In 2011 the Library Foundation of Los Angeles commissioned me to create a limited edition broadside of the Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Snyder’s poem “Axe Handles”. The event at the Mark Taper Auditorium at the Central Gallery was held in celebration of Beat poet Lew Welch on the 40th anniversary of his disappearance. Snyder was reciting Welch’s poems.
Limited edition broadside, letterpress, and relief etching, 17 x 11 inches (43 x 30 cm), edition of 11 numbered copies, signed by Gary Snyder and myself.
My artist books, broadsides, and loose-leaf editions are published in very small numbers, as low as five. All are hand-printed and hand-bound (in the case of books) by me, all are signed and numbered. While I am trying to be perfect, I am human, not a machine. Some variations in the editioned work are to be expected due to the processes, materials, and the artist’s change of mind. It is exactly what makes the work collectible: each piece is an original work of art. The pieces employ printmaking like original etchings, woodcuts, carborundum, screen prints, monotype, monoprint, and letterpress. Nothing is produced using digital reproduction methods.
$650