The book is sewn on linen tapes and jute twine with Twinrocker handmade paper covers. The cover is cut away to show the strata of the book pages, and the book is housed in a printed and sewn linen bag.
The book begins with two short quotes by Robert Smithson, “The axis splits into a chasm in hour hands, thus you begin your travels by being immediately lost,” and “Writing drifts into strata, and becomes a buried language.” In his extensive writings, Smithson writes about language and working within the pages of a book/magazine as a conceptual space and experience.
Rough and textured handmade paper by Cave Paper is juxtaposed with smooth, white Zerkall Book paper, printed here with drawn layers of stenciled text printed from photopolymer plates. This text represents language as “verbal deposits,” along with the rigidity, inadequacies, and bias that language can hold.
Imagery is made from drawings that bring to mind geological strata that are printed from photopolymer plates, hand-colored, and captioned with a text that reads in pieces below each of 5 images, “It’s understood” “between us.” “The measure of all things,” “a few words worn around the edges, pressed into something soft” “and made solid over time.” The imagery is inspired by Orra White Hitchcock, one of America’s earliest women botanical and scientific illustrators and artists.
Knotted, looped, and braided thread is also used in the book as imagery along with similar printed lines moving the reader/viewer through the book, as a way of counting or experiencing time passing. This is inspired by the quipu of the Incans and other ancient Andean cultures that used a system of knots to keep records and communicate information.
Inge Bruggeman
Reno, Nevada
www.ingebruggeman.com
The Quickest Forever
2017
Letterpress printed from handset metal type and photopolymer plates on Zerkall Book paper and handmade Cave Paper, hand colored with pencils, the book also uses knotted, looped, and braided thread as imagery
edition size of 35
42 pages
10 x 13.5 x .5″
10 x 6.75 x .75″
Artist Statement
The Quickest Forever, 2017 is an artist book printed in an edition of 35 copies and made entirely by the artist, except for the paper. It is printed from handset type and photopolymer plates on Zerkall Book paper, which is white and smooth and juxtaposed with the rough, textured, handmade paper by Cave Paper. The book is a meditation on the passing of time, both on the land and on us as individuals. It also highlights the book as a kind of geological artifact of our experiences during the relatively short time we get to be on this planet with others.
The imagery representing geological stratification began as drawings that were inspired by Orra White Hitchcock (1796-1863), one of America’s earliest botanical and scientific illustrators and artists. The drawings were then printed from photopolymer plates and hand colored using colored pencils. Below each image is a fragment of text and when combined reads, “It’s understood” “between us.” “The measure of all things,” “a few words worn around the edges, pressed into something soft” “and made solid over time.”
Knotted, looped, twisted, and braided thread creates another layer of imagery that signifies time passing, or an act done with the hands in an attempt to count or control the passage of time. This use of thread was inspired by the quipus (or talking knots) of the Incans and other ancient Andean cultures that used a system of knots to keep records and communicate information. Printed lines based on the thread imagery lead the viewer/reader into spreads of landscape imagery — a smooth line or trajectory leads into the craggily ridge or horizon line of the landscape, and then back into the narrative. The reading process is fragmented into a slow, considered pace. This reading is interrupted by drawn, stenciled text that is also printed from photopolymer plates and accumulates, like so much verbal debris throughout the pages of the books. This text is fragmented and broken: “Meaning sur-faces float-s first words syllables fr-om rupture d-isruption pure,” “wedged betwe-en one misund-erstanding & a,” histories com-pressed to ve-rbal veins dis-tilled essenc-e caught in time so larg-e small so in-significant a signifier,” “intractab-ly embedded verbal deposi-ts calcificati-on, hard words,” “erosion dis-persion silte-d stories tim-e tells lang-uage tells of accumulation compession things chang-e things sta-y the same r-epeat new re-wind old new.” This text references a quote by Robert Smithson in the beginning of the book, “Writing drifts into strata, and becomes a buried language.” In his extensive writings, Smithson writes about language and working within the pages of a book/magazine as a conceptual space and experience. The second quote by him draws attention to the natural gap in the binding as part of the composition and considered space of the book, “The axis splits into a chasm in your hands, thus you begin your travels by being immediately lost.” The gap, or chasm is created by the exposed spine sewing on linen tapes and jute twine which is woven into Twinrocker handmade cover papers. The book is housed in a printed and sewn linen bag and delivered in a light blue library specimen box.