Dreams of Flight, The Nesting Season
Simi Valley, CA: Pie in the Sky Press, 2022. Hardcover. Number 16 of 30 copies, signed and numbered by the book artist. Rebecca Chamlee is a book artist, printer, writer, and bookbinder who has published innovatively designed, letterpress printed, limited-edition fine press, and artist’s books under the imprint of Pie In The Sky Press since 1986. Her work is in prominent special and private collections throughout the U.S. and has been exhibited widely. As a self-taught naturalist and citizen scientist, Rebecca’s artist’s books examine the intersection of her artistic and scientific interests by collecting and cataloging the natural world. Rebecca retired in 2023 as an associate professor at Otis College of Art and Design where she taught bookbinding, letterpress printing, and artist’s book classes and headed the Book Arts minor program for over 20 years [from the artist's website]. Chamlee writes about her book: "During the long months of isolation in 2020 and 2021, I began documenting the many birds that came to my backyard feeders and noted their unique behaviors. With a telephoto lens, I was able to record detailed and intimate images of my avian visitors. As often happens, the passion I felt for the birds grew into the idea for an artist’s book. Dreams of Flight, the nesting season is an interconnected story of three different species of birds that nested in my suburban yard during the spring nesting seasons of 2020–21. The book was created entirely at home. Printed in the colors of the birds on the Vandercook Universal III power press in the living room studio using Deepdene and 20th Century type with assorted wood type from the Pie in the Sky Press collection. The original images were captured through the window over the press with a Nikkor 200-500mm f5.6 lens mounted on a Nikon D850 camera and printed with photo polymer plates made by Boxcar Press." The blue binding with an abstract gilt image of a bird's wing is a flutter book structure, a type of accordion where the fore-edges of the pages are pasted together but the spine is not. A tan cloth magnetic spine supports the backbone of the book and can be removed for reading and display. Printed on cotton cloud paper that was handmade to order by Tom Balbo. The endsheets are Hahnemuhle Bugra. The text paper is Wa-Mix Kozo and Clairefontaine Simili Japon with sewn-in wings of cloud paper and colored Bugra to match the birds. The book is housed in a blue bookcloth-covered clamshell box and includes a suite of three prints printed in four colors on 320gsm Izumi paper, enclosed in handmade St. Armand Papeterie blue paper folder. The box is housed in a protective blue stiff paper clamshell box with a slightly smudged title label on the cover. In fine condition. Measures 6 x 10 x .75 inches. Box measures 8.75 x 10.75 x 1.5 inches. Unpaginated [24 pages]. ARTB/030424. Fine. More