Purgatory Pie Press ~ New York
(Esther K. Smith & Dikko Faust)

Bob & Roberta Smith books
Insta-Book series
Collaborations with Susan Happersett
EK Museum Publications
Poetry and short story collaborations
Postcard series
Tessellation book section
Tracts & Toys

Flutterfly
By Susan Happersett
New York: EK Smith Museum, [n.d.]. Edition of 99.

4.5" x 4". Museum risograph Post Euclidean geometric sculptural artist book.

PPP: “Susan Happersett hand drew her algorithmically generated mapping drawing based on trapezoids. She calls it Trapezoidal Lace. Susan's structure is a Non-Euclidean. It forms a helix built from three rectangles folded to form equilateral triangles. EK Smith Museum Risograph printed Susan's drawings and they folded the books by hand.

“Please NOTE: Risograph printing is very delicate--try not to touch the printed pages, but handle this book by its edges.”
$77

Cartesian Lace Bricolage
By Susan Happersett
Brooklyn, New York: Purgatory Pie press, 2019.

23 x 38 x 18 cm. Materials: Ink, Paper. 5 volumes. Drawings and engineering by Susan Happersett. Artistic direction and design by Esther K. Smith. Letterpress handset type + die cuts by Dikko Faust. Numbered.

Susan Happersett: "The five sculptural books feature letterpress prints of my Cartesian Lace drawings in two size scales and a variety of overlapping configurations. The construction of these pieces incorporates a new syncopated intertwined double accordion structure that I have been developing over the past year."

Purgatory Pie Press: “’Cartesian Lace Bricolage’ is a collaboration between Susan Happersett and Purgatory Pie Press. This series of five limited edition letterpress artist's books features Susan's Cartesian Lace drawings. Two distinct tilings create a complex arrangement of patterns. Both tilings are grids of mappings on the Cartesian coordinate system (x, y, z axes). One is a bijective mapping, the other a non-bijective mapping. We cut and folded the prints to form a new book structure we invented: Syncopated Intertwined Double Accordions.”

Susan Happersett, Semantic Scholar, Cartesian Lace Drawings: "The author explores the genesis of her new series of mathematically inspired drawings. Based on mappings between sets of points on the Cartesian coordinate system, and combining multiple elements in a single drawing, the author creates hand-drawn patterns and tessellations with a lace-like quality. This is the story of how my interest in the visualization of network mapping lead to new artwork. Technical diagrams illustrate different types of mapping phenomena. Applying graphing techniques taught in high school math classes I illustrate these basic relationships, then proceed to layer and build lace-like patterns. This work creates a link between technical diagramming techniques like network diagrams, and the traditions of hand work like lace making. The developmental process for this new type of drawing began with the axes of the Cartesian coordinate system’s two-dimensional plane. I plotted the first few sets of points on both axes bounding quadrant I. Then I proceeded to map a point from the x-axis to a point on the y-axis using a bijective mapping, drawing a line segment to connect the points."
$1,000

Fibonacci Flower
By Susan Happersett
New York, New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 2006. Edition of 123.

7.125 x 7.125"; 10 pages. Progression of hand generated flowers presented in a combination accordion-and-sewn binding that displays the Fibonacci Sequence in action. Wrapped in a folded cardstock case printed with the same flowers. Weiss Roman, Sylvan, Gallia, Raleigh Cursive, Modern #20, and Derby types. Arches and St. Armand paper. Design and structure by Esther K. Smith; letterpress and hand typography by Dikko Faust; hand generated flowers by Susan Happersett.

Susan Happersett: "Fibonacci Flower is an artist book made up of letterpress prints of drawings. In each drawing I have mathematically generated a flower, using the Fibonacci Sequence to determine the number of petals in the outer ring of each bloom. On the first page there is one petal inside on petal. On the next page, the flower grows with a new ring of two petals. The next page [shows a] three-petal ring, then five, eight, up to 34 petals. Fibonacci Flower has a unique structure that is a combination of an accordion and a sewn binding, that allows the viewer to see two or three consecutive Fibonacci flowers at the same time."
$377

Infinity Remove
By Susan Happersett
New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 2004. Edition of 100.

2 x 9" with six accordion cut-out pages. Bound in orange silk covers. Housed in Blue Tiziano paper slipcase with orange and yellow titles. Drawings and research by Susan Happersett. Designed by Esther K. Smith. Hand typography and letterpress printmaking by Dikko Faust.

This lovely orange and blue tall book includes quotes from a number of famous and infamous people on infinity including Georg Cantor. Cantor, considered a mathematical heretic at the time, developed Set Theory and his now-famous fractal Cantor Set in the 1870's.
$377

No sensible magnitude is infinite.
                                            ~Aristotle

Space is almost infinite. As a matter of fact, we think it is infinite.                                ~Dan Quayle

I can't help it, in spite of myself, infinity torments me.
                                             ~Alfred Demusset

That which ... is not infinite is finite. - I experience true pleasure in conceiving infinity as I have, and I throw myself into it ... and when I come back down toward finiteness I see with equal clarity and beauty the two concepts once more becoming one and converging in the concept of finite integer.                     ~Georg Cantor

The Happersett Accordion
By Susan Happersett
New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 2001. Edition of 100.

3-D object of one paper Möbius strip in box (15 x 7 x 7 cm). Strip of stiff brown paper with black markings on one side and white markings on the other, creased into accordion folds and glued together at the ends to form a Möbius strip. Features black markings on one side and white markings on the other side of a brown strip, with 13 markings, or strokes, per grid square.

A Möbius strip, or band, is the one-sided surface that results from joining together the two ends of a long strip of paper after twisting one end 180 degrees. The new version of Happersett's Möbius accordion features black markings on one side and white markings on the other side of a brown strip, with 13 markings, or strokes, per box. A novel twist on the Möbius strip which Happersett describes as a Möbius accordion.

Each unfolded copy comes with a droll certificate of authenticity along with assembly instructions and the mandatory warning that the product is a mind boggling "Möbius device."
$377

Quartet
Box of Growth: Bloemen, Conch, Leaf, Twig
By Susan Happersett
New York, New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 1999. Edition of 89.

6.4 x 3"; 4 books. Each is one sheet, accordion folded and hand-sewn into handmade paper cover. All four booklets cased in a handmade paper enclosure. Johannot rag papers. Bloemen: Bernhard Gothic type; Conch: Kaufmann Bold type; Leaf: Modified, Globe, and Alternative Gothic types; Twig: Weiss, Sylvan, and Hamilton Post Oldstyle types.

Susan Happersett: "Many of the mathematical sequences in my work involve growth patterns. One series of drawings is based on the correlation between plant growth and the Fibonacci Sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,...) I have also incorporated binary code, explored self-similarity, and chaos theory. Through these drawings I hope to reveal the grace and balance in the mathematics of nature and technology."

Box of Growth is four handmade books, each about a particular occurrence of the Fibonacci sequence in nature: growth and decay patterns of sunflowers (Bloemen); the growth patterns of conch shells; the growth patterns of leaves; and the growth and decay patterns of twigs. The books use a visual language of grids composed of marks increasing in Fibonacci progression (1 line, 2 lines, 3 lines, 5 lines), arranged to represent patterns of growth and decay. All books use a similar abstract representation of the sequence, but each book uses different colors, fonts, paper textures, end papers, and layout on the final page — variation within pattern and repetition.
$1,597

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6x6x6
By Richard Tipping
New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 1999. Edition of 216.

6 x 6"; 8 pages. Accordion book. Handset wood and metal type printed on black museum board. Titles printed on front and back covers.

Concrete poetry by Australian poet Richard Tipping.

Richard Tipping, web site: "Richard Kelly Tipping was born in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1949 and studied in humanities at Flinders University. His doctorate from the University of Technology Sydney (2007) is titled Word Art Works: visual poetry and textual objects. He was guest editor for Artlink magazine’s special issue Word as Art in 2007. He has published five books of poetry. ... He continues to explore the physical qualities of written language, making art with words and getting poetry off the page and into the streets."
$166

The World at my Fingertips
By Donna Ratajezak
New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 1988. Edition of 150.

8.75 x 6.5", 16 pages. Letterpress printed on Rosaspina and Kitikata papers. Types: Bodoni, Bookman, Caslon, Franklin. In stiff boards with red and black folded over wrapper. Printed by Dikko Faust. Designed by Esther K. Smith. Signed and numbered by Smith and Faust.

Esther K. Smith: “It's short fiction-- a continuous text--we designed it to look like newspaper clippings, but it reads in a straightforward way-- (as does it's companion map, Travelog by the same author).”

Donna Ratajezak's Travelog was also published by Purgatory Pie Press.

$350

Lily Lou
By Holly Anderson
New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 1986. Edition of 200.

12 x 6"; 16 pages. Printed letterpress using Weiss Roman foundry type on Phoenix Imperial Paper. Profile printed in two-tone Purgacolor. Background printed from Dikko-made sandpaper. Bound in paper-covered boards with illustrated dust jacket. Signed by Anderson.

Lily Lou is a quirky tale about a 17-year-old girl who vomits sand but is cured from that affliction when she loses her virginity.

Holly Anderson is a New York poet and writer.

$125

Purgatory Subscription
(Purgatory Toys)
By Judy Hoffman; Harvey Redding; Susan Happersett; Stephanie Brody Lederman; Chris Collicott
New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 2001. Edition of 150.

9.5 x 6.75" folded wrapper that holds the five toys in individual tabs made into the paper.

Five toys in the set:

Buggy Night by Judy Hoffman (1999)

 Miss Manageability by Harvey Redding (2000)

The Happersett Accordion by Susan Happersett (2000), a single surface Moebius strip which folds to reveal two distinct chiaroscuro faces.

The Divine Diviner by Stephanie Brody Lederman (2001), six "pages" hanging by a thread.

 Magic Postcard. Transmorgri-Factory by Chris Collicott (2004), a magic wheel postcard.

$450

Artist Tracts
By Harvey Redding; Laura Murawski; J. Gifford; Melinda Beck;
Wim Huurman
New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 1992. Edition of 250.

Boxed set of five juxtapositional triptychs. 7 x 5" tracts open to 7 x 15". In paper box 7 x 5 x 1/2" by Lauren Rowland which is Day-Glo Rococo hand marbled over pied wood type. Signed and numbered. Concept and design by Esther K. Smith.

Fascinated with those folded religious pamphlets, Esther K. Smith envisioned Artist tracts.

Triptychs: I Sing the Train Electric by Harvey Redding

Fandango by Laura Murawski

Chains of Memories by J. Gifford

Window Pain by Melinda Beck

Flood trip map by Wim Huurman

$450

Travelog Map & Guide
Map by Jessie Hartland and text by Donna Ratajczak
New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 1994. Edition of 150.

18.75 x 26" map folds to 9.4 x 4.4 x .25 guide. Types used Kabel & Kaufmann Bold with green, blue & red on pale yellow Bodleian. Signed by Ratajczak; Hartland; Esther K. Smith; and Dikko Faust.

Join Arthur in his journey through life "Points West." Arthur is "thinking of driving cross-country in his Corolla... He gets a bunch of road maps from gas stations. He files them in the glove compartment."

Travelog tells the story of a rather sad-sack parole officer named Arthur, whose movements are charted in a jaunty fold-out map.
$150

We Spy USA
By Bob & Roberta Smith
New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 1998. Edition of 100.

2.25 x 2.12"; 56 pages. Linocuts and letterpress printing by Dikko Faust. One sheet accordion miniature. Folded to form wrapper. Housed in paper slip-on open ended band wrapper. Designed by Esther K. Smith.

Linoleum cuts of the 54 [ask PPP] United States as identified by Londoners, Bob and Roberta Smith. The shape of each US state is printed on a page and underneath the identification by the Smiths, which actually is a gross misidentification. For example, Alabama is identified as Wiltshire, California is Cambridgeshire.

Zany nonsense? Or inspired word play?

$450

Elongated Postcards
Designed by Esther K. Smith
printed by Dikko Faust
New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 2010. Edition of 150.

9" x 4"; 12 cards. Handset type and letterpress printed. Each postcard signed and numbered by the artist. Laid in printed envelope-style paper case with Velcro closure. Signed and numbered on the case by Faust and Smith.

Elongated Postcards was the 2009 annual post card series of Purgatory Pie Press.

NICE = NEW who knew? By Dikko Faust
Make It Happen by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright; linocut by Dikko Faust
Even More Odd by Bryan C. Baker
Following the Geneva Convention by Dikko Faust
Pecklin’ Pigeons by Jessie Nebraska Gifford
Blue Velveeta by Mike Topp
Sharp Arch by Eve Eisenstadt
Blast OFF! By Walker F. Lewis
Porntoum by Marc Nasdor
Entasis .5 by Elizabeth Duffy
When the Unsigned postcards arrive … by Kit Kennedy
Tribute Tilted Up for Millions by Rosamond S. King

$250

Square Postcards
Designed by Esther K. Smith
printed by Dikko Faust
New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 2006. Edition of 144.

5.5" x 5.5"; 12 postcards. Handset type and letterpress printed. Each postcard signed and numbered by the artist. Laid in printed paper case with fold over flaps. Signed and numbered on the case by Faust and Smith.

Square Postcards was the annual subscription series for Purgatory Pie Press in 2006.

Bass-O-Profundo by Steven Guarnaccia: linoleum carving
Everything by Bob Holman
New Religion by Susan Happersett
Santa Cruz 1956 by Holly Anderson
Harappa by Barbara E. Cohen
That Bloc by M. Kasper
The Chicken Poem by Aimee Record
O No by Elizabeth Duffy
I Am Waiting for NYC by Esther K Smith
Loose Lips by Polly Faust: linocut
Greetings from New York by Maddy Rosenberg
The Gentlemanly Art of Pugilism by Jim Tolan

$250

Square Postcards 2
Designed by Esther K. Smith
printed by Dikko Faust
New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 2007. Edition of 144.

5.5" x 5.5"; 12 postcards. Handset type and letterpress printed by Dikko Faust. Each postcard signed and numbered by the individual artist. Laid in printed paper case with fold over flaps. Signed and numbered on the case by Faust and Smith.

Square Postcards 2 was part of the annual subscription series for Purgatory Pie Press in 20074

If You See Something, Say Something by Bob Holman; linoleum cut by Polly Faust
Shadow Light by Dikko Faust, letterpress & candle drawings
Ranch House Redux by Holly Anderson
Kaos-on-a-Kard by Susan Happersett
The Amazing Invisible Lionessa Captured in Living Linoleum by Bill Fick
Cumulus by S. C. Durkin; linocut by Dikko Faust
Spinning Rebus by R. Mutt; linocut by Polly Faust.
Ringo by Jessie Nebraska Gifford
Angels or Demons by Joshua Levy
Once Upon by Bob Heman

$250

DJA'DE
By Dikko Faust and Esther Smith
NYC: Purgatory Pie press, 2014. Edition of 100.

12 unnumbered pages : all color illustrations ; 15 x 114 cm folded to 15 x 11 cm. Accordion folded sheet in a slipcover. Materials: Paper, wood block type, ink. Signed and numbered by Faust and Smith.

Purgatory Pie Press: ‘DJA'DE’ is a series of tessellation prints designed by Dikko Faust. Faust found a blurry photo of an 11,000 year old wall painting, excavated in 2007 at Syria's DJA’DE al-Mughara site. He realized the pattern was a complex tessellation.

“In this piece, the black pattern matches the red pattern. The negative white space echoes these same patterns. Faust began sketching iterations of the DJA’DE pattern. He sawed lead and printed versions of the pattern, leading to a series of tessellation prints. This book returns to DJA’DE- the earliest known wall painting. "
$250 (Last Five copies)

Tessellations
ByDikko Faust and Esther Smith
NYC: Purgatory Pie press, 2014. Edition of 200.

5 x 7". Letterpress printed. Materials: paper, type. 12 small prints in portfolio. Signed and numbered by Smith and Faust.

Purgatory Pie Press: “Dikko Faust was researching for his Non-Western Art History course that he taught at City University of NY, when he found a fuzzy photo of Djade, the first known wall painting. He observed that it was a tessellation-- the red pattern was the same as the black pattern, which was the same as the negative space white pattern. He began sketching it and then hand-setting pieces of typographic material to proof different versions. Esther asked if he'd like to make a subscription series of 12 different patterns derived from archeological sources. He said YES-- and ‘Tessellations’ emerged.”
$350

Beautiful Pleasure
By Susan Happersett.
New York: EK Smith Museum, 2024. Variable Edition.

4.25 x 5.5". Risography printing. Collage by the artist. One page book with pop-outs.

Susan Happersett has been collaborating with Purgatory Pie Press for over twenty years. Most of their publications have been the result of Happersett’s mathematical interest such as “The Happersett Accordion”. However, she has also developed a practice of collage work, using vintage images to explore contemporary situations.

With “Beautiful Pleasure” she continues exploring women’s roles and perceptions of society. The result is a kind of poetry meant to stimulate response and dialog about sexual identity and women's roles. She uses phrases from magazine articles with witty collaged images regarding women's looks - "The Beauty Secret”, “Perfume Enchantment”, “Sirens”, “Vivid and Individual” etc.
$35

Echo's Message
By Sam Vernon
New York: EK Smith Museum, 2024. Variable edition.

3.75 x 5”. Several versions of the binding. One-page book. Accordion structure. Risography printing on several different papers.

Sam Vernon, Instagram 08.27.24: "It is my pleasure to announce that Esther K Smith, author of 'How to Make Books' (Random House), and @purgatorypiepress artistic director, and I have collaborated on a very special accordion book project 'The Echo’s Message'. Printed via Risograph, this book chaotically weaves together sketchbook images I created in Berlin while processing our collective grief over one atrocity after another. The message is clear: books not bombs. Peace and light."

Sam Vernon, a Black American female artist, earned her MFA in Painting/Printmaking from Yale University in 2015 and her BFA from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 2009.
$35

Do Si Do
By Georgia Luna Smith Faust
New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 2002.

6.5 x 6" bound do-si-do so that each book can be the accessed from the "front." Uses linoleum illustrations. Printed letterpress.

Two stories by Georgia Luna Smith Faust designed into one book. In "On The A Train" the artist is gripped by a mysterious hand on the crowded train. She develops six different endings to this unsettling event. "Everything Falls into Place" is a spunky piece told by a sixteen year old New York City girl.
(SOLD/Out of Print)

House of Postcards
Designed by Esther K. Smith
printed by Dikko Faust
New York: Purgatory Pie Press, 2008. Edition of 144.

5.5 x 5.5”; 10 cards. Handset type and letterpress printed. Each postcard signed and numbered by the artist. Slipped in printed envelope with slip and slot closure.

2008 post card series by Purgatory Pie Press. Designed with slits to construct a free form house structure.

Participants:

Card of Houses by Joshua Schreier; linoleum cut by Ashley Soliman
Motor City by Eve Eisenstadt; linoleum cut by Dikko Fust
Pimento Mori by Noah Scalin
N. D. ( Nuclear Disarmament) by S C Durkin
Round Trip by Georgia Luna
Chaos II Eye of the Cyclone by Susan Happersett
Signe by Holly Anderson
JWFSPF by Rebecca Smith
Magdalen by John Grieffen
Kiss Kiss by Bob Holman

(SOLD)