Iowa City: Emily Martin, 2017. Hardcover. Number 8 of 25 copies signed and numbered by Emily Martin. Martin earned an MFA degree in painting, from the University of Iowa in 1979 and made her first artist’s books at that time. Martin joined the faculty of the University of Iowa Center for the Book in 1998 where she teaches artists books, paper engineering, and traditional bookbinding classes. Martin makes limited edition artists books first as the Naughty Dog Press, now using her name only. She has produced over fifty artist’s books, often using movable and/or sculptural paper engineering techniques. Martin’s books are included in public and private collections throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Meermanno Museum, The Hague, Netherlands; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago; the Tate Britain, London, England, the Library of Congress and others.
This is an inventive and thoughtful yet playful book from Martin. From the book artist: "This book is the result of my extended study of Shakespeare’s comedies. I find the comedies individually to be enjoyable but there is a sameness to many of the plots that allows me to mix them up in my head. So much mistaken identity, gender confusion and various other contrivances while romping their way to a fifth act wedding or two. Even more problematic are the decidedly unfunny themes that are common in many of these same comedies such as hypocrisy, sexual harassment, intolerance, sexism, misogyny, and anti-Semitism. I struggled for a long time to integrate all these ideas. I finally realized that what I needed to do was to address each aspect separately, thus a dos a do book. Each side has its own focus and treatment. The characters are the same in both books. They are printed using the P22 Blox which are a set of modular shapes that can be interchanged to change the body’s posture and gestures. The P22 Blox allows the presentation of the characters as interchangeable as well. "
Funny Peculiar is a drum leaf book and presents selected lines from five plays delivered by characters on a stage set. Funny Ha Ha is a slice book allowing the viewer to mix and match the costumes and gender of the characters in a variety of postures. Funny Peculiar is letterpress printed on an SP15 Vandercook proof press using hand-set type and P22 Blox combined with rubbings, ink washes, and collagraphs to make the images. Printed on Domestic Etch paper with gray Pescia end sheets. Funny Ha Ha is printed letterpress on an SP15 Vandercook proof press using hand-set type combined with relief printing using P22 Blox, collagraphs, and polymer plates from Boxcar Press to make the images. Printed on white Pescia paper with gray Pescia end sheets. Bound in a modified dos a do binding to hold the sewn text block slice book on one side and the drum leaf text block on the other side. The hard covers are covered with Arrestox book cloth and three vivid colored cotton papers color-matched and custom made by Katie MacGregor. Funded in part by a grant from the College Book Art Association. Housed in a clamshell box covered in Japanese linen cloth. The box has light bumping to corners and tiny loss of fabric along top edge. In near fine condition. Measures 12 x 10 x 1 inches. Box is 13 x 11 inches. ARTISTB/110823. Near Fine. More