Papyrus Productions ~ New York
(Francois Deschamps and Judith Mohns)

The Pet Quartet
By Francois Deschamps
New Paltz, New York: New Shed Press, 2006. Edition of 25.

5.5 x 4.25"; 24 pages. Four chapbook-type volumes housed in box with illustrated title paper on lid.

New Shed Press: "Long awaited ... 20 years in the making ... These four exciting volumes, assembled for the first time, span Deschamps' heady rise from canary breeder to general pet philosopher and theorist."

The four volumes were produced between 1986 and 2006, and are here collected in a boxed set as a Special Collector's Edition.

How to Care for Your Canary, originally published in 1984, contains Deschamps' sage wisdom about owning a canary: "Do not mention famous opera singers around a canary."

How to Care for Your Pet Lobster, initially produced in 1986, contains similar sage snippets: "It is good etiquette not to boil water within earshot of your pet's hearing."

General Pet Theory, originally produced in 1994, offers perspective on pet ownership: "Who is Whose Pet?"
Dead Pets includes "Pet Epitaphs" to "fittingly memorialize a life well lived."
$115

Memoire D'Un Voyage En Oceanie
By Francois Deschamps
University of Auckland, New Zealand: PhotoForum, 1995. Edition of 1000.

6 x 8.25"; 96 pages.Gray illustrated wraps. Illustrated throughout. Offset printed in three colors on acid-free paper. With a smyth-sewn binding. Printed at the Elam Fine Arts Printing Research Unit, at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

The fictional memoirs of a voyage in Oceania that included Dr. Ernst Schlotte (scientist? owner of luxury goods store in Bremen? cannibal?) and François Deschamps (diminutive ship's photographer) and the monograph's putative author. Introduction by Dr Hinemoa Heke-Gibbons, afterword by Joan Turner, R.N.

Francois Deschamps: "This monograph is the study of a fictitious voyage of the ship Curriodity in the South Seas ca. 1920. It features a facsimile version of the journal left by one member of the expedition."
$30

A Guide to Antipodea
By Francois Deschamps
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Papyrus Productions / Borowsky Center for Publication Arts, 1992. Edition of 300.

5.75 x 9"; 32 pages. Offset printed in 7 colors on French text and cover. Printed at the Borowsky Center for Publication Arts at The University of the Arts (Philadelphia).

"Tired of the persistent pull of Gravity? Float off to Antipodea — home of beautiful natives, fine foods, long beaches and, best of all, a weak gravitational field!"

"Return with a small, native child for entertainment in your suburban home. Send it to an American school and see what happens! It's harmless and fun?"

Francois Deschamps: "This guide to a fictitious 'primitive' land questions issues of cultural identity and in particular, the relationship between oppressor and oppressed cultures."
$75

Remembrance
By Judith Mohns
[Rosendale, New York]: Women's Studio Workshop, 2003. Edition of 400.

6.5 x 6.5"; 72 pages. Offset printed on French Dur-O-Tone Newsprint text and cover (100% recycled and acid-free). Pamphlet sewn.

Judith Mohns: "This book uses the August 26, 2001 obituary page from The New York Times to create new readings of the existing text by isolating different words and lines. The visible and underlying structures of obituaries, families, society, and the qualities of life and death itself are explored revealing both the cold commonalities and the very personal specifics of the lives of the deceased."

You'll never read the obituary page quite the same way again.
$40

Quartet
By Judith Mohns
Auckland, New Zealand: Papyrus Productions, 1995. Edition of 300.

Each book 4.75 x 4.75". Four books laid in paper wrap enclosure with cutout for title. Housed in sturdy black archival box (5 x 5") with title on lid. Offset printed at the Elam Fine Arts Printing Research Unit at The University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Judith Mohns: "Like variations on a theme, Quartet is a set of four books, each printed on different papers and independently structured. Using transparency, gate-folds, die-cuts, two-color printing and paper manipulation, these books explore a personal journey of identity and conflict."

Each book, with form and content reflecting the slant, poses a form of the existential dilemma: What makes me me? Destiny, genes, conditioning, choice?
$200

Cartesian Dreams
By Francois Deschamps and Judith Mohns
Vinalhaven, Maine: Papyrus Productions, 1994. Edition of 25.

12.25 x 8.25" closed, 12.25 x 56" opened; 1 folded sheet. Accordion fold structure with pop-out in each double page center fold. Silkscreened in 23 colors on Rives BFK 100% Rag printmaking paper. Housed in silkscreened paper wrap with envelope slip-in closure.

Deschamps and Mohns: "Referencing René Descartes' 1637 book Discours de la Méthode, this book uses an accordion structure and dos-a-dos binding to show two conflicting views to Descartes' scientific work. One side of the books represents the positive and optimistic aspects of this philosophy, while the flip side shows the negative consequences of scientific control."

Colophon: "An artists' book response to René Descartes' Discours de la Méthode, published in Leyden in 1637. Descartes' book introduced analytic geometry, the powerful mathematical concept that defines space and curves in terms of coordinates and equations. This allowed the development of calculus and much of physics. Cartesian thought is based on reasoning, careful observation of nature, and verifiable calculations. "

The book was produced for a traveling show entitled Science and the Artists' Book, produced jointly by The Smithsonian Institution Library and The Washington Project for the Arts, which opened in May of 1995 in Washington D.C. It is dedicated to Georges Deschamps, "who taught his son to balance the Cartesian and the intuitive."
$600 (On hold)