New York: Intima Press, 2021. Hardcover. Number 8 of 26 copies from the standard edition signed and numbered by the book artist. There were 6 deluxe copies. Artist and Master Printer, Mindy Belloff, specializes in fine book editions and custom letterpress. She has been creating art for over 35 years and printing letterpress since 1996. Her books are numerous permanent collections. Her press is committed to traditions of high art and the by-hand craft of letterpress printing, fine artist's books, unique bindings, poetic broadside editions, and elegant designs and typography. Mindy Belloff's custom designs are a union of art historical traditions with modern technology and sensibilities.
Edition limited to 32: This fine edition is limited to 26 standard and 6 deluxe bindings. The volume is 300-pages, consisting of 75 folios folded into 19 signatures, with back endsheet printed letterpress. The text is digitally typeset in Adobe Jenson Pro with additional fonts (Lydian Cursive MT, Fine Gothic Medium, Luminari, Berliner, Berliner Fraktur, Garamond Premier Pro, and Goudy Text MT). The typography and page composi- tions were designed in Adobe InDesign over many hundreds of hours for more than 30 months. Image reproductions of artworks were painstakingly color-corrected in Adobe PhotoShop. A selection of drawings and photographs were manipulated in Adobe Illustrator. The text of the novels was digitally printed with archival pigmented inks on over 3,600 sheets, with an Epson Professional SureColor P600 inkjet printer. Most of the commentaries and calligrams were printed letterpress on a Vandercook Universal III Automatic Adjustable Bed Press (Uni III A/B), with a limited color palette of deep red, aqua blue, and grey inks. There are over 180 letterpress print runs. The pages are Crane's Lettra archival cotton rag text weight papers. The palette is limited, and the commentaries and page designs thoughtfully composed with reverence to the history of the book. The concept, designs, typography, research, artworks, and printing are by Mindy Belloff.
This splendid production from Mindy's Intima Press is a feminist reading of three literary classics: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter,” Gustave Flaubert’s “Madam Bovary,” and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment.” The artist writes: "The volume gives voice to the main female characters, Hester Prynne, Emma Bovary, and Sonia Marmeladov, and presents multiple voices in dialogue. The subtitle, Joni. Annie. Tracy, highlights contemporary singer-songwriters Joni Mitchell, Annie Lennox, and Tracy Chapman along with other favored musical artists including Janis Joplin, Etta James, Leon Russell, Paul Simon, Mary J. Blige, Laurie Anderson, and others, whose poetic lyrics provide commentary in the margins. Text of philosophers, writers, and poets such as Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Karen Horney, Jean-Paul Sartre, Julia Kristeva, Rainer Maria Rilke, William Blake, and Arthur Rimbaud, are incorporated into brilliant typographical designs, deconstructing the original narratives. A selection of text is in Latin, French, and Russian." Mindy writes on her website that the book has additional references to contemporary issues including Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter protests. She further states: "The three sections are abridged and combined into one volume, reframed to create a critical dialog in the 21st-century. The resulting layered narrative recontextualizes the stories, bringing additional voices to the fore."
This was an over three year project, with the concept, designs, typography, artworks, printing, and publishing all done by Mindy Belloff. The edition includes an Introduction, "No Text Stands Alone," written by Saul Ostrow, art critic and curator. There is an extensive appendix with over 50 bibliography listings to materials referenced in creating this work, over 50 lyric references used in the book, and an index of over 40 artworks reproduced in the book that were created by Mindy the artist at various times over her career. The book required 180 letterpress runs. It is digitally printed with archival pigmented inks on Crane's cotton rag text weight paper using various fonts. It is bound in in white letterpress printed covers, with an aqua blue Sokoto leather spine millimeter binding. Housed in a red cloth custom box with a unique middle opening showing the title, sewn and bound by Celine Lombardi. In fine condition. Measures 10.5 x 7.75 x 1.75 inches. 300 pages. ARTB/051223. Fine. More
