When We Were Birds Project Bookworks
X Press Publications

Walking Through: Meditations on the Ordinary
By Judy Anderson & Ginny Holye
Denver, Colorado: Judy Anderson, 2009. Second edition of 50.
(A First Edition of 2 was issued in 2005.)

9.75 X 8.5"; 84 unnumbered pages. Hardbound in boards with black-and-white photographic illustrations. Original haiku and poems with reproductions of monotypes, collage, and both black-and-white and duotone photographs.

This is the second collaboration between artist Judy Anderson and poet Ginny Hoyle. The book is comprised of 16 free verse poems linked by haiku that move through the cycle of the seasons, beginning and ending in winter, unified by a separate thread of text that walks through the simple lessons of a lifetime, from youth to old age. The poetry is supported and enhanced by images of trees, rushing water, bamboo, courtyards and cobbled streets wet with rain (patrolled by pigeons with human feet walking through) all closely observed.

The photographic images draw on Anderson's experiences during residencies in Rome and Centrum Arts Colony in Washington State.

Judy Anderson: "This book is an affirmation of the peace I find in nature reflected in the work of poet Ginny Hoyle. As two women raised in the ominous cold peace that followed WWII, we found the march to war [the second Iraq war] and its escalation strangely familiar and heartbreaking. This work could only have been created at this point in my life as a woman, as I questioned daily the values and judgment of the Bush administration. ...

All images were shot with a 35-mm camera and printed conventionally (in a darkroom)."

Ginny Hoyle: "In March 2000 I began composing haiku as a writing drill. The exercise became a deep pleasure, one that planted the seeds of many of the longer poems in Walking Through. The haiku and short poems in Walking Through are infused with the weather, peace, and wisdom of dawn walks beside the old Highline Canal that cuts through central Denver, year-round walks shared with close friends-for more than 20 years. We walk through the puzzles of our lives in a precious and troubled world, on a shared path as darkness recedes and light fills the sky. We have walked through times of sorrow and times of joy, years of peace and years of war, as our children have grown to adults starting families of their own. For me, these walks have become a kind of walking meditation - an occasion to practice open-hearted awareness of the present moment just as it is."
$185

Tell Me What You Really Mean to Say
By Judy Anderson
Denver, Colorado: Judy Anderson, 2001. Edition of 7.

4.5” x 4” x 1” closed, extends to 225"; 60 pages. Accordion extending from front pastedown. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Judy Anderson: "I have always been fascinated with the complexities of conversations between a woman and a man. That what someone says with words might not be what they really mean to say. In this book, the viewer can "read" the text through symbols or letterforms, constructing their own interpretation of what is really being said." $375

Fragments from the Stacked Deck
By Judy Anderson
Atlanta, GA: Nexus Press, 1995.

30 cards, 1 folded single sheet. Mohawk paper.

Judy Anderson: "This book was created during an artist residency at Nexus Press where I worked with a press-man on a Heidelberg Press. 500 large sheets of Mohawk paper were overprinted with 15 offset litho plates images and trimmed to twenty-nine cards that fit into a paper box. The overprinted images depict the contradictory treatment of women in our contemporary world. Text from the daily news is collaged with text from advertising. The abstract and symbolic images of women respond to the objectification of woman as a beautiful object, to love, own, violate and control. “

Colophon: "This book began in outrage, a response to the increasing reports of violence against women in the world. It's ending marks a beginning, of understanding and balance. Text fragments were taken from the daily news, juxtaposed with one woman's voice.”
$175 (Last Copy)

X
By Frank Graziano and Judy Anderson
[Denver, Colorado]: X Press, 1988. Edition of 50.

6.5 x 9.25"; 36 pages. Four-color letterpress on Speckletone Text with Canson and Strathmore flysheets. Die-cut covers. Signed and numbered on the colophon by Anderson. Hardcover (20 copies): casebound in black cloth. Softcover (30 copies): paper wraps of black Canson paper.

This production is the result of an image and poem dialogue between Judy Anderson and Frank Graziano.

Judy Anderson: "The letter X was selected as the starting point for the poem and image interaction that followed. A sequence was established where verbal elements respond to visual; visual to verbal, until the rhythm, patter and content conclude in a restatement of the original sequence."

Frank Graziano is a writer and John D. MacArthur Professor of Hispanic Studies at Connecticut College.

$225 Hardcover
$175 Softcover

Night Walking
By Judy Anderson
Denver Denver, Colorado: X-Press Editions, 1987. Edition of 20.

6.75” x 9.5”; 44 pages. Monoprint. Silkscreen. Letterpress. Offset. Printed in four colors. Text type is Vogue Linotype with Continental display type. Arches Cover White, UV Ultra Heavy and Strathmore flip sheets. Softcover with Japanese stab binding. Introductory phrases taken from “The Long View” by Elizabeth Jane Howard. Signed and numbered by the artist.

Judy Anderson: "When my twin sister Jane and I were young, we shared a terrifying recurring nightmare. This book began when Jane moved to Singapore, it was if we were tragically separated. Those feelings and remembered dream sequences inspired the book. The first, reading from front to back, dissolves as the book progresses. The second sequence reads from back to front, dissolving as they meet and overlap in the middle. Although I love this book dearly, it is hard for Jane to read it as it brings back such vivid dreams."

Colophon: “Frenzied eye movement signals the life beyond. Three or more a night, three hundred sixty five days a year, forty years, forty three thousand eight hundred plus in her memories. This second X Press book was completed in January 1987 tracing remembered dreams from childhood through last night.
$850

Tokyo Press Check: Making Face
Text by Ginny Hoyle
Book Design by Judy Anderson
Denver, Colorado: X Press Books, 1986. Edition of 40.

9.25” x 7.25”; 36 pages. Type is Cairo. Japanese calligraphy by Mitzuko Santo. Printed on a 10 x 15” Chandler & Price platen press. Silk screen images. Text paper is Japanese Toyo Kurumi. Cover is Arches. Overlay are UV Ultra II. Tip sheets are Okawara Hand made. Press check masks are printed on Mohawk superfine cover. Two texts: reading from front to middle: second reading from back to middle. Japanese stab binding. Signed and numbered by Anderson.

Judy Anderson: "In 1985 I worked in Tokyo, overseeing a large book project designed for the Brooklyn Museum. My presence there, as a young American woman directing the project, was a unique experience for both me and the male printing and publishing personnel. I was fascinated by the Japanese culture, their use of language, the role of alcohol, sleep and women. And how they used their faces as masks, hiding their true feelings. Being polite. Pretend.

"One day in a small market in Tokyo, I came across some masks that were offered for sale. They were beautifully made and had an intensity of expression that was startling. I bought three and have since learned what a rich heritage they have in the theater and art and life of Japan. These masks are my interpretations of classical theatrical masks, from the shrine dances of Kagura and Bugaku dance drama to the classic Noh tragedies of feudal Japan and the animated Bunraku puppet shows that have survived to fascinate audiences of today.

"In Japanese theater, the mask controls the wearer. In the solemn ceremony of putting on the mask, the actor gives himself over to the soul of the mask, hoping that he may project the vital essence of the mask itself. Small wonder that wearing a mask in Japan, in the theater or in daily life, is an act of honor and respect. "
$650

House of Rivers, House of Clay
By Judy Anderson & Ginny Hoyle
Denver, Colorado: Judy Anderson, 2007. Edition of 6.

9.75 X 12.75 x 1"; 178 pages. Images were printed by a high resolution archival digital press on Kozo-Shi paper by Infinite Editions. Text printed on a digital Epson Photo 2000. Domtar Solutions text sheets, Canson Mi-Teintes endsheets. Casebound, cloth with foil-stamp titles, handsewn onto tapes.

This fine press edition of 37 poems was part of an installation by artist Judy Anderson and poet Ginny Hoyle at the Museum of Outdoor Art, Englewood, Colorado. Each poem is allowed its own quiet space. The four sections (roughly thematic groups: earth, air, fire, water) are separated by a page of images from the installation.

Judy Anderson: "This is the only full publication of all the poems that comprised the installation House of Rivers, House of Clay (Museum of Outdoor Art, Englewood, Colorado ). Individual poems have been published in other poetry journals....The installation takes liberties with each poem where the form of the word, the material, shape, sequence express the content in a very subjective way. Since the poems in the exhibition were not readable in a linear format, we decided to create a quiet typographic book where the form of each poem was neutral, allowing the reader to visualize the ideas each represents. The installation was pushing the idea of book; the manuscript celebrates the traditional book form."

Anderson and Hoyle have collaborated for over 20 years.

Ginny Hoyle, member of Denver's Lighthouse Writers Workshop, is an award-winning writer/poet with roots in journalism and copywriting. Two poems in this collection, "House of Clay" and "I Was Sixteen," have been selected for publication in the 2007 edition of MARGIE, a national poetry journal and past winner of the Book Critics Circle Award in March.

Judy Anderson, artist and teacher, has taught at universities in Washington, Colorado and California. She is the director of PlatteForum, an artist residency program and innovative art education facility in Denver that connects working artists with underserved youth. Her artist books are exhibited in galleries and museums in the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Europe and the former Soviet Union, and are part of major national collections in the United States and Germany.
(SOLD)