printed with hand-cut stencils. End sheets and cover paper Hahnemühle Ingres Camel. Bound using the Secret Belgian binding, a binding invented by Anne Goy of Belgium that she calls the criss-cross binding. The deluxe copies numbers 1-10 are sold out, copies of the standard edition are still available. Memory can be used as a counterweight to time. From the Colophon: "This book arose from my attempts to remind myself of my mother as she used to be. While she is still alive, she is much diminished both mentally and physically. It was not always so and I started to think of her when we were both younger." Siftings also reminds us that when we remember others, we are remembering ourselves. Emily Martin: "The text is a set of 50 short sometimes very short stories of events from my growing up. It started as a remembrance of my mother and expanded out to include my family, my neighborhood, my elementary school, and my nervous stomach." |
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Vicious Circle #6 5" diameter; flexagon rotating ring format. Printed letterpress on a Vandercook SP15 in two colors. Printed in Courier on safety orange construction paper from the French Paper Company. Enclosed in a paper wrapper containing the operating instructions and colophon. Emily Martin: "Each 'volume' consists of a leaf folded … to form a ring of three connected pyramids; continuous rotation of the ring reveals the text printed as single words on the sides of the pyramids." Hint - Suggest - Demand. She is ignored. Then the circle begins anew. Hint - Suggest - Demand ... |
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Fly Away 7 x 6 " closed, triangular accordion book printed letterpress, inkjet and pochoir on Sakamoto paper. A nontraditional variation of the Japanese double leaved album with an attached hard cover wrapped in Moriki paper. Three texts viewed two ways, as the page turns or as a series of hills and valleys when standing. Pochoir and inkjet printed text on Sakamoto paper. A new book from Emily Martin that muses on the sometime desire to flee one's life. The texts repeat over a yellow brick road, "There's no place like home", flight defined as running away, and the artist's 2001 essay on escape. |
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Slices 4 x 8" A letterpress printed carousel book constructed of Moriki paper and Thai striped paper. The text is printed on each of the twelve cake slices. Hard cover of book covered in Moriki paper with embedded magnetic strips to form the circular cake structure. An artist book produced in celebration of the artist's 50th birthday. Opening a pink doily lined cake box one finds a celebratory birthday book. The carousel book forms twelve slices of "cake" with each slice containing fifty words of text. A wonderful to celebrate one's "coming of age." |
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The Family Game 5.5 x 8.5" six page pamphlet on Mohawk superfine paper. Attached cover of Emerald Canford paper. Archival inkjet printed. Contains a colorful pop-up presenting the playing board. A game for all ages since everyone has a family of some kind. Subtitled "Lose just by playing."
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Away 3 x 4.25" closed; opens to 24". Accordion structure. Paper over board covers. Letterpress printed. Ah, summertime is here whenever you open this book. The three Rs are Relaxation, Recreation, and Rejuvenation. The text explores both the pluses and minuses of "getting away from it all." In a reverie of detail, Martin invokes the double-edged lure of the primitive, the cabin by the lake where there is "Nothing to do that you have to do" and "Newspapers are for lighting fires." Yet, eventually, we won't be able stand it anymore, that "chance to do nothing for a week or maybe two, but . . . not a minute longer." The back spread of this two-sided accordion is a continuous image of lounging swimming fishing reading vacationers. . I can smell the marshmallows burning! |
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| A bookwork from Martin's "It Isn't Always Funny" series | ||
How Can I Love You? 4.25 x 5.5"; 33 pages. A color Xerox slice book. Card stock with a green plastic comb binding. Emily Martin on her slice books: "I somewhat arbitrarily called them slice books, I think the form predated the Exquisite Corpse games, which did combine images but on intact pieces of paper. I had forgotten children's Mix and Match books, it certainly has weight as to the number of commercially printed books using that term for the form." Color xerox images from one of her series of bookworks: "It Isn't Always Funny." Pages are divided in thirds, one image per third, for multiple viewing possibilities. No text. |
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Yes Please, No, No, Never 3.5 x 3.5 x 1.25" closed, extends to 21.5"; 12 pages. Text weight paper wrapped around binders board bound with plastic straps. Color photocopied illustrations of original watercolors. Laid in origami box. Instructions and colophon tipped on interior of lid. Paper title tipped on top of lid. |
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| Clues Series | ||
Clues but no answers 11 x 14"; 9 prints. Images letterpress printed using pressure printing, polymer plates, and a linoleum block. Texts letterpress printed from handset Baskerville and Broadway type. Paper: Mohawk Superfine. Contained in a black cloth-covered portfolio with black elastic band closure and paper title on front. Colophon printed on back pastedown. Emily Martin: "A suite of nine prints organized as if casting a play, with three separate figures holding weapons of various kinds; three pairs kissing, dancing or toasting each other; three separate figures crying, sneaking or running; a crime scene body outline; and two different versions each of four different room settings. The title of the series is the same as the text included in each image, 'Clues but no answers.' "These various characters and settings are layered on the prints in a variety of combinations. There are two constant features, the text is always the same and the body outline is always in the lower left corner. The words and the images work together to suggest an ambiguous narrative. There is a cumulative effect to viewing the different images and texts that suggests different meaning, or stories depending upon the setting and also depending upon the viewers themselves." |
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It Didn’t Just Happen 9 x 6.5"; 12 pages. Accordion structure. Images letterpress printed using pressure printing, polymer plates, and a linoleum block. Text letterpress printed from handset Baskerville type. Paper: Mohawk Superfine. Paper case of Canford paper. Emily Martin: "An accordion book of images with overprinted text lines, working together to suggest an ambiguous narrative. The images are organized as if casting a play, with three separate figures holding weapons of various kinds; three pairs kissing, dancing or toasting each other; three separate figures crying, sneaking or running; a crime scene body outline; and two versions each of four different room settings." Text: "... there was no cause / but it didn't just happen "
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Who, What, Where, When 9 x 6.5"; 20 pages. Images letterpress printed using pressure printing, polymer plates, and a linoleum block. Texts letterpress printed from handset Baskerville type. Paper: Mohawk Superfine. Drum leaf binding with red cloth over boards and black over spine. Paper title label on spine. Emily Martin: "A drum leaf bound book of words and images on facing pages, working together to suggest an ambiguous narrative. The images are organized as if casting a play, with three separate figures holding weapons of various kinds; three pairs kissing, dancing or toasting each other; three separate figures crying, sneaking or running; a crime scene body outline; and two versions each of four different room settings." Text excerpt: "… there were clues / but no answers" |
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| Over the last several years Emily Martin has had a "love affair" with William Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies. Her interpretations place them in a contemporary setting. | ||
| Madness: Reading Hamlet in the Time of Covid-19 and Other Plagues | ||
By Emily Martin with intrusions from the world around me and William Shakespeare Iowa City, Iowa: Emily Martin, 2022. Edition of 25. Standard: 11 x 8”; 22 pages. Printed letterpress with polymer plates from Boxcar Press on Arches Text wove paper. Non-adhesive covers of flax and abaca papers made by Mary Hark for the outside and flax papers from the University of Iowa Center for the Book for the inside. Accordion structure. Removable spine to extend pages. Laid in cloth covered clamshell box with paper title on spine. Paper puppet inclusions printed on University of Iowa Center for the Book Chancery paper and costumed in papers of wheat straw, sisal, daylily fibers, and abaca paste papers made by Andrea Peterson. Signed and numbered by the artist. Basic: 11 x 8”; 22 pages. Printed letterpress on an SP-15 Vandercook with polymer plates from Boxcar Press on Mohawk 80 lb text paper. Drawings of puppets from trace mono-printing printed directly on to the text sheets. Non-adhesive covers in two colors of Tiziano paper. Accordion structure. Removable spine to extend pages. Laid in an archival corrugated box. Signed and numbered by the artist. Emily Martin: "’Madness’ was created during the pandemic and went through many forms before it became what you see here. It’s appearance and content are very much shaped by my time in isolation. Initially, I copied out the play ‘Hamlet’ by hand starting in March 2020 because I was too anxious to sit and read. I also was making paper puppets for companionship. The project kept changing as events swirled around me. I struggled to make sense of the project in a world gone crazy. The text is a crazy quilt arrangement of lines from ‘Hamlet’ and my writing on repeating themes of fear, disease, Black Lives Matter, Asian hate crimes, the insurrection, so much death and isolation. "The background pattern is made up of my renderings of tears, drops of blood, Covid-19 particles and bullet holes.” Text excerpt – Laertes (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3): “Be wary then; best safety lies in fear.” Emily Martin text: “In the quiet of isolation I hid in my studio, trying to ignore that I am living in a country that feels increasingly foreign to me. Who are these people? How can they believe all these lies? Has it always been this way and I am just starting to notice?” Text excerpt – Queen Gertrude (Hamlet, Act 3, scene 4): “O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!” Emily Martin text: “By the time this books is done, a million people will have died of Covid-19 in the U.S. More than 5 million world wide.” |
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Gertrude Has Some Questions 6.5" x 8.5", 6 leaves. Printed on Sakamoto heavy paper using polymer plates and pressure printing. Printed on one side. Loose sheets enclosed in a fabric covered folder with magnetic closures and paper title on cover. Signed and numbered by the artist. Emily Martin: "Many women have discovered as they get older that they become invisible. While it may be a relief to be spared certain unwanted attentions, it is disconcerting to discover that they have completely disappeared from general notice. Consider Gertrude, Queen of Denmark in Shakespeare's play ‘Hamlet’, she is more a part of the scenery, a pawn maneuvered by her husband and son, rather than an active player. Here is her turn at center stage and she would like some answers. “For those unfamiliar with the play ‘Hamlet’, I offer this very brief and very incomplete synopsis. Before the play opens, Gertrude's first husband, Hamlet's father, the King, is dead. Gertrude is remarried to Claudius, the King's brother. Within the play, Hamlet sees his father's ghost, believes Claudius is responsible for the King's death, murders another character having mistaken him for Claudius; and both berates and belittles his mother Gertrude. Claudius has his own series of deadly machinations throughout the play. By the end of Act 5, all the main players, except Horatio, Hamlet's buddy, are dead by stabbing, drowning, or poison." Questions that Gertrude poses – $300 |
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Order of Appearance: Disorder of Disappearance 9 x 10" gate fold. Letterpress printed during a one-month stint as printer in residence at the Old Bodleian Library, Oxford, England. Printed using hand-set Bell type, linoleum blocks, and P22 Blox on Mohawk Superfine. Pamphlet sewn on both spines. Bound with a duplexed Bugra paper cover. Signed and numbered by the artist. Emily Martin: "The germ of this project was the stage direction from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, Act III: Exit, pursued by a bear. This stage direction contains both the terror signified by this wild creature and the comic nature of its unexpected arrival and exit. The single direction was expanded to include a set of ten performers entering and exiting to various stage directions, including the front and back halves of a bear. The format of the book allows the viewer to control the order and tempo of the performers' arrivals and departures from the stage." |
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Funny Ha Ha / Funny Peculiar
$2,200 Set of Funny Ha Ha Paper Dolls |
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| Naughty Dog Press Out of Print Title: |
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| An Alphabet Derived from Abnormal Fetal Positions | ||
| By Emily Martin Iowa City, Iowa: Naughty Dog Press, 2015. Edition of 25. 4 x 4"; 28 pages. Accordion structure. Laser printed on Sakamoto Heavy paper with inclusions printed on Arches Text Wove paper and adhered with Goudy archival adhesive. Enclosed in a slipcase made of Sakamoto Heavy paper and UICB flax case paper. Signed and numbered by the artist. Emily Martin: "The letterforms were made with collage and manipulation of fetal forms from an illustration in the book Somatomia Andropologica, 1680 by Sebastian Christian von Zeidler for the Micrographia Exhibit, during the Scientific Books and Their Makers: A Symposium at the University of Iowa Center for the Book, Iowa City, IA. The text was written by the artist to accompany the fetal alphabet forms." (SOLD/Out of Print) |
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Crime and Romance 5.5 x 8.5"; 36 pages. Black-and-white xerox slice book [slice book is Martin's own coinage, see below] with text and images. Card stock with a black plastic comb binding. A book from Martin's "Eyes Were Watching" series. Each page is divided into thirds; each third holds an image or a connecting phrase (for example, "Suddenly it was revealed," "Later that same day"); images and phrases can be sequenced in a mix-and-match mode, giving multiple combinations and viewing scenarios. Much like an exquisite corpse structure. Martin:"I somewhat arbitrarily called them slice books, I think the form predated the Exquisite Corpse games, which did combine images but on intact pieces of paper." |
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| Desdemona In Her Own Words extracted from Othello by William Shakespeare and rearranged by Emily Martin Iowa City, Iowa: Naughty Dog Press, 2015. Edition of 10 + 2 proofs. 19 x 13" cloth-covered clamshell box containing 6 portfolios with single sheets laid in plus two single leaves for title page and colophon. Handset type letterpress printed and additional printing using assorted foams and adhesive plates, wire, pressure printing, and collographs. Interior illustration sheets printed on Sakamoto lightweight paper. Title, colophon, folder papers are Arches Text Wove paper. End sheets are duplexed Bugra paper. Numbered and signed on the colophon by the artist. Emily Martin: "Since 2011, I have been working with Shakespeare’s tragedies, reading and rereading the plays, distilling the themes. In this book I was exploring Othello with a particular interest in Desdemona and her appalling passivity. I extracted her dialog into individual words made into magnets and rearranged them to give her new lines to speak up for herself." Emily Martin, colophon: "To this modern reader Desdemona is dismayingly passive. I isolated her lines and made a set of individual word magnets so I could arrange and rearrange her words to see what else she might say. While I cannot make her say some of the things I wish she would, I found that in the time I have spent with her words I developed a greater appreciation for the language of the play. The result is this very short play consisting of a prologue, five acts and a coda. Some of the lines are addressed specifically to Othello, Iago, or the supporting characters Emilia, Cassio, and Brabantio, who I have taken to thinking of as a combined chorus figure and two lines are addressed to the worlds at large. This book is the second of a series of works using my re-ordered lines for Desdemona. " (SOLD/Out of Print) |
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The Flexagon Series 7.6 x 10.75" cloth-covered box containing five letterpress printed flexagons. 1) Inside Out or Denial is a Wonderful Thing: 6" square; continuous flexagon printed in two colors on Mohawk Superfine paper, enclosed in a folder with complete operating instructions. 2) Mid-Coastal: 5 x 10" tetraflexagon printed in two colors on French's cement-colored construction paper enclosed with an instruction card in a plastic sleeve. 3) Nice vs. Polite: 6 x 4" woven flexagon printed in two colors on Mohawk Superfine paper and enclosed in a plastic sleeve. 4) A Game of Fetch: 6 x 6" hexaflexagon printed in two colors on Mohawk Superfine paper and enclosed with an instruction panel in a plastic sleeve. 5) Where Ever You Go There You Are: 5 x 5" rotating ring format printed in three colors on slate blue construction paper from the French Paper Company and enclosed in a plastic sleeve with a paper wrapper containing the operating instructions and colophon. Emily Martin: "This series was started with an idea of the formats but no specific plan regarding the content. As it turns out the series functions as an odd sort of chronicle of the last two years." A pamphlet included in the set gives context to the events chronicled in each flexagon: long-distance relationships, commutes, inner dialogue, the death of a beloved dog and the end of a relationship, the power of friendship. |
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The House Detective, Abridged 7 x 4.25 x 2" of a series of graduating house shapes with Xeroxes of intaglio prints on Japanese paper with cut up detective novels on foam core. Accordion bound using Japanese screen hinges. An abridged edition of Martin's original The House Detective. |
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In One Ear: 8.5 x 5"; 12 pages. Pop-up accordion book. Computer printed on commercial papers. An event from childhood told from three points of view – that of the mother, the victim (Emily), and the sister (Carol) – set off by page placement and different colors of ink. The simplicity of the presentation is high contrast to the emotions and pain recounted. Young children playing doctor, using the axel from a toy car to give each other shots. Dr. Carol gives patient Emily a shot in the ear, breaking (unintentionally) the patient’s ear drum and damaging two bones in her inner ear. Confusion erupts. The patient is so young (2½) that she doesn’t know who administered the shot. Johnny O, young neighbor scalawag, is blamed. This is the truth that injured Emily carries around about the resulting deafness. She recites the story on cue. Years later with much, much trepidation, Carol confesses to Emily. Emily: “Oh that’s all right Carol. It’s no big deal.” |
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Juror #13 4.5 x 6"; 16 pages. Archival inkjet printed on Crescent and Canson papers. Pamphlet sewn pages and end papers with wraparound paper cover. Emily Martin in a simple way details the conflicting reactions one might have to serving on a jury. Each statement of the text is paired with another statement. The pages are laid out with one statement along the bottom of the page and the other upside down along the top of the page. The book has two fronts and can be opened from either end for alternative readings. Believing the defendant and not the cop is politically correct. Believing the defendant and not the cop is naive. |
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King Leer: A Tragedy in Five Puppets 13" x 7" x 6.75" boxed set. Four trays containing 5 puppets and a pamphlet. Materials and puppets: Bean Bag Puppet - cotton fabrics, pipe cleaners, embroidery floss, brass safety pin, copper wire, dried beans; Robot Puppet – Chancery paper, acrylic paint, sumi ink, dowels; Sock Puppet – White poly-blend sock made in China, cotton thread, buttons, seed beads, Chancery paper, acrylic paint; Jump Up Puppet – Chancery paper, cotton thread; Flapping Mouth Puppet – Chancery paper, MacGregor custom-dyed cotton paper, dowel. Letterpress printing and pressure printing. Arial Black font. Chancery paper, a blend of hemp and cotton, handmade by papermakers at University of Iowa Center for the Book. Pamphlet (colophon with sources for the quotations): 5.5 x 8.5"; 8 pages; in wrappers; signed and numbered by the artist. Emily Martin: "Five puppets in a boxed set, four of the puppets have quotations from our 45th and current president. The 2016 election results turned my thoughts to the character of King Lear and from there they descended to King Leer. If Hillary Clinton had been elected maybe I would have gravitated to Macbeth. I decided to use the President’s own words against him. "Happily, I had puppet knowledge to draw on. Over the last year, I worked out the full set of five forms. Each puppet has been made with the materials appropriate to their nature, three of the puppets are paper, one is cloth, and the other is a sock." |
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More Slices of Pie 9" diameter; 8 wedge shaped books. Inkjet printed on ivory 20 lb. text paper and cream Canson paper. Trimmed with wavy scissors. Typefaces: Century Gothic and Copperplate Gothic Bold. Wedges laid into aluminum pie pan, which is housed in clear plastic pie container with snap-on lid. This bookwork is based upon an earlier work Eight Slices of Pie (2002). Eight slices of comfort food containing family stories, bits of advice, and recipes: "First bite, last crumb" (introduction and colophon); "The eating crow pie" (Pie Shake); "Grandma's pie crust" (Recipe); "Me, Martha & pie in the city" (Peach Pie); "Todd's special pie" (Banana pie); "Not flan pumpkin pie" (Pumpkin Pie); "Heaven on earth pie" (Chocolate Ambrosia Pie); and, "Camp Van Vac pie" (Wild Blueberry Pie). |
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Mutually Exclusive A letterpress printed set of 5 magic wallets provoked by the events of 9/11 which address the cacophony of news reports, emotions analysis and opinions (expert and otherwise) that follow in the wake of any major news event. The righteous indignation and reciprocal intolerance, whitewashed by ideals from religion to political correctness, raise the question of personal belief. Using the magic wallet format, the books panels flip back and forth forming two opposing statements that reflect the slipperiness of forging a personal philosophy. Each of the texts has three layers, the pairs of basic statements in large type and the 10 sets of words from the Pythagorean table of opposites printed in transparent ink. The wallets are contained in a Japanese box wrapper with bone clasps made by Rosa Guimarae. Printed with the assistance of interns during an artist's in residency at the Center for the Book Arts in New York City. Each Wallet is 6 inches by 4 inches. |
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My Twelve Steps 6 x 6” Accordion fold. Letterpress printed. Paper over board cover. Signed and numbered by the artist. These are twelve steps for the recovering enabler. Twelve declarations, each beginning with the words "you can't," that draw a line in the sand and raise the speaker out of co-dependent patterns. The accordion fold book opens vertically to reveal a staircase, twelve paper steps imprinted on each face with text. Threaded with a linen rope, the half-inch steps can be pulled flat at the fore edge to close the cover. Threads are wrapped around two red beads on the front cover — eyes in a staunch face — for closure. A bamboo bar that pulls threads taut or dangles from them like the rung of a rope ladder invites the empathetic reader to pull himself up out of co-dependence. Hope is inherent in the symbol of the staircase, as is the recognition that change is incremental. |
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| Not a Straight Line By Emily Martin Iowa City, Iowa: Naughty Dog Press, 2011. Edition of 20. 2" x 2" x 8"; 268 pages. Letterpress printed on Rives BFK paper and stained with acrylic paint. Bound in covers made with moriki and University of Iowa flax paper. Each individual book is hinged together with walnut crackle paper from Cave paper. Comprised of 10 linked Coptic-bound books with one line of the text in each of the books. Housed in cream linen box with elastic closure. Not a Straight Line commemorates the burning of the ancient booksellers' street in Baghdad in March 2007. It was created as part of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Project, which was "A Call to Action for Letterpress Printers! To protest & commemorate the bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street, the centre of bookselling in Baghdad, on March 5th 2007." The project aims to re-assemble some of the inventory of the reading material that was lost in the car bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street.One complete set of the books from this project will be donated to the Iraq National Library in Baghdad. To read Not a Straight Line viewers must find their way along the linked books that turn this way and that, much as a meandering street would. (SOLD/Out of Print) |
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The Tragedy of King Lear 12 x 6"; 36 full pages, 5 semicircle pages. Printed letterpress on Text Wove paper using handset type, polymer plates from Boxcar Press. Pressure printing, collage, and paper engineering. Bound with covers of Grey Rives BFK Heavyweight using a packed single needle link stitch and linen thread. Encased in a cloth-covered clamshell box. Begun in 2016 and fully completed in early 2019. Signed and numbered by the artist. Emily Martin: "I began reading King Lear again after the 2016 presidential election. If Hillary Clinton had been elected maybe I would have gravitated to Macbeth. As I read and reread the play I tried to focus only on the themes of the tragedy. There are many differences between this play and current events but there are also some similarities. The vanity and folly of an aging man is a family tragedy. When that man is also the leader of a nation, it becomes a tragedy for the whole country. Each page spread has a question or observation that came to mind as I read. There is a quote from the play by one of the many main characters and then the characters involved interact in some manner related to the question. "I always think of King Lear as the sun and all the other characters orbit around him. Some of the characters have others orbiting around them too: Gloucester and his sons and the daughters with their husbands. The characters are not identified specifically but context makes clear who is who. "Many thanks to Laura Martin for introducing me to Man Ray's painting 'Hamlet' at the Cleveland Museum of Art. This in turn led me to the book Man Ray Human Equations {a journey from mathematics to Shakespeare} published by Hatje Cantz Verlag, Germany, 2015." |
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| The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet Excerpts from the play by William Shakespeare Iowa City, Iowa: Naughty Dog Press, 2012. Edition of 9 + 1 AP. 10.75 x 10.75 x 1"; 20 pages. Carousel structure. The text was letterpress printed onto Mohawk Superfine 100 lb Text paper. The images were made with an ink transfer monoprinting technique. The covers are printed on a handmade flax, abaca, and linen paper from papermaker Mary Hark. The book is enclosed in a clamshell box covered with Japanese book cloth with title on spine. Emily Martin, Colophon: "I made this book in response to the call for entries from the Bodleian Libraries and Designer Bookbinders for an international designer bookbinding competition in 2013. I have never made a designer bookbinding and I didn’t intend to start now but I entered this competition based on two things. First I heard Richard Ovenden speak at the 2011 Codex meeting and he emphasized that they wanted artists’ books for this competition. And second there was a pop-up in the call publication. "I selected the excerpts after reading the play a number of times, one line of dialogue to represent the story being told in each of the five acts. I had not remembered the chorus from previous readings and I have chosen to emphasize the timelessness of the play through repetition of the chorus and insertion of modern equivalents for Verona. I have also added a commentary of my own beneath the repeated chorus. "This carousel book uses a format that I devised to allow for scenes and separate text panels. The spine tabbing, also of my devising, functions both to hold the book together and to balance the thickness at the fore-edge." (SOLD/Out of Print) |
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Page last update: 09.04.2024
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