Blue Heron Press ~ Nebraska
(Karen Kunc)

Evocations
Quotes from Hafiz
2006. Edition of 25.

4.75 x 9.25" closed; extends to 108"; 19 pages. Accordion structure. Text printed letterpress from handset 11 point Romulus. Copperplate etchings. Printed by the artist.

Colophon: "From a distillation of museum visits worldwide, these classical gestures evoke the blessings and power inherent in the work of the hand. The poems are excerpts from the Sufi master, Hafiz (1320-1389), translated by Daniel Ladinsky."

Karen Kunc (from her general artists’ statement): "The book is a classical form. Its function is accepted, known. Its feel is familiar. My images within this form allow for a validity, a 'real'-ness, and 'right'-ness. It is like seeing the truth. This comes about by this acceptance of the knowledge in books and our familiarity with its form.

But artist's are also pointing out this tendency to blindly accept the printed page, and what is the meaning of so many words. Where do the words come from, who says them, and for what reasons? We all must be wise to real meaning, and important and meaningful experiences. And learn a willingness to follow curiosity and questions. The resource for all of us is within books and by reading, because so many voices exist, unclouded, within the pages of centuries. And when we 'read' the voice is inside ourselves."
$750

Small Gifts
By Karen Kunc
2004. Edition of 18.

5.5 x 3.5" folded; opens to 63", 18 pages, with color etchings and aquatints printed on handmade paper of grasses and cotton rag. Letterpress printed text. Accordion folded into covered boards.

Karen Kunc: "This richly colored and detailed book reflects the seasonal transition of light, and the arrival of life. The etchings were created and proofed by the artist while in residency in Finland with generosity of friends and gifts. The aura of a special mid-summer is captured - and literally etched - for a handled memory."
$500

Field Trip
Poems by Twyla Hansen
Images by Karen Kunc
2002. Edition of 200.

6 x 6" square when folded, 9" when opened (and hung). Text typeset at the Brady Press in Nebraska. This multi segmented book moves through nature's profusion, desiccation, and human encroachment, ideas which were explored in a collaboration between the two artists. This project was made possible by the Artist in Residence program at the University of the Arts. Kunc's vibrant color lithographs are on one side of the panels and Hansen's poems are on the other. This is an ecological treatise printed from polymer relief plates onto Daphne fiber paper from Bhutan.
$65

Offering Time
Songs by Rabindranath Tagore
Woodcuts by Karen Kunc
2001. Edition of 50.

6.75 x 8”closed; extends to 78 inches vertically; 10 pages. Reduction woodcuts printed on Japanese Nishinouchi paper torn into an undulating vertical column (6.75 x 78 inches unfolded) that suggests a flowing river. Text is letterpress Romulus. Ten-page accordion fold forms a gentle curving parallelogram when closed (6.75 x 8 inches). Self-enclosing wrapper of delicate intaglio-printed dots and watercolor washes has small braided cord loop at top for hanging. Housed in a folio box covered with sharkskin paper (8.5 inches square).

Tagore's own prose translations of his original Bengali songs (1913) speak with an inner voice that seeks both understanding and acceptance of one's place in the eternal cycle of time. Printed as a falling pathway of vibrant color, the images, both abstract and recognizable, flow into each other, creating a river of visual song that evokes the textual exuberance. The speaker of the poem is grounded in perception, moves seamlessly through action and experience, giving up and giving over to paradox:

"Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower. / We have no time to lose, and having no time we must scramble for our chances."

Kunc draws upon visual impressions from her own travels in Bangladesh and from Tagore's images--the evolution of a flower, a maze of shadows and light, a red lotus, the winding path. Structurally recalls Kunc's earlier book, Mexican Gothic. A visual and poetic outpouring.
$750 (A few copies remaining)

Truly Bone
Poems by Hilda Raz
Etchings by Karen Kunc
1998. Edition of 50.

7.5 x 7.5” square closed; unfolds to 15 inches. Hand printing processes integrate layers of color from aquatint washes, deeply bitten skeins of etched lines, and letterpress typography. The images are etching, spit-bite aquatint and drypoint from multiple copper plates using sixteen colors on Italian Alcantara cream paper. Romulus type. Signed.

Words of self-reflection and revelation about physical mortality and the search for meaning. Kunc, in her intriguing style, creates a rich, tactile frieze of images which pulse with biomorphic abstractions, geometric permutations, and natural icons.
$500

O&
By Karen Kunc
1991. Edition of 20.

6.5 x 6.25”. Relief and intaglio woodcuts on handmade Roma paper (dark red-brown). Letterpress on Nidegen with handcoloring. Sewn binding.

Colophon: "Woven wattle, wheat waves, hay rolls, fence rows, mangers, chutes -- malleable, entwined, shaped, sequenced permutations of shifting screens -- herein the true rococo of my mind, memory and Impatient Hand draws origin and symbol further."

Karen Kunc: “A visually and structurally, playful work of folded and shaped pages, that allow for multiple juxtapositions of images, color, line, open space and shifting screens. Symbolic suggestions of wind swept spaces, fence structures and natural forces as part of the artist's vocabulary are tactile elements for a powerful graphic statement. “
$500

Sketchbook
By Karen Kunc
1990. Edition of 18.

5 x 7", 22 pages, typeface Neuland. Woodcut and letterpress on a variety of Oriental papers, with hand coloring. Multi-color, sewn binding with brown Canson paper covers. Single words accompany photo line engravings. Printed on Japanese paper in bright and deep color overlays.

Colophon: "Sketching, testing ideas long held and discovering new -- watermarking handmade paper; superimposed overlays of woodblock printing; actual-scale drawings from letterpress engravings; hand embellishments and binding; pages of new history from old prints -- a stream of order -- entangled, surprising, incongruous -- a source book."

Karen Kunc: "Extremely colorful and rich, this book is composed of small, detailed drawings and small pieces from larger prints, creating a micro- to macrocosmic view of an intimate visual language. This is a personally revealing exploration of ideas and experimentation."
$500

Lore of Gold
By Karen Kunc
Avoca, Nebraska: Blue Heron Press, 1986-1987. Edition of 20.

6 x 9", 12 leaves, multi-color with sewn binding and blue hemp covers. Woodcut and letterpress on Okawara paper. Text in typeface of Garamont.

A pairing of early texts with Kunc's contemporary art. The text is taken from three sources: The Stone of the Philosophers, an undated 17th-century work by George Starkey; the Golden Tractate of Hermes Trismegistus (fourth or fifth century); and, Of the Nature of Things by Paracelsus (Theophrastus von Hohenheim) from 1650. All three concern the process of making gold.

"Now you shall understand that the Ancient Philosophers made division of the Water to separate it into four substances; one to two and three to one; the one third part of which is colour; which is a coagulating moisture; but the other two thirds are the Weights of the Wise.

“Take an ounce and a half of the humidity; and the midday Redness, the soul of gold, take a fourth part which is half an ounce. Of the citrine Seyre take similarly half an ounce. Of the Auripigment take half (which are eight) thus making a total of three ounces; and you must know that the Vine of the Wise is drawn forth in three, and the Wine of it is perfected in Thirty...."

Karen Kunc: "Text and full page woodcut illustrations alternate to create a vision and mystery surrounding the art of creation. Nature is animate within the medieval understanding and this contemporary imagery."
$500