Production Narrative

by J. Drucker

The edition included hard-bound Rives copies and paper-bound Mohawk copies, mainly because of the cost of Rives and the work of binding. All the production was the same, otherwise, for the text and the images (all of these were printed letterpress). The most important production feature seems to be the fact that this was laid out using the images as a way to structure the openings and the book as a whole.

Critical Analysis

by J. Drucker

Design Features

typographic: Agenda was chosen for its dark, heavy bluntness. A no-frills, direct quality inheres in its forms.

imagery: Expressionistically influenced, the images were carved in linoleum to get them to become angular, somewhat harsh, and to exaggerate the emotional affect of their quality. Most have some source in a newspaper image.

graphical: Much thought was given to the page layout design -- whether to have any header or footer, how to make the text block appear on the page, how much to reference a "book" as a literary form. The book block sits on the page with quite conventional stability. But each line in the text was set in a separate text box in Quark and then given a different angle off the horizontal. The effect is meant to be disturbing, but not so radical as to prevent reading.

openings: All of the openings were structured by the images. The images were laid out first, before the text was put into the book. In every opening, a gaze connects the figures across the gutter. Only one opening has a figure who faces towards us, the man kneeling by the gravestone. He asks us to bear witness.

turnings: Changes of scale structure the shift from opening to opening.

development: The images move the reader through the book, from the hideous corpse of the starved dead bird, to the futile end.

Critical Discussion

A book about trying to get hold of what was going on. Not sure how to process the information that was coming at me that spring -- from friends, from the news, the weather, from anecdotes and observation. The awfulness of the war machine, cranking up on lies, and the sense of everything delicate, living, vulnerable being crushed. The winter kept coming back, freezing and breaking young trees, new growth. Truly a dark time. All told and processed through a personal point of view, but not about me. This isn't my personal story, the damage was not mine, except as it was collective, shared.

Detailed Analysis

The pathetic figure of that weeping woman was one of the first I carved. Her misery was so intense. And carving that block, the day of graduation at UVa, sitting in my studio, BF sitting in the chair, while we tried to decide whether to go see the Jack Nicholson movie about a man retiring. We went. Despair was everywhere. I wanted to be home carving. That block was so satisfying, its forms so communicative, seemed to provide some succour, some salvation, balm, just to make something. Had not been able to make books, or even write much that year, dreadful year without staff in the program, trying to keep things from falling apart. Didn't sleep through the night once that year. So, in the aftermath of graduation ceremony, to sit for a minute and be able to carve that block was like a reprieve.

General Comments

Rarely have felt such desperate anger and powerless despair as that spring. Though Deterring Discourse, written at the start of the first Gulf War, had some of that emotion in it as well. [J. Drucker]

Damaged Spring: Pink Noire

Agents

Johanna Drucker

type: initiating

role:
artist
author
publisher
printer

nationality:
born: United States
active: United States
citizenship: United States

dates:
birth: 1952-05-30

Publication Information

edition type: editioned

publisher: Druckwerk

place: Charlottesville, VA

dates:
conception: 2003-01-00 Conceived and written in winter and spring 2003.
production: 2003-00-00
publication: 2003-00-00

edition size: 25 and 75 or so. About 100 in all.

Measurements

horizontal: 7.5 inches closed

vertical: 8.75 inches closed

depth: .375 inches closed

Production Information

production means:
letterpress (local)
digital laser (local)
linoleum (local)

binding: hand sewn (local) 75 in paper wrappers, 25 with paper-covered boards.

substrate:
bookBlock: paper Rives
endsheets: paper Rives

media:
ink (local)

other materials: none

Appearance

format: codex (AAT)

cover: The front cover, 7 1/2" x 8 3/4", features an original collage on white paper with neon pink streaks of paper underneath four different black and white linoleum prints: a figure kneeling and shaking its fist, the word "DAMAGED," the word "SPRING," and the agent's name written "JOHANNA DRUCKER."

color: yes Streaks of hot pink paper on the front and back covers, but completely black and white inside the book

Content

pagination: unpaginated 28 pages

numbered?: unnumbered

signed?: unsigned

Colophon

In response to the events of Spring 2003. Linoleum blocks, Quark, Agenda Bold Condensed, HP LaserJet. At VABC, McGuffy, and Warren Lane in Charlottesville. Limited edition includes 25 copies on Rives, with original collages on the cover and then another 75 or so copies on Mohawk Superfine, with folded wrappers to cover. Text, images, design, production all by the author. Much love to those around me who watched this book come into being and shared the changes of this wretched season.

Exhibition Information

exhibition history: "Love and Terror" exhibition at the University of Arizona, Tucson, Fall 2003, was the first time this was exhibited.

General Comments

George Riser was one of the most perceptive readers of this book. His comments on it were most gratifying. He also noted that it probably wouldn't find its readership, especially not immediately, given its complexity. He was right, of course. [J. Drucker]