Birdwood Press ~ Colorado
(Gail Watson)

The Water Department
By Gail Watson
Golden, Colorado: Birdwood Press, 2008. Edition of 20.

5..5 x 6.5 x 1.5"; 20 pages, which are actually aluminum specimen containers each of which contains a vignette. Letterpress printed from polymer plates on an 1887 Pearl platen press. Set in Myriad by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly Archival inks and pigment. Text printed over inkjet-printed photographs using archival inks on Crane’s Lettra, 110# cover, which has been die cut into 1.25” circles. Seventeen of the containers contain short accordion books, which pull out with the help of a ribbon; three containers have text only on one circle, which does not come out. Housed in hinged metal container with bandoleer of cloth-covered board with a polymer casting affixed, metalized and rusted to look like the seal of a municipal water company. Hand-bound.

Personal history recorded in nineteen memories involving tears, the human water department: "A routine procedure for the doctor who was surprised at the tears streaming down my face as he probed my right breast with a long needle. He was unaware that my mother died from breast cancer 25 years ago."

(This is the second work completed under the imprint Birdwood Press. Previous titles by Gail Watson were created under the Zuni Press imprint.)
$700

Evidence of Love
Photographs by Lida Moser
Designed by Gail Watson
Golden Gate Canyon, Colorado: Birdwood Press, 2006. Edition of 4.

5.6 x 5.6"; 33 pages (31 loose pages; colophon bottom pastedown; introduction lid pastedown). Black ribbon lift for loose pages. Black-and-white photographs by noted photographer Lida Moser scanned from a contact sheet and laser printed on Arches Text Wove. Letterpress printed text in ITC American Typrewriter. Housed 6.4 x 6.4 x 2.2" metal lidded case with clasp (a recycled movie trailer shipper from Columbia Pictures circa 1960).

There is a point in the life of every family — if it's one of the lucky ones — at which things seem perfect, inevitable, and bound to continue forever. Because realization lags behind living, it's often viewed only as paradise lost. This is a record of such a point in the life of one family.

Gail Watson: "A distressed and torn contact sheet of photos from one Sunday in the early seventies, 1972 perhaps. While the mother prepares dinner, the daughters set the table and finish homework, and the father comes home from work. Small B&W photos of a family smiling and laughing. Before the divorce and the battles against breast cancer and Parkinson's disease were lost. Can you see the beginning of collapse, the genesis of disease, the uncertainty of the times or the pain of adolescence? Focus instead on the promise and belonging — proof of a once happy family and the evidence of love."
$850 (Last Copy)