St. Paul, MN
Top: Every Morning Is an Entrance to a City $1500
Bottom: The Double Meaning of Yield $160
To Purchase Contact Abecedarian Gallery
About Every Morning . . .
Unique book in a series of 24 This accordion book, with seventeen panels that are 3.75 inches wide and 15 inches tall, is designed so that it can be opened fully to be viewed and read in its entirety. Background imagery is created combining aspects of relief and monoprinting on dark blue Hahnemühle Ingres. The text was composed in Centaur; images are from original charcoal and pen and ink drawings. Both text and images were electronically translated and letterpress printed with photopolymer plates. The book is housed in a cloth-covered, gate-fold box, and is published by Cedar Fence Press in 2009.
About The Double Meaning. . .
Images from original relief blocks and text set in Centaur were letterpress printed from photopolymer plates on Hahnemühle Ingres and transluscent Gasen papers. In addition, linoleum blocks were used to print the covers. The book features a soft cover binding, is 6.25 inches wide and 6 inches tall, contains 54 pages, and is housed in a single tray box with two companion broadsides. It was printed at Cedar Fence Press and Minnesota Center for Book Arts, and was published by Laurel Poetry Collective in 2007.
In the fall 2007, with the support of a Minnesota State Arts Board grant, I spent a couple of wonderful weeks working in the art studio at Pendle Hill, a Quaker study center outside Philadelphia. While there, I read, wrote, and painted pages in preparation for this book. Every Morning Is an Entrance to a City is the book in its finished form. It is a contemporary, universal “book of hours,” a meditation on time. Words and imagery are informed foremost by the writing of Abraham Joshua Heschel, Bach’s organ fugues, and readings from my daily morning meditation. My poem touches on the subject of labor and repose, community and solitude, loss and return. The theme of city is prominent. It is in cities where strangers come together, shaping a common life.
For several years it was my great delight to be one of two artist members of Laurel Poetry Collective, whose aim it is to publish beautiful, affordable books and broadsides. Toward the end of the first 5-year charter, I made a book in honor of our group and its mission. The Double Meaning of Yield contains reflections on writing poetry and the creative process by each of the collective’s twenty-three founding members. In shaping the book, I divided the reflections into three parts — attention, labor, and threshold — and marked each section with an emblem — a bench, a bowl, a gate. At its core, the book addresses that which is required, and that which is received. Here is Yvette Nelson’s poem that gives the book its name: You need paper and pencils. Your hands must be warm. You need to feel the deep pleasure of rivers. On days you cannot feel this, you simply have to believe it. You have to be grateful. You have to learn the double meaning of yield. You have to love and risk your little life.
Artist Biography
Regula Russelle makes fine press artist’s books independently through Cedar Fence Press, and with others through Accordion Press Collaborations. She loves teaching at Augsburg College and Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
Honors include a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant, a Jerome Book Arts Fellowship, and an award from the International Society of Bookbinders for The Complete Book. Her work is shown and collected internationally.
Last year, Russelle collaborated on a public arts project, dispersing nearly 5,000 folios with portraits and poems on the theme of kinship circle. She now explores ways to integrate democratic multiples in more of her work and teaching.All images and text copyright the artist. All rights reserved.
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