Windowpane Press ~ Washington
(Bonnie Thompson Norman)

kNot Free, kNot Human
By Bonnie Thompson Norman and Carletta Carrington Wilson
Seattle, Washington: The Windowpane Press & Thunderhoney Production, 2023. Edition of 10.

22 x 15 x 2” closed, 180 x 15 x 2” extended; 14 pages. Accordion book with hand-colored linoleum prints using metal and wood type. Printed yellow silk clamshell case bound. Letterpress printed and hand bound by Bonnie Thompson Norman. Hand carved, hand colored linocut illustrations and poetry by Carletta Carrington Wilson. Binding structure formed with knots based on a binding structure designed by Daniel Kelm. Printed on Blue Magnani Pescia paper. Covers and clamshell box painted with the artist’s hands and feet on gold Japanese book cloth. Signed and numbered by hand by the artist and printer.

Artist statement: “I have been fascinated with the figure of the fugitive ‘advertised for capture’ as illustrated by various cuts frequently found in runaway slave advertisements. These images accompanied ads appearing in numerous 18th and 19th century newspapers in the United States, the Caribbean and as far flung as Brazil and England.

“The iconic figures of a man and woman form the foundation of the series: ‘kNot free kNot human.’ Each escaping figure toting a bundle or sack, containing the scant possessions of the possessed appeared, in flight, for centuries. While they were running towards an uncertain future, they were, also, symbols of and testament to the unceasing resistance perpetuated on all sides of the Atlantic by the captives. Wilson re-imagines the iconic runaway slave advertisement. Text and image evoke the complexity of the predicament that binds individuals to a body that they cannot claim as their own.”

Carletta Carrington Wilson is a literary, mixed-media, and installation artist. She is the author of Poem of Stone & Bone: The Iconography of James W. Washington Jr. in Fourteen Stanzas and Thirty-One Days. Her poems appear in, “The African American Review”, “Cimarron Review”, “Obsidian III”, and others.
$6,000 (Last 2 copies)

Vital Signs
Guideposts for Life's Journeys and Adventures
By Bonnie Thompson Norman, Michiko Parker, Shelley Brittingham, Elaine Hillenmeyer, Ingrid Stripes, Tracy Buck, and Brita Long
Seattle, Washington: Bonnie Thompson Norman, 2010.
Edition of 25.

6 x 13"; accordion with 8 pages including pastedowns. Hand set and hand constructed. Letterpress printed on Vandercook SP15. Bound in black cloth with paper title on front board.

Vital Signs was designed and produced in a class taught by Bonnie Thompson Norman at The Windowpane Press. The illustrations were created using tangram images

Words from common traffic signs are paired with life advice:

             caution
       Take time to deliberate;
but when the time for action arrives
        stop thinking and go in.
                                                   ~ Andrew Jackson.

$85

A Parent's Patchwork of Proverbs & Proscriptions
By Bonnie Thompson Norman
in collaboration with Alicia Hall, Susan Hsu, Lisa Kraft, Kathryn Muckler, Jennifer Murphy, Deborah Pang Davis, Lisa Schaefbauer, and Michael Young
Seattle, Washington: Bonnie Thompson Norman, 2007. Limited edition.

5 x 5"; 25 leaves. Letterpress printed on a variety of colored papers. Hand bound in a snake format. Housed in a paper letterfold box (5.25 x 5.25 x 1"). Designed and produced in a class taught by Bonnie Thompson Norman at The Windowpane Press in February 2007.

The leaves spread out to form a 25 x 25" paper quilt. Each quilt square contains a bit of wisdom from parent to child.

Don't quit at the first sign of problems.
                           Or the second
                                                         ~ CindyFrancis

$75

Hidden Agenda
By Bonnie Thompson Norman
Seattle: Bonnie Thompson Norman, 2006.

3.875 x 8.5"; 8 pages. Produced in a class taught by Norman. Students: Shannon Cook, Marianne George, Geoffrey Keyes, Happy Kush, Kim O’Neill, and Megan Zimmerman.

Structured as a vertical pad (like a reporter’s notebook). The single word on each page is partially obscured by a glassine-like wrap: question, question, wander, dream, sing, laugh, dance, create.
$45 (5 copies available)

Homeland Security
By Bonnie Thompson Norman
Seattle: Bonnie Thompson Norman, 2006.

5.25 x 8"; four panels. Constructed for easy standing display. Handset, printed and bound.

Unsubtle satire directed at the current notion of “homeland security” (circa 2006).

Between the lines of a quotation from Charles Evans Hughes (Chief Justice, 1930-1941) about safeguarding constitutional rights (free speech, press, assembly) are works by Carl Schurz (Union General, US Senator): "Our country ... when right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right."
$150

A Primer for Democracy
By Bonnie Thompson Norman
Seattle, Washington: Windowpane Press, 2004. None stated.

3x 3 x 3" box white lightweight cardboard box containing 42 notched cards. Letterpress printed. produced in a class taught by Bonnie Thompson Norman at the Windowpane Press, Seattle, Washington. Participants were Dawn Endean, Patricia Halsell, Kaylea Trowbridge, Elizabeth Walters.

Notched cards with slogans about democracy from which one can construct a free-form structure. From A (Amendment / Activism) to Z (Zeal) the words are a call to exercise your rights but not to forget your responsibilities as a citizen.
$375

Step by Step ... a walking guide
By Bonnie Thompson Norman
Seattle: Bonnie Thompson Norman, 2004. Limited Edition.

8 x 8.5" accordion fold letterpress printed and handbound with maroon wraps.

Bonnie Thompson Norman has been the proprietor of The Windowpane Press for over twenty years. Bonnie works full time as a hand bookbinder in a large commercial bindery. She also teaches classes in printing and bookmaking on evenings and weekends. This book was produced in one of her classes.
$50

The Seasons
By Bonnie Thompson Norman
Seattle: Bonnie Thompson Norman, 2003. Limited Edition.

5 x 3.75” Set of four letterpress printed, handbound booklets in a printed gold card folder. Each booklet is covered in a different colored paper with different decorations indicating the seasons. Each has a single double page opening with a quotation for that season.

Better Than Gold
By Bonnie Thompson Norman
Seattle: Bonnie Thompson Norman, 2002. Limited Edition.

5 x 8". 42 pages. Letterpress printed, handbound butterfly accordion book.

A collection of quotes celebrating friendship.
$85 (5 copies available)

On War and Peace
By Bonnie Thompson Norman
Seattle: Windowpane Press, 2002. Limited Edition (unstated).

7.75 x 6". Letterpress printed, handbound accordion book with single signatures sewn on mountain folds.

Musings on war and peace.

"Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come." —Carl Sandburg.

"What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict." —Simone Weil, 1937.
$65 (5 copies available)

WordHouse
By Bonnie Thompson Norman
Seattle, Washington: Windowpane Press, 1999. Edition Unstated.

16 x 9 x 9 cm, in box (10 x 10 x 3 cm); 1 collapsible paper house structure. Cardboard. Text collage. Letterpress printed. Written, printed and bound by Lisa Lessley Brisco, Diane Dambacher, Rachel Harris and Bonnie Thompson Norman at the Windowpane Press. Housed in lidded cardboard box with paper title tipped on lid.

"WordHouse" is a collage of words about what home means. Ultimately the book becomes a house structure with the word covered walls; ie "Houses are like books, both have stories to tell".

"WordHouse" consists of six two-sided panels tied together by linen thread that can be unfolded to create a house using either side of the panels. Text on panels can be read as an accordion book.

To construct a WordHouse, fold the two center panels to form a pitched roof, then fold the outside four panels to create the walls of the house. Place the house you have built inside this lid, using it as a foundation.
$125 (Last 4 copies)

A Mealtime Blessing
By Bonnie Thompson Norman
Seattle: Bonnie Thompson Norman, 1995. Unstated limited edition.

1.5 x 8.5" closed, extends to 11 x 8.5"; 7 double sided panels. Slips into letterpress printed sleeve. Printed on a Vandercook SP15 from photoengraved plates. Hand-sewn binding based on palm leaf book structures found throughout Central and Southern Asia which date from ca. 450 A.D. Artwork by Jennifer Kennard.

Originally A Mealtime Blessing was produced with wooden boards and housed in a wooden box.

Bonnie Thompson Norman: "I learned this mealtime grace when my children and I were visiting my dear friend Jill Littlewood who learned it from a friend of hers. The blessing concludes with a squeeze of hands that travels round the table from one person to the next. This book is meant to be like that pressing of palms: acknowledging with gratefulness family, friends and the bounties which some of us are so fortunate to receive."
$65

A Mealtime Blessing
By Bonnie Thompson Norman
Seattle: Bonnie Thompson Norman, 1995. Limited Edition.

1.5 x 8.5" with wooden boards. Slips into letterpress printed sleeve which is then laid in wooden box that matches boards. Printed on a Vandercook SP15 from photoengraved plates. Hand-sewn binding based on palm leaf book structures found throughout Central and Southern Asia which date from ca. 450 A.D. Artwork by Jennifer Kennard.

"I learned this mealtime grace when my children and I were visiting my dear friend Jill Littlewood who learned it from a friend of hers. The blessing concludes with a squeeze of hands that travels round the table from one person to the next. This book is meant to be like that pressing of palms: acknowledging with gratefulness family, friends and the bounties which some of us are so fortunate to receive." —Bonnie Thompson Norman.
(Out of Print)

Blow:
winds from Christina Rossetti and the Beaufort scale
Book design by Margery Hellmann
Seattle, Washington: Holburne Press, 2012. Edition of 30.

5.1.25 x 8.5"; four folds of flags. Letterpress printed from handset type on a 1926 Chandler & Price platen press, some hand coloring. Hedi Kyle's flag book structure. Text flags: Canson Mi-Tientes and Strathmore Translucent papers. Bound in blue paper over boards with paper title label on front board. Numbered.

"Blow" was started by Margery Hellmann (1935-2012) in 2011 and then completed by her friend Bonnie Thompson Norman. It is the last bookwork under the imprint of Margery Hellmann's The Holburne Press. Hellmann has said that her goal was "to use innovative book structures and unconventional placement of words and letters to create a dimension beyond the text, an added visual language."

University of Washington: "Margery, known for her love of literature, quiet insight and many creative talents, was a founding member of the Book Arts Guild. The diversity of her work is amazing, spanning decades and culminating in her artists books begun in 1993. Margery worked tirelessly to create a melding of text and structure to complement and expand meaning."

Laura Russell: "Christina Rossetti's poem Winds is interleaved with a description of The Beaufort Scale in an interplay of pages and panels. The type is set to suggest a windblown effect and is embellished with typographic ornaments and leaves some of which have been hand colored. The type was meticulously set by hand by Margery Hellmann over a period of one year. Towards the end of the project Margery became ill and was unable to complete the work. The book was printed in three colors and bound by hand by her close friend, Bonnie Thompson Norman. The book reflects Margery's thoughtful and creative marriage of disparate texts which results in an enhanced appreciation of both poetry and science."
(SOLD)

Turn, Turn, Turn
By Bonnie Thompson Norman, Kathleen Anderson, John Butterfield, Elisa Murray, and Annette Srisaguan
Seattle, Washington: Windowpane Press, 2002.

3 x 6.25"; 18 pages including covers. Letterpress printed onto multi-colored leaves. Bound into a Jacob Ladder's accordion-fold structure. Produced at a class taught by Bonnie Thompson Norman in the winter of 2002.

The text is from Ecclesiastics, Chapter 3:

To every thing
there is a season,
and a time
to every purpose
under the heaven…

(Out of Print)

Which side are you on?
By Bonnie Thompson Norman
Seattle, Washington: Windowpane Press, 2019. Edition of variants.

6.25 x 8.25" in cloth clamshell box with paper title label on cover. Double sided accordion. Letterpress printed from handset type and a linoleum block. Book cloth and papers with each book in the edition. Book cloth over boards. Inset cutout with a wire grid over shadow image on front cover. Designed, printed, and bound by Bonnie Thompson Norman.

Bonnie Thompson Norman: "I began this book in February last year [2019]. . Remember when building the wall and caging children was the topic of the day? My book is still timely because of the virus which is spreading in immigration lock-ups."

Norman uses quotes from Emma Lazarus, George Washington, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt to reflect on immigration. Quotes are interspersed with short texts: "Refugees can't go home"; "Nobody is illegal"; "Build bridges not walls".
(SOLD/Out of Print)