Now and winged
Artists’ books present, and in process
Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
How will they know there’s no-one left
2025
Peepshow artists’ book comprised of seven inkjet prints and five internal sections on Canson Arches 88 310gsm, with concertina wings in Hereford Book & Printmaking 140gsm, capable of expanding to 50cm (when open), with a single view hole to cover, with collapsable curtain opening
Housed in a two-toned paper sleeve, with cutout and adhered paper elements, on Fabriano Tiziano 160gsm (Blue Night) and Stonehenge Cotton Rag 245gsm (Black)
Printed by Arten
Bound by Louise Jennison, with hand-cut elements
Edition of 10
We’re chuffed beyond measure that editions of our peep-show artists’ book, How will they know there’s no-one left, have been acquired by Deakin University, State Library Victoria, and the Research Library and Archive of the Art Gallery of NSW, in addition to private collectors. Launched at the recent Melbourne Art Book Fair, our appetite is whetted to slice the paper once more and create another peep-show creation, or similar.
If you would like an abandoned theatre of your own, we have the remaining editions listed through our online store.
And whilst we may have finished this particular artists’ book with the crescent moon against an inky sky, things are still decidedly entomological in the wings as we work on a couple of new projects.
Tilt your head to the side, to see the lick of Gum Arabic. Polish your magnifying lens, to see the translucency of the wings of bumblebees. Note the tiny shadow ring beneath the tiny form on the page rendering them active, still capable of flight. Be allured by frontispieces with their clues and quirks. It’s time to head to the Melbourne Museum!
In rare books collection awe, once more, this time with heartfelt thanks to Hayley Webster, Manager, Library, Museum Victoria. (Thank-you for turning the pages, and delighting us with details.)
As it was such a treat to peer beneath the covers and find the beauty within to be so exquisite, it seems only fitting to share a little of the contents here.
Pictured above, amongst other delights, and not in order, you will find the delicate Drawings of lepidoptera by C.M. Curtis, I.H. Newton, G. Samouelle (1826); Monographia apum Angliae by William Kirby (1802); The natural history of the rarer lepidopterous insects of Georgia : including their systematic characters, the particulars of their several metamorphoses, and the plants on which they feed by John Abbot (1797), so luminous and saturated; Sammlung exotischer Schmetterlinge by Jacob Hübner and Carl Geyer (1806) and Arcana entomologica; or illustrations of new, rare and interesting insects by J. O. Westwood (1845).
“Spider’s silk is a miracle thing; one we have long tried to replicate and cannot, proof that our invention, daring and beautiful and miraculous as it is, is no rival to that with which the world already thrums. Spider silk weighs almost nothing — a thread of silk long enough to loop the Earth would weigh less than five hundred grams — but is one of the strongest materials on the planet: five times stronger than a strand of steel of the same thickness.”
Impressive in scale and glorious colour, and for depicting the life cycles of insects, moths, and butterflies, and recording their activities (a community of ants forming bridges and bird-eating spiders) alongside local flora and fauna (insects with their host plants, interactions between same and different taxa, food chains and the connection of all things), here’s to you, Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717), and your daughters, Dorothea Maria and Johanna Helena.
True to the preface of The transformation of the insects of Suriname to both ‘lovers of art’ and ‘lovers of insects’ it certainly appeals. Released from the diagrammatic style, Merian’s page inhabitants are so carefully observed we photographed near every page.
Pictured above, De europische insecten, naauwkeurig onderzogt, na’t leven geschildert. [Bound with] Over de voorttelingen en wonderbaerlyke veranderingen der Surinaamsche insecten by Maria Sibylla Merian (1730).
We’ve also recently had the chance to look further at the tubular mouthpart marvels of cicadas and a shimmering of Christmas beetles within the Baillieu Library with Susan Millard, Curator of Rare Books, at The University of Melbourne, and State Library Victoria with Dr Anna Welch, Principal Collection Curator, History of the Book, by way of the irresistible poetic rabbits of Henri Matisse (from the Poèmes de Charles D’Orléans, (1942–50)), and the breathtaking “colour blot” difference of the first woman to publish on colour theory, Mary Gartside’s An Essay on a New Theory of Colours, and on Composition in General (currently on display in the new hang of World of the Book at State Library Victoria, alongside other delights, inclusive of the pocket sized chap book The Life of Jack Sprat, His Wife, and His Cat and a medieval scribal knife, used in the creation of handwritten manuscripts in the pre-print era).
Behind the scenes, now pictured below, an edition of The Possum (Melbourne), 1874, with a front page perhaps more beguiling than the contents, and further entomological beauties from Caspar Stoll’s Natuurlyke en naar ‘t leeven naauwkeurig gekleurde afbeeldingen en beschryvingen der wantzen, in alle vier waerelds deelen Europa, Asia, Africa en America huishoudende, 1788 to Eleazar Albin’s A natural history of English insects illustrated with a hundred copper plates scuttling off the page, 1720, and more besides. As well as a peep at the now rested and recovered The Anatomy of Melancholy: What it is, With all the kinds causes, symptomes. Prognostickes & seuerall cures of it by Democritus Junior, 1628.
There are about 80,000 known species of bugs, and you, Hayley, Susan, and Anna, have showed us a great many of them. Thank-you.
May this inspire you to peruse the forthcoming Rare Book Week 2025 programme to see what tickles your fore-edge (though many sessions are already sold out, owing to their promise).
Further afield, in addition to creating paper stages and diving into the world of insects for our next projects, we’ll be giving an artists’ talk at Castlemaine Press Sunday the 29th of June, at 2pm.
RSVP
Image credit: Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, How will they know there’s no-one left, 2025, photographed by Tim Gresham
