Pie in the Sky Press ~ California
(Rebecca Chamlee)

CBAA: " Rebecca Chamlee is a book artist, graphic designer, printer, writer and bookbinder who has published innovatively designed, letterpress printed, hand-bound, limited-edition fine press and artist’s books under the imprint of Pie In The Sky Press since 1986. Like the self-taught naturalists of the Victorian era, Rebecca’s recent work examines the intersection of her artistic and scientific interests by collecting and cataloging the natural world. She is inspired to record, interpret and celebrate nature."

SFCB Shelter in Studio: Rebecca Chamlee / Pie in the Sky Press https://vimeo.com/466383551

Listen
By Rebecca Chamlee
[Simi Valley, California]: Pie in the Sky Press, 2024. Edition of 25.

Box:7.75 x 11 x 2 inches. "Listen: notes from the field", 5 x 8 inches, 72 pages. "Listen to the Corvids", 7.5 x 11 inches, 12 pages. Printed in the winter, spring and summer of 2023–2024 at Pie in the Sky Press in Simi Valley, California by Rebecca Chamlee on the Vandercook Universal III power press using handset Deepdene and Futura and assorted wood type on Zerkall text wove and Nideggen papers. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Included in the book are 15 letterpress printed bird portraits. The original photographs were shot out the studio window with a Nikon 850 with a Nikkor 500mm telephoto lens and printed in four colours using photo polymer plates.

The book is case-bound, covered in Dubletta book cloth, with printed Bugra endsheets. It is stored in a hinged box with a companion volume, “Listen to the Corvids” and includes an Audubon bird call.

“Listen to the Corvids” printed on Rives heavyweight paper with wood and metal type and photo polymer plates and sewn into a St Armand handmade paper cover utilizing a multiple pamphlet sewing.

Rebecca Chamlee: "Listen, notes from the field is a personal investigation into the sounds of birds; what the vocalizations mean and how they differ from bird to bird. Utilizing a ‘sit spot’ routine allowed the natural world to unfold before my eyes and ears in a way I’d never experienced in the years of exploring trails on foot in a nearby wildland park. In a comfortable spot in nature I sit, slow down and observe to discover the wonder in the moment."

I am an avid backyard bird watcher.
Away from home, I’m more of a bird listener.
I hear them everywhere.

$2,150.00

Dreams of Flight, the nesting season
By Rebecca Chamlee
[Simi Valley, California]: Pie in the Sky Press, 2022. Edition of 30.

24 pages, 6 x 10 x .75”. Flutter book structure with magnetic spine. Cotton cloud paper handmade to order by Tom Balbo. Endsheets of Hahnemuhle Bugra. Text paper is Wa-Mix Kozo and Clairefontaine Simili Japon with sewn-in wings of cloud paper and colored Bugra to match the birds. Suite of prints printed in four colors on 320gsm Izumi paper, enclosed in a handmade St. Armand paper folder. Book and suite of prints housed in bookcloth-covered clamshell box. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Rebecca Chamlee: "During the long months of isolation in 2020 and 2021, I began documenting the many birds that came to my backyard feeders and noted their unique behaviors. With a telephoto lens, I was able to record detailed and intimate images of my avian visitors. As often happens, the passion I felt for the birds grew into the idea for an artist’s book.

“’Dreams of Flight’, the nesting season is an interconnected story of three different species of birds that nested in my suburban yard during the spring nesting seasons of 2020–21.

“The book was created entirely at home. Printed in the colors of the birds on the Vandercook Universal III power press in the living room studio using Deepdene and 20th Century type with assorted wood type from the Pie in the Sky Press collection. The original images were captured through the window over the press with a Nikkor 200-500mm f5.6 lens mounted on a Nikon D850 camera and printed with photo polymer plates made by Boxcar Press.

“The binding is a flutter book structure, a type of accordion where the fore-edges of the pages are pasted together but the spine is not. A magnetic spine supports the backbone of the book and can be removed for reading and display.”

Birds included in “Dreams of Flight:
        Black Phoebe
        California Scrub-Jay
        House Finch

$1,250

Giant: a deity with leaves
By Rebecca Chamlee
Simi Valley, California: Pie in the Sky Press, 2019. Edition of 50.

Standard: 7.5 x 11"; 64 pages. Letterpress printing on the Vandercook Universal III power press using Centaur and Arrighi type, cast by M & H Type Foundry and Swamp Press, wood French Clarendon, and photo polymer plates onto Zerkall Book Wove, handmade Kitakata, and Korean Hanji papers. Botanical pages (contact prints) printed on Strathmore Aquarius II watercolor paper. Longstitch binding, sewn with hand-dyed Kinglet Cottage linen thread through a white oak spine. Bound in a cover of contact printed and dyed handmade Indigo watercolor paper. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Deluxe: Housed in 9.75 x 12.75 x 2.5" cloth-covered hinged box lined with Cave handmade paper. Set in a niche compartment is a Quercus lobata acorn. The acorn has been frozen for 12 months, baked for 8 hours then sealed. In a drawer with cloth pull tab is "Quercus", a suite of prints. Each print signed and dated. A standard copy of "Giant" resides in a compartment with a ribbon lift pull.

Rebecca Chamlee: "A huge Valley oak has stood in Corriganville Regional Park for over 400 years. This is the story of how, on countless visits for more than twenty years, the great oak has become a cherished and prominent presence in my daily life. I have experienced the old tree as its leaves undergo seasonal changes and finally drop to cover the ground. I have watched season after season as spring flowers give way to plumb acorns. Beside the imposing tree, just outside its broad canopy, vulnerable seedlings have appeared and grown into sturdy saplings."
$850 Standard
$1,350 Deluxe

A Reason of Water
By Barbara Maloutas
Simi Valley, California: Pie in the Sky Press, 2011. Edition of 30.

6.25 x 9.5"; 18 pages. Printed on a Vandercook 4 flatbed cylinder press from Frank Hein's Tribute type, assorted wood type, and linoleum cuts. Printed on Rives heavyweight paper. Sewn Board Drum Leaf binding with a cloth spine. Boards covered in pastepapers made by the binder. Signed by poet and artist.

Rebecca Chamlee: "Barbara Maloutas’ poem A Reason of Water is a poetic and visual exploration of the poet/book artist as archivist. Practical Housekeeping, a 1883 publication that holds tried and true recommendations covering everything from the latest household gadgets to instructions on how to revive a drowning victim, provides some of the words and phrases in the lyrical prose poems.

"The 'cuts' (illustrations) from Practical Housekeeping that occasionally migrate into the pages are rendered as abstracted forms along with the text of the poems and pulled phrases. The objects are lightly used and repetitious enough to suggest the playfulness of the modern woman, who might do well to learn some of the determination, craft, and skill of a plucky 1883 housewife (to whom Practical Housekeeping is dedicated). Pulling words or phrases from the poems is a way to create interest and hierarchy on the page and with the very non-hierarchical poems and provide another method of working and presenting a new archive."

The PIP (Project for Innovative Poetry) Blog: "In 1988, [Barbara] Maloutas began teaching design and typography at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, and in 1996 became Assistant Chair in the Communication Arts Department. She started writing during the years she was studying design in Basel, Switzerland, and in 1994, while working at Otis and attending classes there, she had begun writing poetry and composing artist books. Her work has been published in several journals, including American Tanka, Aufgabe, Free Verse, Segue and Tarpelin Sky. Her first book of poetry, In a Combination of Practices was published by New Issues Press, and a chapbook, Practices, was published by The New Michigan Press."
$250

study for the possibility of hope
By Dennis Phillips
Simi Valley, California: Pie in the Sky Press, 2010. Edition of 25.

6.5 x 6.5"; 36 pages. Handbound and printed on a Vandercook 4 and Vandercook 219 from Goudy Old Style, Futura wood type, and photopolymer plates on Somerset Book Wove paper. Cloth case binding with the text block sewn on ramie tapes into a Bugra concertina. Lettered copies are bound in full goat leather. A limited number of printer's proof have been left in sheets for bookbinders.

Rebecca Chamlee, blog: "Paul Vangelisti [poet, editor, educator] writes, 'Dennis Phillips, in study for the possibility of hope, embarks on a speculative and finally optimistic version of the pastoral, examining the poem’s (and our) place in the natural world. As he was also at the time working on his novel Hope (Green Integer, 2007), one can’t help noting the aptness of some of the poet’s musings in relation to that other world of language. For the poet, Hope becomes both a device and a destination: ‘a boat moored in a glassy cove.’ In this book, with ‘slow surface,’ its careful and often droll meanderings, Dennis Phillips shows himself to be a poet’s poet, a true, in Heidegger’s words, ‘shepherd of Being.’ The images of native California plants and the San Gabriel Mountains on double gatefold spreads reference the view from the poet’s porch where the poems were conceived.”
$300 (numbered copy)

Azusa: a Sequel
By Paul Vangelisti
Simi Valley, California: Pie in the Sky Press, 2009. Edition of 30.

6.5 x 10"; 44 pages. Printed on a Vandercook 4 hand-operated flatbed cylinder press on Rives Heavyweight paper. Text digitally set Seria Sans printed from photo-polymer plates. Of the edition of 30: 1 - 25 standard; 26 - 30 deluxe.

Standard: sewn on ramie tapes with printed endsheets, rolled endbands, cloth Bradel case binding with a printed label.
Deluxe: full leather case binding, text block sewn on cords with printed endsheets and handsewn silk endbands.

Poets & Writers: "Paul Vangelisti is the author of twenty books of poetry, as well as being a noted translator from Italian. Most recently, Days Shadows Pass was published by Green Integer in 2007. His and Lucia Re’s translation of Amelia Rosselli’s War Variations (Green Integer, 2005) won the 2006 Premio Flaiano in Italy and the 2006 PEN-USA Award for Translation. From 1971-1982 he was co-editor, with John McBride, of the literary magazine Invisible City and, from 1993-2002, edited Ribot, the annual report of the College of Neglected Science. Vangelisti is chair of the Graduate Writing program at Otis College of Art & Design."

An alphabet book of poetry by Vangelisti printed by Rebecca Chamlee.

another porch light burning ....

busted, cracked the mirror ...

zounds, you exclaim ...

$275 standard (Last 4 copies)
$750 deluxe (Last Copy)

Further Apocrypha
By Ray DiPalma
Simi Valley, California: Pie in the Sky Press, 2009. Edition of 40.

5.5 x 10.75"; 52 unnumbered pages. Printed on a Vandercook 4 flat bed cylinder press from digital 12 point Centaur and 24 point Arrighi types.
Collages by the poet using photo polymer plates on Zerkall Nideggen paper. Sewn on ramie tapes with printed Hahnemuhle Bugra endsheets. Of the edition: 35 standard, 5 deluxe. Standard copies with a quarter cloth case binding with sides covered in pastepaper made by the binder and an inset printed label. Deluxe copies bound in full leather with embossed airplane image on front cover in cloth covered clamshell box with embossed airplane images on cover.

Rebecca Chamlee: "Further Apocrypha contains twenty-seven previously uncollected poems written by Ray DiPalma between 1993 and 2009. These writings, both sensuous and lyric in their philosophic concerns, reflect what has often been noted as DiPalma's finely tuned ear and his preoccupation with testing the limits of language and form. Six of his original graphic works accompany the poems."
$325 standard
$550 deluxe (Last Copy)

Young Manhood of Dave Chamlee
By William Zane Chamlee
Simi Valley, California: Pie in the Sky Press, 2008. Edition of 10.

6.5 x 9.375 x 1"; 40 unnumbered pages. Printed on a Hewlett Packard 9180 with archival ink. Type: Tribute, designed by Frank Heine. Bound in orange pastepaper with brown kangaroo leather spine. Housed in burnt orange cloth covered clamshell box with marbled paste paper lining.

Colophon: "This book marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the death of my father, William Zane Chamlee, the author of this story. At the same time, I hope to honor the memory of Floyd Chamlee, my father's first cousin, who died in July 2008. An excerpt of a letter written by Floyd is quoted in the foreword. "

Rebecca Chamlee: "... a book about my great grandfather told by my father in a Humanities term paper he wrote when he attended Claremont Men's College in the '50s."

A bildungsroman, pardner. After minimal background on young Dave Chamlee, the majority of the book recounts his years as a cowboy in Texas —gunfights, boots, and cowboy hats.
$225

my partial tongue
By Martha Ronk
Simi Valley, California: Pie in the Sky Press, 2011. Edition of 25.

9.25 x 13.5"; 40 pages. Letterpress printed on Rives BFK paper with 14 point, 36 point and 72 point handset Bodoni. Images printed from multiple photo polymer plates in tight registration. Bugra endsheets. Rolled leather endbands. Bound in the separate board style with the text block sewn on ramic tapes. Boards covered in paste paper with a goat leather spine.
Design, photography, hand typesetting, presswork, paste papers, and binding by Rebecca Chamlee. Signed by the poet and artist.

Rebecca Chamlee: "my partial tongue by poet Martha Ronk uses phrases from an essay on gardens and plants by Sir Thomas Brown, a 17th-century essayist who wrote about the order in nature. The poems have a great deal of space in them, space suggestive of what is missing and of silence, and reflect a feeling of distance from the natural world that seems to be disappearing. ... I created photographs of plants and feathers that reflect the content of the poems. The images were digitally manipulated and separated then printed in tight registration on Rives BFK."

The images are listed here with botanical name and/or common name and the corresponding poem. All flowers are found in Chamlee's garden.

"Or" - Antheropeas or Woolly Daisy
"By parallaxis" - Common Pheasant (hen) tail feathers
"My partial tongue" - Pole bean seedlings
"The particular state wherein you reside" - Blue and gold macaw feather
"The stalks of mint" - Spearmint
"Alpines" - Gaura or Lindheimer's Beeblossom
"The fold" - Viola or Johnny Jump Up (occasionally Jolly Jump Rope)
"Refusal" - Jasmine Polyanthus or Pink Jasmine
"The bittern" - Guinea fowl feathers
"Incision" - Rose or Ballerina
"Indistinguishable" - Erigeron or Santa Barbara Daisy
"Position" - Cranesbill or Bleeding Heart
"Sound" - French Lavender
"Tendrils" - Wild Cucumber (also known as Manroot)

Martha Ronk (1941) graduated from Wellesley College, and Yale University with a Ph.D. She taught at Colorado University, Otis College of Art and Design, and Naropa University Summer Writing Program. Presently she is Professor of English at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Martha Ronk has published 7 books of poetry. This is the first publication of this set of poems.
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Vanity
By Rebecca Chamlee
Los Angeles: Pie in the Sky Press, 1988. Edition of 25.

l4.75 x 10"; 12 unnumbered trapezoidal pages in which the top edge has been trimmed on an angle. Accordion structure. Text composed in Spartan, Futura, and Baskerville types. Printed on Roma paper. Zinc cuts colored using a letterpress method developed by Dikko Faust of Purgatory Pie Press. Written, designed and bound by the artist. Bound in cloth covered boards.

From Chamlee's Seven Deadly Sins series.

The narrator [Chamlee?]: "What I can't master I disdain." She decides "after 34 year of relative inactivity and about 20 years of cigarette smoking" to become a bicycle racer. Vanity, vanity, all is …
(SOLD)