Front, spine & back cover. Open spine, sewn onto tapes. Cover laminated to two depths. Covered in silvered buckram. Type foil blocked.
Left hand page: ‘Collage’ of tickets, four colours, linocut and polymer plate. Right hand page: Programme from a boxing Tournament, Shillong 1944. Printed inkjet onto tracing paper, Over- laying Plaque at Ward Lake, Shillong. Four colour linocut.
Double page spread. Panorama of Nohkalikai Falls, Cherrapungi. Four colour linocut.
Left hand page: Khasi woman carrying a khoa, Nangsawlia. Four colour lino cut. Right hand page: Photo of J McCauley, comrades & ‘a couple of Khasi girls’, Shillong 1944. Printed inkjet onto tracing paper. Over-laying, House on the Shillong Road, three colour linocut.
The Restaurant at Mawsmai Cave. Five colours, linocut & polymer plate.
Christine McCauley
London, United Kingdom
www.christinemccauley.co.uk
Mist
2017
Letterpress
25
32 (including front & back covers)
275mm x 350mm x 6mm
275mm x 175mm
Artist Statement
Mist (Missed)
The book is printed letterpress onto Zerkhall paper. The text is set in Gill Sans. The images were produced using linocut, polymer plates, & hand setting, from drawings that I made on location. The images on tracing paper are printed inkjet and are of ephemera & photos brought back from India by my father from WW2. The binding is single sections sewn onto tapes with grey linen thread. The front & back covers are recessed in the top section and covered in silver buckram to produce a cloud effect that mirrors the inside endpapers. The title Mist on the front and subtitle Missed on the back echo the title page that is printed onto tracing paper. Meghalaya ‘The Abode of the Clouds’ is the wettest place on earth. Its capital Shillong was a Hill Station and the capital of Assam under the British Raj. Set in the rolling countryside of the East Khasi Hills with its cool climate Shillong became known as the ‘The Scotland of the East’. The village of Cherrapungi on the Shillong Plateau’s southern edge has the world’s highest recorded rainfall. The title Mist refers to the climate of Meghalaya, a place shrouded by mist and the book both physically & metaphorically embodies seeing through the mist of time. The archival images on tracing paper mist the present day images of Meghalaya. The subtitle, Missed, refers to a wistful goodbye and yearning for a place colonised by the British and now returned to its rightful owners. A place still loved, full of memories and remnants, a reminder of a far away homeland. A place of mists and mellow fruitfulness. The book is a leaving, a goodbye and aims to create a complex portrait of place that interweaves the contemporary with the historical, figuration & the typography of place.