Stephanie Wolff ~ Vermont

Mist Cloud Rain
By Stephanie Wolff
Vermont: Stephanie Wolff, 2024. Editions of 19 + 2 AP.

7.5 x 2.5 x .75 inches. Materials: Paper, board, cloth, ink, wood. Text printed letterpress from polymer and illustrations printed using bell-wire. Copies were printed on various Asian papers making it a variable edition. Bound as a one-sheet book with a removeable paper cover and a hardcover chemise. Housed in a basswood slipcase with a laser-cut cloud shape on the front. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Stephanie Wolff: "Lines from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1878 poem Kéramos. "

Wolff used two lines from this long poem of Longfellow’s about a potter at work. These two lines reflect Wolff’s continuing interest in weather and witnessing the ongoing effects of climate change.

The mist and cloud will turn to rain, the rain to mist and cloud again.

$350

Of the Air
By Stephanie Wolff
Vermont: Stephanie Wolff, 2024. Editions of 18 + 2 AP.

7.75 x 6.5 x .875 inches closed. Accordion structure. Paper, cloth, board, ink, watercolor. Letterpress printed at May Day Studio with hand coloring and binding done in the artist’s studio, both in Vermont. Bound in a hardcover accordion, with cards, wrapper, and hardcover slipcase. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Stephanie Wolff: "Descriptive weather notations recorded in almanacs of a 19th century N.J. woman (Anna Blackwood Howell, 1765-1855) are interpreted through tiny watercolor paintings. A set of cards is included for readers to create their own version of the weather descriptions."

Wolff has developed a body of work that centers on the life of an this early 19th century woman – Anna Blackwood Howell. The artist books, paper, and textile pieces originate from Anna Blackwood Howell's life and writing, including the yearly almanacs she used to track the cyclical nature of the seasons and to "profit by the experience of the past year." Howell lived from 1769 until 1855 in Gloucester County, New Jersey. Her husband, Joshua, died in 1818, and she inherited their farm and fisheries along the banks of the Delaware River across from Philadelphia. The Howells had eleven children, and she outlived six of them. In her almanacs, Anna Howell recorded near-daily observations and notes on the family fishing business, farm production, and household accounts.

Stephanie Wolff: “While this project's focus is not climate change, it is largely about climate—that is, weather. … Howell's almanacs detail the continual challenges of living close to the land. Sometimes this is expressed in the emotions that accompany an "Arcadian" day or dismal skies, and at other times in relation to considerations of travel or, more crucially, the production of food. These concerns are increasingly relevant today as universal ones facing humankind. Rather than weather remaining far from daily thoughts, more and more of us understand all too well the effects of a dry spell, gale force winds, blizzards, or a sudden thaw. As I continue to explore these almanacs and create more work, I gain further insight into an era of a barter economy, the reliance on neighbors and community to endure environmental changes, and how life's fortunes can be dependent on weather. I notice little difference between then and now in the human desire to succeed within the bounds of nature, to push against those bounds, and the hard acceptance of what nature brings beyond our control.”
$750

The Pocket Sky Atlas
By Stephanie Wolff
Vermont: Stephanie Wolff, 2023. Editions of 14 + 2 Ap.

4.25 x 6.25 x .375" closed. Letterpress printed in Bell from polymer plates at May Day Studio. Monotypes printed at Two Rivers Printmaking Studio. A volvelle of the ten skies included in the back pocket. Hardcover pamphlet-bound book. Housed in a softcover slipcase. Production supported by a 2022 Book Artist-in-Residence award from Maine Media Workshops + College. Numbered.

Stephanie Wolff: "The sky has long been a source of wonder and inspiration. 'The Pocket Sky Atlas' holds ten original monotypes depicting skies of different weather and conditions presented alongside ten texts from a variety of sources, including Luke Howard, Thomas Cole, H.D. Thoreau, Maria Mitchell, and Willa Cather. The stepped foredge exposes all the pages, allowing glimpses of the variation of skies.”
$850 (Last 2 copies)

FL
By Stephanie Wolff and Dorothy Simpson Krause
[Boca Raton, Florida]: Jaffe Center for the Book Arts, 2015. Edition of 10 variants.

7.25 x 3.5"; 12 pages. Flutter book. Letterpress printed. Colophon with a map of Florida laser-printed. Cover and pages incorporate letterpress printing on a Vandercook 4 proof press using wood type, metal and collagraph plates. Blind printing of an area map. Printed on Arches 88 paper. Plant inclusion endpapers. Laid in handmade paper wrapper with slit-and-slot closure. Signed and numbered by the artists. (Last 3 copies).

Book statement: "During Stephanie Wolff's residency at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts, she and Dorothy Krause, the first resident artist, collaborated on this brief ode to Florida. A variety of Pigment prints of vintage documents, maps, photographs and botanicals were transferred onto the pages of this edition of 10 variable copies."
$800 (Last 3 copies)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
[The Beaufort Wind Scale]
By Stephanie Wolff
[Boca Raton, Florida]: Jaffe Center for the Book Arts, 2015. Edition of 13.

18 x 26 cm; 14 unnumbered leaves. Letterpress printed on Somerset white paper with a Vandercook 4 proof press using handset metal type in Perpetua, along with wood type for blind printing of the numerals. Non-adhesive binding with pages sewn onto a concertina inserted into Hedi Kyle's crown binding with reinforced paper covers. Housed in cloth covered clamshell box. Letterpress printed table of the Beaufort wind scale on interior front of clamshell box. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Stephanie Wolff: "Sir Francis Beaufort's historic scale helps us understand wind force with straightforward, comprehensible, even beautiful, words and phrases—such as 'crested wavelets form on inland waters' or 'inconvenience in walking against wind.' The descriptions of the thirteen categories, from Calm to Hurricane, provide a poetic rhythm, and the page design echoes the strengthening wind and destruction as a reader progresses. "

WorldCat (10.05.2022): “This artist book presents the descriptive language of the Beaufort wind scale's thirteen categories from Calm to Hurricane, with the structural form of the book referencing the intensification of the wind force as the pages progress. Each page of text is hand-cut into ‘fringe’ strips enfolding the text and moving as each page is turned. The higher the number on the Beaufort Wind Scale, the more cuts in the page.”

0       Calm, smoke rises vertically …
6       Large branches in motion,
         telegraph wires whistle,
         umbrellas used with difficulty …
9       Slight structural damage occurs,
        Chimney pots and slates removed …
12      Devastation occurs

(SOLD/Out of Print)