S.W.A.M.P.

Tallahassee, Florida:: AB Gorham,, 2015.. Edition of 25 . 3.625 x 6.125"; 18 pages, four of which are fold outs. One sheet colophon laid in. Handset in metal type (Tower). Letterpress printed on Somerset text paper. Printed pastedowns and free end pages. Paper-covered boards (paper by Cave Paper). Housed in a two-flap enclosure with paper wraparound closure. Bound at Small Craft Advisory Press in Tallahassee, Florida. Text printed at Penland School of Crafts in summer of 2014. Completed at Small Craft Advisory Press using a Vandercook 15-21, Vandercook Universal 1, and Epilog Laser Engraver. Signed and numbered by the artist. AB Gorham, 2016 CBAA Juried Members' Exhibition, catalog: "The text for this book was printed at Penland School of Crafts in summer 2014 while assisting Steve Miller's letterpress class. The book was an investigation into associative printing, in which each new image was created from some element (or combined elements) of the previous images. A final design didn't exist when I started printing this book, in hopes of allowing the book to take shape as it needed to in order to encapsulate the artifact of process. The objective was to challenge my own processes of making artist's books, and to hopefully create a book that is as much of a surprise for the reader as it was for the printer/writer. " AB Gorham: "S.W.A.M.P. contains 4 stanzas, but, through the act of separation comes a distillation of concept, and so the words were broken apart into their sound components, re-arranged, and coerced into a compartmentalized palimpsest of language and utterance. This book's structure is a set of 3x3 grids: one running horizontally, and one running vertically. First, the words, then, the words intoxicated, then, an outline of the two stanzas, capturing the words as a group of objects that take form on the page. The stanza images move across the individual spreads, transitioning from left to right, following the movement of the stanzas. The baseline images are laser-engraved where the folios meet one another, countering the horizontal tendencies of the book with an investigation of ascension. Each new layer or interpretation of the inked impressions, equals 6 attempts at reconciliation, and these pages house the metamorphosis of text/words into sounds and imagery. S.W.A.M.P. is a difficult or troublesome situation, also, the landscape in which this can occur, and so how does one approach such unstable ground? Cautiously and never the same way twice."