Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> In 1967 I made the first of my now some one hundred-forty one-of-a-kind and twenty-three production books. That first attempt had thirty-two photo etchings. After printing the plates I laid the etchings on the floor and started the hours of arranging and rearranging. I thought one print made a perfect summation. I placed it at the end. Another seemed like it made a good beginning stating several themes. I placed it at the begin- ning. I cannot recall now how I logically “sequenced” the other thirty prints. Surely it was ordered well for after all had I not spent several hours to “buy” its validity? That evening my roommate Steve Foster came home from his job at UPS. I eagerly awaited his thoughts on my first book. “What do you think of the order?” Without hesitation he said “Why don’t you shuffle them up?” By his intimating that would be just as good a solution I knew he was try- ing to get to me but I also respected him and wondered what he was lead- ing to. He talked about a teacher he had had in Rochester named Nathan Lyons who talked about conceiving pictures toward a book. The term vi- sual flow entered my vocabulary. I said to Steve I thought photo flow came out of a bottle. And I grinned which helped me to gracefully face the fact that my first attempt at a book was a failure. I think to some extent I had been aware in taking time to arrange those di- vorced isolated prints that I was fooling myself by thinking I had ordered them. They were all photo etchings all 2 *4^ * all from photographs I had taken on subways CTA and Greyhound buses. Relationships between the pictures had to exist. I bound Book One the next day but it was held to- gether only by its binding. (SP)