Martha Carothers.
Eyes On, Hands Off. Newark, DE: The Post Press, 2000.

Martha Carothers directly examines the concept of the book as exhibit in this work that is composed of a single page opening in a plexiglass enclosure. The text discusses the lack of interaction in a museum context, stating that "When any book lies open under glass it is by a sheer act of faith that we assume it is really a book." A small stamp of a hand actually points to this sentence as if to say that the viewer will not get the message unless it is explicitly pointed out.

Lent by Martha Carothers.

Sidereal Press, the printing house of Sheila Coppola, hand set these poems and struck them on letterpress. The color images were created by digitally photographing original paintings and processing them in Photoshop. The color images on the right half of each page are woodcuts.

The Canticle of Hours follows the eight divisions of the day for prayer in the Roman Catholic Church. It integrates themes from Buddhism, zodiac signs, and the passing of the seasons. The theme is the passing of time from hours to a lifetime.

Alisa J. Golden.
Wind, Wire & Web. Berkeley, CA: Never Mind the Press, 2000.

This combination concertina/single-layer flag book features a short vignette about spiders, telephones, and static which is printed on acrylic painted pages that are set into the valleys of an accordion. An enhanced dream about spiders and searching for help is printed on cloudy glassine and hidden in the outer folds of the spine.

Charles Hobson.
Dancing with Amelia: Amelia Earhart's Six Year Marriage with George Palmer Putnam. San Francisco: Pacific Editions, 2000.

The illustrations in Dancing were done in pastel/monotypes and computer printed as IRIS images. The pages have been die cut into an airplane shape based on the design of the twin-engine Lockheed Electra Amelia Earhart flew on her last flight. The text is fiction, inspired by Earhart's letters to her husband. Hobson recreates the marriage of Earhart and Putnam as lovers and dance partners, lending another dimension to the public image of the famous pilot.

Peter Rutledge Koch.
Hard Words. San Francisco; Missoula: Gallery 16: University of Montana Art Galleries, 2000.

According to the artist, "These one word picture poems began in 1991 in response to the custom of issuing wanted posters. I was searching for a new language to express what was wanting (wanted) in my own vocabulary of symbols. The lead and wood types, copper electroplated and zinc photoengravings were collected from various sources, such as a newspaper office near Freezout, Montana and a printer's junkyard in San Francisco."

Lemons Descending: Music, Poetry, Etchings. Oxingale Press, 2000.

Lemons Descending is meant to be looked at, to be touched and to be listened to - all at once. Designed as a coherent multi-media experience, the flow of the book is synchronized with the recorded selections so that the audio, visual and tactile senses combine to fully enhance the narrative. The compact disk includes a recital performed by soprano Eileen Clark and cellist Matt Haimovitz. The music is illuminated by letterpress printed poetry and color etchings by Michael Kuch. The poets include Emily Dickinson, Anna Ahkmatova, Richard Crashaw, Hildegard von Bingen and Pablo Neruda.

The ancient story of Persephone's abduction by Hades, Lord of the Dead, is the Greek myth of the origin of the seasons. Nine contemporary poets respond to the emotional depths of the myth. The poems are accompanied by a sequence of lithographs, which can be extended to reveal a continuous landscape panorama. The image of the pomegranate, the fruit that plays a key role in the ancient myth, appears as a design element throughout the book and as glass seeds on the book's cover.

Enid Mark has been awarded a 2001 Pew Fellowship in the Arts and has exhibited her books the National Museum of Women in the Arts, The British Library, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego.

Kelly Wellman.
Palimpsest. California: this is my body press, 2000.

All of the quotations in the books are taken from the Oxford English Dictionary, under the word " Palimpsest." The word refers to a manuscript in which a text that has been erased and written over can still be seen. The images are photographs of tympans, which are sheets of paper or cloth placed between the impression surface of a printing press and the paper to be printed.