Vanishing - Mezzotints by Holly Downing, Poems by Jane Hirshfield

 

Holly Downing

  1948 - PRESENT (biography)

2021  

22 panel accordion book with 11 mezzotints in handbound box that measures 7-5/8 x 8 x 1-3/4". 

platemarks: interior images 3 x 3"; cover image 2-15/16 x 6-7/16" 

pencil, on colophon 

7 of 20  

book binder's and poet's signatures on colophon; pencil editioned on colophon 

 

mezzotints printed on Rives BFK; interspersed with handmade paper by the bookbinder Rhiannon Alpers 

published 

artist 

HD229 

$1,850.00 

An accordion-style livre d'artiste by Holly Downing in collaboration with the book designer Rhiannon Alpers and the poet Jane Hirshfield. A collection of images and poems that address the extinction of insects as a result of climate change, through the narrative lens of hand-made beauty. The book, which includes 10 hand-colored interior images and 1 cover image of a variety of endangered insects, is enclosed in a magnetic drop spine box hand-bound by Alpers and features a museum-glass "panel" allowing for a peek at the cover illustration: a monarch butterfly. From the colophon: "Vanishing is a collaboration between Holly Downing of Sebastopol and Rhiannon Alpers of San Francisco, California. Holly made and hand-colored the mezzotint engravings, while Rhiannon designed, letterpress printed, and bound the edition. Holly was assisted in the editioning by Toni Stirling. "The papers are Rives BFK from France, Arjowiggins Kea Kolor Vellim Sombre Grey, and a handmade cotton rag paper that was created by Rhiannon Alpers for the edition. The enclosure is a drop spine magnet box with a museum glass panel in Dubletta bookcloth. "Jane Hirshfield's poems first appeared in the following books: "Heart Starting and Stopping in the Late Dark," from The Lives of the Heart (NY: HarperCollins, 1997); "Bees," from The Lives of the Heart (NY: HarperCollins, 1997); "Downed Branch," from After (NY: Harper Collins, 2006); "Love in August," from Come, Thief (NY: Knopf, 2011); "Rock," from Given Sugar, Given Salt (NY: HarperCollins, 2001); "Ghazal for the End of Time," from Ledger (NY: Knopf, 2020). The insects depicted include: Monarch Butterfly; Red-Winged Grasshopper; Delta Green Ground Beetle; Rusty Patched Bumblebee; Stag Beetle; Bay Checkerspot Butterfly; Hawaiian Green Sphinx Moth; American Burying Beetle, Smith's Blue Butterfly; Southern Damselfly; and Valley Elderberry Longhorn Beetle.