Campbell, Ken, 1939-2022, In the door stands a jar , 1987
- Title(s):
- In the door stands a jar / Ken Campbell.
- Published/Created:
- [Oxford, England] : K. Campbell, 1987.
- Physical Description:
- [44] p. : chiefly col. ill. ; 24 x 25 cm.
- Holdings:
- Rare Books and ManuscriptsN7433.4.C35 I5 1987+ OversizeYale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund[Request]
- Copyright Status:
- Copyright Not Evaluated
- Full Orbis Record:
- http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/3762267
- Classification:
- Books
- Notes:
- "There's usually some kind of formal problem in books--I mean a way of dividing space up for good clear reason and for making things work in sequence. I had a notion of putting a double spread, which is a designer's term for an opened book, on one page and putting the same double spread reduced on the other page, so you're looking at two double spreads as a kind of visual pun ... There was also a notion that this produced very large dark borders, and I had started to play with borders. I wanted to bury words in those borders as a kind of visual echo of the words being used in the poem, as almost a metaphor for where words come from in one of the ways of creating poetry, hearing echoes of sound and meaning from other places. I don't know where the figure--the jar--came from. I carved a female form from a background of zinc and wood, and then cut it in half so that there were four blocks, which were then manipulated and printed in a variety of colours ... The jar that stands in the door is both a woman's thick body and a jar which is cut up, dismembered and moved around, but I don't think cruelly so, I think it celebrates the shape. It was almost a tilt back to my designer past making a page move in almost a cinematographic way through the book, in the spaces between the two verses. It was a very formal piece, a very sculptural thing to do."--Ken Campbell, from The word returned.
"The poem runs laterally through the colour and bleeds off into the darkness either side. The book is about that darkness and the sensual face of this world, the Shekinah, the feminine face of God."--Facing the page.
Edition of 40. Printed letterpress in several colors. Metallic dusting and handwork. Purple leather spine, with illustrated paper boards, in slipcase.
Original archival material related to this work is available in the collections of the Yale Center for British Art, Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts (Ken Campbell Collection, MSS 25).
Campbell, K. Ken Campbell, an artist's books, 6
Facing the page : British artists' books, p. 33
Word returned: artist books by Ken Campbell, 8
BAC: British Art Center copy is no. 2 of 40, signed by the artist in graphite, and dated '88. - Subject Terms:
- Artists' books -- Great Britain.Campbell, Ken, 1939- -- Publisher
- Form/Genre:
- Artists' books -- Great Britain.
- Export:
- XML