Alice Austin ~ Pennsylvania

TIDES
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia, PA: Alice Austin, 2007. Edition of 20.

4” x 6” closed; 16.5 x 9.8" open. Handset type printed on Twinrocker handmade paper with a Vandercook proof press. Illustrated with linoleum cuts on paste paper, which has been folded and attached to a wallet-style case. Additional pamphlet (5 x 3"; 3 leaves plus covers) laid into the folded paste paper. The wallet has been slipped into a hand-knit linen thread bag, evocative of a shroud. Housed in archival box with paper title on spine. Text by the artist.

Alice Austin: “Tides is a book of memories both visual and poetic — a tribute to a loved one."

And in a Podcast interview with Steve Miller, May 24, 2008: "[My] latest book is a memorial to my mother-in-law. I was having such a hard time grieving….So, I made the book in memory of her. That really helped me in the grieving process....It required dark blue paper ... which I then turned into a very dark blue paste paper. Imagery printed in silver with a little booklet of words that I wrote to memorialize her but not her specifically because in my work I like to have universal themes. Everything has to do with my life but I don't want it to be specific. I want anyone to look at it and bring their own experiences to it."

Text: "memories of you / I carry with me / memories / you are gone / water washes away / carry me forward"
$425

Meatball Math
By Alice Austin
Philadelphia, PA: Alice Austin, 2005. Edition of 28.

3.25 x 3.25 " closed; 6 x 6" open. Hand-set wood and metal type plus pressure prints printed on a Vandercook press. Binding consists of four map folds, joined to make a circle with magnet closure. Housed in matching printed band with title.

Austin's work often draws from her experiences of daily life. This bookwork stands three-dimensionally, and then folds flat into the silhouette of a house.

Alice Austin: "This book represents the recipe for the number of meatballs I make in one year - one thousand, four hundred and eight."
$165

Milk Butter Eggs
By Alice Austin
2004. Edition of 16.

5.75 x 7.75" accordion structure. Cover is two etchings. Interior with four etchings on Rives lightweight. Foreground is relief printed on Mohawk coverweight. In archival box.

Alice Austin: "My book is a visual reflection on the repetition of the daily chores at my household. The cover is an abstract shape, perhaps a dinner bell, perhaps a feather duster, surrounded by a grocery list - the eternal milk, butter, eggs. The interior of the book has a foreground of the city block I live on - the endless row houses. When opened and set up, the book makes a geometric shape, a complete circle or a long line of all vertically oriented rectangles that echo the shape of the houses and the shape of the windows. Looking through the four windows you see the kitchen, then the laundry line and dishes (twice), and finally the view looking out of the kitchen while having a coffee break. The book is a quiet meditation on the routines of daily life. "
$445

Bloom
By Alice Austin
2000. Edition of 15.

8 x 7" five pages with one double page pop-up. Paste paper monoprints extend in a long accordion with a central floral pop up. Printed on Rives heavyweight paper on a Vandercook proof press, using hand set type. Paste paper over boards with red cloth spine. Text written by artist. In an archival box.

Alice Austin: "When I was twenty-eight, I gave birth to my first child. 'Bloom' is a book in which the topic of birth is both pondered and expressed."
$365

Red, Yellow, Blue
By Alice Austin
2000. Edition of 500.

3 x 5" closed. Printed offset lithography at the Borowsky Center for Publication Arts in Philadelphia. Three double pages pop-ups. Housed in matching paper open ended envelope.

An interplay of color and paper engineering — simple like a flower.
$40