Janus Press ~Vermont
(Claire Van Vliet)

How to' and models of Janus Press bookworks
Janus Press catalogues
Seasons series

Waste Incant
By Susan Johanknecht
Newark, Vermont: Janus Press, 2007. Edition of 150.

7.75 x 11.5"; 22 pages. In plexiglas slipcase. Plastics used include the acrylic slipcase and illusion polycarbonate and flexible vinyl from Rowland Technologies. Papers: Barcham Green Cambers and Cairo from Hayle Mill. Printed in black and silver.

Johanknecht’s response to the storage of nuclear waste in plastics. This book is a sequel to Johanknecht’s Hermetic Waste (about Chernobyl), published in 1986.

Artist's statement: "The format and materials of this book reference Hermetic Waste (Gefn Press, 1986) which was completed the summer following the Chernobyl disaster. The collagraph prints in Hermetic Waste were derived from alchemical engravings — here the calligraphic line drawings are derived from science illustrations in children's text books (Science from the Beginning edited by Hampson and Evans, 1962). Redrawn and merging, the pictorial 'facts' depict a disrupted 'nature.'

"Poetic texts sit inside the imagery, functioning as an integrated caption. They describe processes by which toxic material enters into the environment. The back of each page lists hazardous wastes.

"Plastic interleaving features in both books, referencing materials used in the storage of waste. (How little has changed in twenty years.)"

"The book, in its acrylic case, is a statement about the storage of nuclear waste in plastic. The line drawings are derived from children's textbooks, redrawn to show a disrupted nature. The toxic wastes, listed partially alphabetically, are printed on both sides of the embossed paper, each page separated by a plastic sheet. The unstable and hence inappropriate and hazardous use of plastic to contain toxic waste is emphasized by the diverse deformations of each of the plastic sheets.

"How fascinating that the book is immaculate and glamorous while its topic - water - implies what's dirty and distasteful. The ironic disjunction dramatizes the tension between the allure of easy labor, magical communications and other seductions of our high tech culture and the tarnished other side of the coin, deadly byproducts with tenacious half-lives. The book uses the very products it condemns. We can't do without it, can we?" [Beyond the Text: Artists' Books from the Collection of Robert J. Ruben by Yvonne Korshak and Robert J. Ruben]
$300

The Gospel of Mary
By Claire Van Vliet
Newark, Vermont: Janus Press, 2006. Edition of 150.

10 x 11.5 x 1.5"; 44 pages. The center piece is a pop up representing the journey of the soul — “upward from its bondage to the flesh and the lower world to its liberation in the higher celestial realm” (p. 15) — on a base sheet that was pulp painted by the author and Katie MacGregor; they also made the cloud cover sheets. The binding is a further development of the woven-strip binding used in Rise (Janus Press, 2003) and is made with Barcham Green Cairo, a pure linen sheet. The clamshell box has stays of Baltic birch and is lined with paste-patterned DeWint with DeWint drummed on the cover.

Translated from the Greek with commentaries by Rosemary Radford Ruether printed in Amercican Uncial with initials based on Victor Hammer's titling, Prisma and Plantin on calendered Barcham Green Boxley with decorations based on Jay Hambidge's Dynamic Symmmetry, the Greek Vase.

Rosemary Radford Ruether, noted Christian feminist theologian, begins her Introduction thus: “The Gospel of Mary is a fragment of a Gnostic gospel of earth second century Christianity that focuses on Mary Magdalene as the ‘beloved disciple’ of Christ who especially understands his message and conveys her understanding of this to the male disciples. It is part of a larger literature of early Christianity (first to third centuries) in which Mary Magdalene plays a leading role as a disciple of the Lord.”
$1,500

Aunt Sallie's Lament. Altered.
By Claire Van Vliet
Newark, Vermont: Janus Press, 2004. Edition of 120.

8.25 x 11" (irregular shape) fitted into a 9 x 12" box.

Originally published in an edition of 150. "An inspirational story of a Southern quilter printed on colored, uniquely shaped pages that create a layered effect, mimicking the patterns of a quilt, gathering words as stitches, gazing back to a moment lost but not forgotten, to a love burned deep."

This new production of Aunt Sallie's Lament by Claire Van Vliet has been altered by adding new color & patterned swatches of paper to brighten the pages and to quilt the cut pages. Laid in fitted box covered with lined with several patterned fabrics as well as covered in patterned fabric.
$400

Eat Book
By Katharine Meynell
Newark, Vermont: Janus Press, 1991. Edition of 150.

Photo offset images in sepia of various foods and eating utensils. Hand lettered printed offset as well. Bound in split boards with vellum spine. Wrapped in a linen napkin. Boards plastered with acrylic and wrapped in a rumpled linen napkin. 26 pages.

In conjunction with Gefn Press, this long poem by Katharine Meynell, is a satire on nursery rhymes. A sardonic poem with six sepia duotone still lifes of cherries, sausages, and white bread, made in collaboration with Susan Johanknecht who lettered the text, made eight reliefs of various kitchen utensils, and designed the binding. With recipes written out by Meynell.
$350

Woven and Interlocking Book Structures from the Janus, Steiner and Gefn Presses
By Claire Van Vliet and Elizabeth Steiner
Newark, Vermont: Janus Gefn Unlimited, 2002. Trade edition of 3000.

7.5 x 10"; 142 pages. In black wrappers, woven structure illustration on front.

Step-by-step instructions for making 4 x 5 inch models of structures developed for editions at the Janus (United States), Steiner (Australia) and Gefn (England) presses. Includes "multitudes" of instructional diagrams drawn by Claire Van Vliet and Elizabeth Steiner.
$50 (5 copies remaining)

Click image to enlarge

Deluxe edition: Woven and Interlocking Book Structures from the Janus, Steiner and Gefn Presses
By Elizabeth Steiner and Claire Van Vliet
Janus Gefn Unlimited, 2002. Edition of 200.

8.5 x 11" box holding models. Cloth covered clamshell boxes made by Judi Conant and Mary Richardson in Maidstone, Vermont. Trade edition laid-in. Signed by Claire Van Vliet.

Using the instructions from the book “Woven and interlocking Book Structures” Audrey Holden, assistant to Claire Van Vliet at Janus Press, created models of the books.
$400

The Janus Press - Fifty Years:
Catalogue Raisonné for 1991-2005
Indexes for 1955-2005
By Ruth Fine
Burlington, Vermont: University of Vermont Libraries, 2006.

8.5 x 8.75"; 80 pages. Illustrated in color. Printed at the Stinehour Press in Vermont.

Founded in 1955 by Claire Van Vliet, the Janus Press is the oldest private press currently operating in the United States. This catalogue was done in conjunction with exhibits at The Grolier Club, Louisiana State University Libraries, the National Gallery of Art Library, Denison Library (Scripps College, member of the Claremont colleges), Smith College Library, University of Virginia Libraries, Wellesley College Library, and the Arts of the Book Collection (Arts Library, Yale University). Foreword by Connell Gallagher, Director of Research Collections, University of Vermont Libraries, now retired. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Ruth Fine: "Fifty years: half a century: an anniversary year heralded as golden: the present catalogue marks this important milestone in the life of the Janus Press. Founded by Claire Van Vliet in 1955 in San Diego, California, the Press has since published or co-published more than ninety books, more than a dozen broadsides, several pamphlets, and numerous ephemeral pieces that are much acclaimed throughout the book arts community."

$35 Trade edition: casebound in illustrated black wrappers
$100 Deluxe edition: woven-and-interlocking binding allows pages to lay flat; slipcased

Helios
By Peter Schumann
Newark, Vermont: Janus Press, 2010. Edition of 150.

5.875 x 11.25 x .75"; accordion structure of 21 panels extending from front pastedown. Printed offset in duotones on Mohawk Superfine 80lb cover ultrawhite eggshell. Endsheets of Barcham Green India Office. Bound in archival linen buckram.

This is a second in a series inspired by the seasons by various artists.

This is a bleak sun. The haunting black-gray gloom of the extended drawing by Peter Schumann (founder and director of the Bread and Puppet Theater) reinforces the handwritten text that ends with these words: "The more more more officers open a new office for the regulated distribution of the more more more / they are in charge of the not so subtle unevenness of which our system is so proud."
$150

Gone
By Ellen McCulloch-Lovell
Newark, Vermont: Janus Press, 2010. Edition of 100.

7.5 x 11.25 x .75"; 46 pages. Signed on colophon by Van Vliet and McCulloch-Lovell.

Colophon: "The text is set on the computer in 11pt Myrial Pro Italic with titles in Condensed 30 pt. Myrial Pro was designed by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly for Adobe Systems. Polymer plates were made at Boxcar Press and printed by Andrew Miller-Brown at the Janus Press on Richard de Bas Apta that was handmade at Hayle Mill in Maidstone, Kent, England.

"Two-color lithograph was drawn on the stone by Claire Van Vliet and printed by Eystein Hanche Olsen on Rives BFK in the lithographic workshops at SKHS in Oslo Norway.

"The book was long stitched into a Rowlux vinyl moiré cover by Audrey Holden. Slipcase is covered with calendered Royal Watercolour Society paper made by Barcham Green at Hayle Mill."

Twenty-one quietly perceptive and reflective poems, filled with close observation about a life lived in concert with the natural. Van Vliet's lithograph of sky and copse and gray-white field, glimpsed through vinyl moiré cover, is an apt reflection of the spirit of the collection – spare without begin bleak, at once solid and in flux.

Claire Van Vliet: "Many of the poems in GONE are seasonal though it is not specifically a part of the series [a series of artist and writer responses to the seasonal round of the year]. GONE is a return to poetry publishing; the last poetry book was Alan Loney's RISE in 2003 which surprised us by being so long a pause."
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