Weather Series
Each book based on a phrase associated with the weather, or a common behaviour we tend to associate with the weather - for example if you go without a coat it's bound to rain.
Letterpress printed text with rubber stamp images.
For Rest
What better place to go than the local forest to rest? Many of us found solace in our local woodlands during lockdown, just the sound of the trees, the birds and the creatures in the undergrowth – perfect for rest.
The book is 54mm wide by 73mm high, with a letterpress printed cover. Each tree is individually lino-printed on Zerkall Maize Smooth paper and the binding is concertina style with pamphlet inserts.
Edition of 12
Just Ornamental
The book is 73mm x 63mm, printed with letterpress ornaments on an Adana 8x5. The title font is Times 8pt printed on a frosted gold cover over pale yellow card, with a pale yellow paper slip case. Edition of 20.
Inspired by the print There’s No Place Like Home by Dulcie Fulton (@mostlyflat), Decorative Japanese Papers (75cm x 65cm) by David Butcher for size and cover, and the joy of our once tiny Ornamental Olive Tree – now bigger than our shed and producing olives.
A video about making the book can be found here.
Letters
The smallest item and greatest of joys when a letter arrives. This one contains a surprise hidden in the inner envelope - - - - - - what could it be?
Book size is 75mm high by 110mm wide, letterpress and rubber stamp printed on Zerkall paper with a Somerset Smooth 250gsm cover. It contains a tiny handmade envelope.
Edition of 21
Read & Returned
In this book the title Read opens out to a folded flyleaf with the words & Returned. The action suggests returning something to it's place (folding / putting it back). Snippets of photos of library shelves, greyed out except for the red books, are placed randomly throughout the book playing with the words read and red.
Inspiration for this book came from Uma história da leitura (A History of reading) 2018 by Amir Brito Cadôr, where sections of paintings feature St Jerome, the patron saint of librarians, translators, encyclopedists as well as translator of the Latin Bible. The paintings, showing St Jerome holding a book, are greyed out except for the red of his robe.
The books is 91mm high by122mm wide, with a letterpress printed cover. It contains digitally altered photographs.
Edition of 20
Memory Interrupted
Memory Interrupted is about the precariousness of our memories. How lapses in memory, interruptions, occur when reminiscing about past events and the names of places. A walk by the river is described in letterpress-printed, unfinished, sentences where someone is trying to recall the name of the little blue flowers along the riverbank. The sentences sit on top of delicate prints of the flower fading from memory. The book is encased with gold end papers emphasising how precious our memories are.
A letterpress printed book on Zerkall paper digitally printed with a fading-flower background. The cover is Somerset Smooth 250gsm, size 14cm high and 10.3cm wide.
Edition of 12
Library Book Shelves
Each book is 10 x 7.5 cm, pamphlet stitched, with rice paper end papers and inkjet printed text.
Edition of 12, six of which are boxed. Each edition has twenty books but I am selling the books individually for £8. You will recieve one book picked at random from a variety of colours and Dewey Decimal codes.
The box set of all twenty books is available for £100 including postage to the UK. The box is made from Birch plywood with a laser engraved pattern and handles reminiscent of library index drawers. Please email booksbycathey@gmail.com if you are interested in purchasing the box set.
The idea for these books came from the naming of the Dada movement, when Hugo Ball allowed a French dictionary to fall open and chose the first word his finger landed on. I thought of this after attending a Found Poetry workshop by Jeremy Dixon (Hazard Press). Each book is a found poem made from a set of words gathered by choosing one word from each book on a library book shelf.
During the process I discovered books I would never have thought to look for in the online catalogue. The printed books, and their physical space in the Library, offer a rich opportunity for discovery far beyond browsing the online resources.
I hope these books will inspire people to explore their local libraries. For this reason no subject is given in the title of the books – only the Dewey Decimal code. You can guess the subject and then wander through the shelves to see whether you are right; you never know what else you might find on your journey through the Library.
The Marks We Leave
This book asks the reader how they are holding the book - gripping it tightly or lightly touching the edge of pages. A group of volunteers read the book with inked fingers leaving clearly visible marks.
Each book is 15.2cm high and 11cm wide, letterpress printed on Arboreta Cartridge (160gsm) and single-section case binding with a bookcloth cover.
Edtion of 25
Damaged by Sea Water
Damaged by Sea Water is my submission to Posted/Unposted. The UK project was curated by Imi Maufe and Angie Butler. I was invited with 23 other creative practitioners who use letterpress in the UK/EIRE to contribute to this publishing project.
My submission explores letters lost in the post. An envelope contains a pamphlet based on a letter lost in an airplane crash, and having been recovered, delivered with the postal marking 'Damaged by Sea Water'. The letter itself chases a response from earlier correspondence that was possibly never received.
The locations listed on the envelope are the sites of real plane crashes where post has been recovered (taken from Bath Postal Museum).
Edition of 50, forty of which were submitted to the project for exhibition and the 23 other practitioners.
Chairs
The book is 11 by 12.5cm, letterpress printed on Zerkall paper with a Somerset Smooth 250gsm cover.
Edition of 18
Inspired by a talk by Anezka Kuzmicova, Where we read: text experience and the physical environment, at the Centre for Material Texts at Bristol University (January 2018). She discussed how people prefer to read socially for example when travelling or in waiting rooms.
The following September I found two letterpress corner pieces (at least I think that is what they are) at Whittington Press open day and instantly thought how they resembled chairs.