Losing Ground
Marshfield Hills, MA: Viewpoint Editions, 2008. Hardcover. Number 1 of 6 copies in the deluxe edition signed and numbered by the book artist. There were also 100 regular copies.This is a powerful artist's book that Dorothy Krause created to explore the intersections of traditional and digital media to create artist's books that bridge between these two forms. In her artist's statement she writes: "I am a painter by training and collage-maker by nature who began my experimental printmaking with reprographic machines. It embeds archetypal symbols and fragments of image and text in multiple layers of texture and meaning. It combines the humblest of materials, plaster, tar, wax and pigment, with the latest in technology to evoke the past and herald the future. My art-making is an integrated mode of inquiry that links concept and media in an ongoing dialogue - a visible means of exploring meaning.
In its content, Losing Ground is an eloquent plea for awareness of our role as stewards of the environment. Using images from her prior work spanning more than a decade and text from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it combines traditional processes and print-on-demand technology to share its important message. Perhaps even more notable is a page with text from the Bible book of Malachi: "Behold the day commeth that shall burn as an oven." To create the book, the many images Krause chose from her work were collaged in Adobe Photoshop into 12 x 12 inch double page spreads. The images themselves are for the most part in the hot shades of orange and seem to visualize the earth as if it were in the midst of some ghastly chemical fire. An image on one page of a clock superimposed on the head of a piece of classical statuary, dotted line through the blank eyes, with a backdrop of an aerial map of arid agricultural fields makes the message clear without a word.
This deluxe edition was bound by Harcourt Bindery in aubergine Nigerian goatskin with an embossed 8 x 8 inch copper title plate inset into a debossed area on the cover. The inset was manipulated by the artist with acid washing. The title is blind-stamped in the center of the copper plate. The text pages were printed on an HP Indigo 5500 press and were then manipulated by Krause with graphite, metallic pigments, and gold and silver leaf. The paper used was Mohawk Options 65 cover made from 100% post consumer content with renewable wind power. The font used for the text was appropriately named "Dirty Ego." Housed in a custom rust colored clamshell box. In fine condition. The book measures 12 x 12.25 inches. Unpaginated [40 pages] ARTB/030123. Fine.
Item #36419
Price: $2,500.00