Quite Contrary Press ~ California
(Mary V. Marsh & Tony Bellaver)

"Quite Contrary Press offers small edition and unique artist’s books, prints and photographs by Tony Bellaver and Mary V. Marsh, created individually and collaboratively in Oakland, California, Sketchbook drawings, diaries and research provide the source and inspiration for our projects. Patterns of daily activities, poems and observations are combined with maps, drawings, and photographs in a layered story of our journeys. Our collaborative projects evolve from many conversations while camping and backpacking. We stand as witnesses, responding to what we see, somewhere between viewer and participant.

"Oakland based artist Tony Bellaver makes mixed media sculpture, drawings and photographs inspired by his love of hiking and nature. He combines maps, drawings, photographs and found foliage gathered on his many hikes to create his diary-like works. He received an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1992.

"Mary V. Marsh’s work looks at changing formats of media, and our habits of reading. Years of working in libraries, materials collected, concepts experienced, and evolving technology are a foundation for projects and ideas. She received an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1992 and was a Kala Art Institute 2018-19 Fellowship Award Artist."

SFCB Shelter in Studio: Mary V. Marsh/ Quite Contrary Press (June, 2021): “Mary V. Marsh shows some of her pandemic-time recent print work including mail art, a window installation for KALA, and environmental photography inspired by the Extraction art initiative.” https://vimeo.com/559106365

Work by Tony Bellaver
Work by Mary V. Marsh

Oakland, California: Quite Contrary Press, 2016. Edition of 15.

7.5” x 6.75” x 1.75”; 13 pages. Accordion-fold. Letterpress printed using handset type and polymer plates. Linocut. Materials: Arches Coverpaper, hand-cut paper, wood, vertebrae. Bound in maple burl veneer front cover with window displaying vertebrae sewn to white paper. In slipcase of redwood veneer with title inkjet printed on illustrated paper strip. Numbered. Signed by an artist.

A meditation on man's need to control nature - a collaboration of Mary V. Marsh and Tony Bellaver.

Mary V. Marsh: "The making of this book has been a process of years of conversations while camping, backpacking and fly fishing. The close observation required for fly fishing reveals the interconnectedness of the river, trees, fish and insects. We reflect on our relationship to nature, the power and endurance of rivers, and our insignificance. We try to understand it through the lens of science and words. The river doesn’t care if we are here or not. We strive to see and respect the river, without naming or cultural construct.

"From our sketchbook drawings and poetry we developed the content and designed the format collaboratively. The accordion structure allows the book to unfold in an uneven rhythm like a river. The maple burl and redwood veneer relates to trees around our favorite rivers of California. The salmon vertebrae shows one part of the cycle of life of the river."

Quite Contrary Press: "Oakland based artist Tony Bellaver creates mixed media sculpture and drawings inspired by his love of hiking and nature. He incorporates maps, drawings, photographs, and found foliage gathered on his many hikes to create texture and meaning in his diary-like works. Using materials such as wood as the framework, found objects, and photographs he tells a layered story of his journeys.

"Drawing people and scenes during her routine, and integrating them with journal entries, books, and artifacts collected, Mary V. Marsh explores the intersection of mass media, consumption, and personal habits. She looks at how information is delivered, how it is perceived and the gap between presentation and meaning."

Tony Bellaver: "Responsive and proactive, we present a synthesis of two approaches of understanding the human environment and the natural environment. We stand apart as voyeurs, responding to what we see, and at the same time are active contributors. As a team, we put ourselves in the natural environment somewhere between viewer and participant. In our studio, Quite Contrary Press has become the expression of that experimentation, like a foundry using ideas and experience to craft words, images, and objects, collaboratively and individually."
$875

Anthropocene
By Tony Bellaver
Oakland, California: Quite Contrary Press, 2019. Edition of 10.

8.5 x 8.5"; 6 pages including front and back. Accordion fold. Archival pigment print. Hand-cut text. In paper slipcase. Photographs taken with a zepza Bronica medium format camera, Tri-x black and white negative film. Numbered and signed by the artist." Edition of 10 with 3 available.

Tony Bellaver: "For past few years I've focused my artistic to attention to the extraction industry of forest clear cutting in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Upon seeing the first clear cut while hiking, I felt an urgent need to use my creative/art practice to respond to what I fell is an assault on the environment. I began using a classic photographic approach to create images of clear cuts and slag piles, with the desire to share what I witness ...

"Some of the multi-image pieces have words/poetry hand-cut from the prints. These words and the technique confront the anthropocentric practice of forest clear cutting by the hand-cutting of the words to create a negative space in the images."
$315

Nature Resource
By Tony Bellaver
Oakland, California: Quite Contrary Press, 2019. Edition of 10.

8.5 x 8.5"; 6 pages including front and back. Accordion fold. Archival pigment print. Hand-cut text. In paper slipcase. Photographs taken with a zepza bronica medium format camera, Tri-x black and white negative film. Numbered and signed by the artist.

"Nature Resource feature images of clear-cut and slap piles in Clallam County, Washington along with satellite images.

Tony Bellaver: "For past few years I've focused my artistic attention to the extraction industry of forest clear cutting in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Upon seeing the first clear cut while hiking, I felt an urgent need to use my creative/art practice to respond to what I fell is an assault on the environment. I began using a classic photographic approach to create images of clear cuts and slag piles, with the desire to share what I witness ...

"Some of the multi-image pieces have words/poetry hand-cut from the prints. These words and the technique confront the anthropocentric practice of forest clear cutting by the hand-cutting of the words to create a negative space in the images."
$315

EXTRA EXTRA! Edition
By Mary V. Marsh
Oakland, California: Quite Contrary Press, 2018. Edition of 90.

11 x 8.5'"; 12 pages. Risograph on Cougar Natural paper. Sewn binding with linen thread. In plain white envelope. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Mary V. Marsh: "An artist's book/exhibition catalog about reading and commuting in tabloid format. Documenting an immersive print installation for Kala Art Institute Fellowship Award and the artist's research about the history of reading and changes in technology, it includes commuter diary drawings, quotations, prints, letterpress type, and a bibliography. …

"While developing a print installation about reading on transit, I began to read books about reading, continuing my communication history research. I collected ideas about reading formats, historical changes, portability, and our brain’s adaptability. We experience new ideas and stories in our minds through reading, internal journeys intersect with the physical world of fellow passengers and the changing landscape outside the window of a bus. Each day’s journey gives one’s life a divided feeling: here or there. While traveling, you are between places. While reading, you are in between the imagined and the real."
$25

TABLOID!
By Mary V. Marsh
Oakland, California: Quite Contrary Press, 2018. Edition of 20.

12.5 x 9.5"; 8 pages. Linocut. Handset type. Letterpress printed on Arches Lightweight. In paper slipcase. Numbered and signed by the artist.

Mary V. Marsh: "The making of TABLOID! became a process of looking at my response to newspaper articles about technological changes in communication, and the political changes affecting its access and control. I collected headlines and articles, mostly from the New York Times, from January-July 2018. Carving the photos and articles in linoleum, and hand setting lead type provides a contrast to the continually updated digital information on our screens. Printing the stories in tabloid format and tone both satirizes and reveals our current news environment. "
$650

The Coffee Diary
By Mary V. Marsh
Oakland, California: Quite Contrary Press, 2007. Edition of 40.

4 x 2.75"; 26 pages. Three signatures, inkjet printed and hand-sewn into a heavy cardstock cover with cutout windows revealing images of a coffee drinker and a coffee cup. End pages are of used coffee filter. Materials: coffee filter, postcard.

Mary V. Marsh: "A daily journal of buying coffee to-go. With each coffee purchased in 2004, I recorded the date and what I did while drinking it, writing directly on the cup. This project describes routines and events centered around getting coffee while doing other things."
(SOLD)

everyday readers
By Mary V. Marsh
Oakland, California: Quite Contrary Press, 2009. Open Numbered Edition.

3.75 x 5.5 x .5"; 16 pages. Handprinted block prints on library checkout cards, gouache, mulberry paper, brads, type. Bound in found vintage cover. Each book in the edition varies with the discarded library cards used. Slipcased in a manila folder.

Mary V. Marsh: "Drawings of people reading made during my daily commute are translated into block prints and handprinted onto discarded library cards. The commuters engaged in their own private world intersect with book titles and signatures of past readers. The office materials used to construct each book imply tasks workers are bound for. The nostalgia of the old cards suggests a history of the changing methods of reading."
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Here / Hear: Meta Data Mining
By Mary V. Marsh
Oakland, California: Quite Contrary Press, 2021. Edition of 10.

8.5 x 5.75 x .75"; 14 pages. Accordion spine. Photopolymer intaglio, polymer plate letterpress, pressure printing, handset type on Rives BFK. Printed on the SP15 at Kala Art Institute. Tyvek spine with cloth covered boards. Titles on front board with press name on back board. In Tyvek slipcase. Numbered and initialed by the artist.

Quite Contrary: "Cell towers disguised as trees show our need for constant connection, our desire for infrastructure to be invisible, and our complicity in the data extraction industry. They are silent witnesses to our movements and interactions, enabling the transformation of our attention into commerce. ‘Here/Hear: Meta Data Mining’ features intaglio-printed cell towers as trees. Screenshots of maps, and texts exchanged by Mary V. Marsh and Tony Bellaver show habits of keeping in touch; locations and plans. Letterpress printed folios on an accordion-fold spine; a Hedi Kyle inspired binding. Holes cut into pages reveal wires and data, unseen systems of our infrastructure."
(SOLD/Out of Print)