Eric Coleman ~ Alabama
(E.E.C. Press / Tinker Tree Press)

Year, Make & Model
By Eric Evan Coleman
Hartselle, Alabama: Tinker Tree Press, [2020]. Edition of 38.

5.5 x 7.25"; 34 pages includes free end pages. Text printed on a Canon Pixma. Images letterpress printed on an 1896 Peerless Platten Press. Materials: Rives Heavyweight paper, Duo Blue-Jeans book-cloth, and handmade paper from Coleman's t-shirts and Army uniforms. Constructed at the University of Alabama and the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Pastedowns and free end pages images of Volkswagen vehicles. Bound in quarter book cloth with handmade paper over boards.Signed and numbered by the artist.

Eric Coleman: "This book deals with lost love, overcoming life's hurdles, and it's the culmination of my work with vehicle restoration. It highlights the cars & relationships throughout a ten-year period of my life, and It blurs the line between organic & mechanical. Working on old cars is a sacred part of life where the accolades are internal. This project gave my soul purpose when I needed it the most."

In his own words Coleman takes the reader through his love of cars – especially the VW line. He starts his life's journey with the introduction of his first go-cart. Telling us he has always "been attracted to wheels, going fast, and anything mechanical." We learn of his choice of bicycles and then cars. Along with the changing vehicles through the years we learn of his love life. It seems somehow the relationships with his automobiles is entwined with his human relationships. He says "I wasn't trying to see how many different cars I could own, or how many failed relationships I could stack up. Cars were both solitude & means to find love, but somewhere I lost my purpose. "

One night he was driving home "fueled by the frustrations of false desire". He lost control of his car and went off the road. He was pinned against a tree for twelve hours - "the thought of bodily injury is always in the back of your mind if you like banging gears & going fast."

Coleman is still working on cars and has added bookmaking as another of his talents. He does these activities from a wheelchair. When he looks back on his life and loves he says, "Maybe all those disappointments were just reminders that my soul mate is waiting for me when I become a greater man."
$400

Texting & Driving
A Budding Volkswagen Mechanic's Retrospective
By Eric Evan Coleman
Tuscaloosa, Alabama: E E C Press, 2018. Edition of 20.

5.75 x 9.25"; 16 pages including pastedowns. 4 double-page pop-ups. Lithography. Screen prints. Numbered. Bound in paper over boards with cloth spine. Colophon on back board.

Eric Coleman: "My work vaguely references a connection with motor vehicles spliced with personal narratives about my love life. these are two things that make up my identity. Identity is often mistaken for the artist's own narcissism, but it is something I am interested in even if am prostituting my story for my work. Explaining my empathetic tendencies to the world, how I absorb every emotion in a room, and how my identity is often misperceived based on outside misconceptions is something I feel obligated to portray as an artist. The job of an artist is to explain the complicated things in life to the rest of the world, so, much of my work starts from my own experience."
$200