2015 MCBA Prize Entries

Gabrielle Cooksey, “Monsters and Beasts”

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The Stage page

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Close up of the Bird page

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Cover

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Close up of the Bird Page

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The Snake page

Gabrielle Cooksey (Tacoma, WA)
boundbycooksey.com

Monsters and Beasts
2014
silkscreen printed, letterpress printed, hand painted with acrylic
Edition of 22
10 pages
Dimensions, open: 13 5/8 x 19 3/8 x 3/4″
Dimensions, closed: 13 5/8 x 9 7/8 x 1/4″

While working with Don Glaister, Suzanne Moore, and Jessica Spring in the summer of 2014, they encouraged me to make a “complete” book under their guidance, help and nudging. This was new territory for me, as I had previously only worked on the binding of books.

The project challenged me to see if I could make the whole of a book — from the text, image, layout, color, cover, to the binding — a major learning curve because I had to think of the actual page content and how the work will flow on it. I did not know where the book was going when I first thought of it, but I think it grew up over the 8 month process, because I had grown up too.

I letterpress printed, silk-screened, and hand-painted the pages. The cave paper cover includes a gold foil design detail of one of the five animal images. I strive to have my work feel magical in a reader’s hands and want it to look like it is from a treasure chest or long forgotten library, and I feel this book is more than I could have hoped for.