May Day Press ~ Washington
(Catherine Michaelis)

Flora and fauna bookworks by Michaelis
Women and fashion bookworks by Michaelis
Miniature books by May Day Press

Invocation to the Water Spirits
By Catherine Michaelis
Vashon Island, Washington: May Day Press, 2005. Edition of 150.

6 x 6" flexagon. As Catherine Michaelis says, " How to read your flexagon: Always fold pages back from center on fold lines. The enter lines may rub, but that's okay - keep turning. It goes round and round!" There's even a diagram included to help you go round and round.

Another lovely piece from May Day Press evoking Michaelis' Native American heritage. The entry into the flexagon structure is a background of blue water with a call to the Mother of the Waters floating across the page to "Encircle us." And, the flexagon structure does come round to encircle the message.
$35

Halves
By Kim Newall
Vashon Island, Washington: May Day Press, 2002. Edition of 250.

3.8 x 5" Double spiral-bound laid-in black & silver fitted paper box with illustrated title label. Printed letterpress with linoleum block prints by the author.

"Halves" is a celebration of the symmetry of our body set within the poetry of varying juxtapositions. Each combination presents a possibility inherent within our sacred trans-sensory capabilities.
$45

A REVEALING History of Women's UNDERWEAR
By Catherine Alice Michaelis
Shelton, Washington: May Day Press, 2007. Edition of 90.

4.5 x 10.25"; 26 gown-shaped pages. Patterning and decorative techniques include photopolymer, metal ornaments, and pressure prints letterpress printed. Paper: Arches Text Wove with Goudy Ornate and Deepdene. Handcolored Karakusa and Asahi supplements. Housed in patterned purple cloth clamshell box.

Organized in the main chronologically, this account of changes in style and fashion of women's underwear posits reasons for change — in the main, shifting power relationships and technological developments – from ancient times to the present.

Catherine Michaelis: "[The book] has 5 prints inside - pressure prints of historical underwear I fashioned from Barbie clothes, altered clothes, and clothes I made for the book. It has 7 pages of professionally edited text. "

"A Revealing History of Women’s Underwear was inspired by a combination of seeing two items together. One was an altered book, its pages folded back from the corners, changing the shape of the pages (probably Roger Piottin’s work). Next to it was a print of a woman in Victorian dress, her hooped skirts echoing the 3-D shape of the altered book. I instantly saw a book that would be shaped like a dress that would open to reveal the underwear worn underneath.

"Researching the text brought me many surprises. One was that I had never given thought to most of our underwear history being above the waist, and not below. This immediately changed my ideas about the book shape. I was also surprised to learn that underclothes were worn to protect the outerclothes from the body, which was infrequently washed. It was very revealing to study the changes in modesty, less and more, back and forth, through the centuries. Most of the research for this book is European history, and the changes in the Royal Court, politics, and class can all be studied through the lens of underwear history. I was fascinated. It seems we are, after all, what we wear."
$575

Party Dress
By Catherine Michaelis
Vashon Island, Washington: May Day Press, 2004. Edition of 25.

7 x 3.25", opens to 10.5" Eight-panel accordion fold so that four dress images are displayed on each side. Each page constructed with dress on top two-thirds of panel in decorative papers while the bottom third of the four interior 'pages' are printed letterpress with the author's memories of her Mother's party dress. Housed in folding paper covers, letterpress title label stitched to front cover. Handmade papers by Kathy Kuehn.

Catherine Michaelis: "Party Dress was inspired from an old box of photos of my parents from when they were younger, flashier, and enthralling to their young daughter. The photographs brought back to me the sounds and textures of my mother’s party dresses. I use to play in my mother’s closet where hemlines tickled my face and her scents wove a spell around me. I imagined an exotic life in my mother’s high-heeled shoes. The text of Party Dress evokes my mother’s pre-party ritual.

"Party Dress is an accordion book of dresses, mimicking my mother’s closet. The dresses are cut from Japanese papers (the papers vary in each book). My mother’s most fascinating clothes were those my father brought back from Southeast Asia and the South Pacific when he was in the Air Force. The paper doll tabs are there because my early dolls were paper, and I associate them with the time of my father’s absence.

"The intent of Party Dress is to honor my mother’s beauty, her exquisite sewing skills, and a childhood that still remains mysterious and enchanted."
$200

Click image to enlarge

Signs of Rain
By Theophrastus
Vashon Island, Washington: May Day Press, 2004. Edition of 70.

6.5 x 5" with 13 leafs. Printed letterpress on Arches Text Wove with Arrighi and Centaur typefaces. Borders and emblems were designed and cut in lino. Excerpted from "Enquiry Into Plants and Minor Works on Odours and Weather Signs" by Theophrastus, translated by Sir Arthur Hort and published by Heinemann, London, and Putnam's, New York in 1916.

Aristotle bequeathed his books, writings, and his garden at the Lyceum to Theophrastus. In this garden Theophrastus began the first systematic botanical study of plants. He was dedicated to learning, teaching, and the advance of science. His inquiry into the essential nature of plants led the field in the western world.
$85

May Basket
By Catherine Michaelis
Vashon Island, Washington: May Day Press, 2002. Edition of 200.

5 x 7" Accordion folded basket shaped book with six flower inserts. Each "flower" has a short printed text regarding May Day and the "flower's" background regarding the Day. Housed in protective hinged plastic case. Hand cut leaves and flowers were painted with acrylics and letterpress printed. The basket fold is a Hedi Kyle design.

Halfway between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice, May Eve marks a night when the door opens between worlds and spirits pass through. Catherine Michaelis has made Maypoles and baskets since she was a child. This is her favorite basket so far.
$80

How Seeds Travel
By Catherine Michaelis
Vashon Island, Washington: May Day Press, 1995. Edition of 175.

5.25 x 8" with 10 pages. Printed letterpress with Goudy and Garmont types on Rives Lightweight and folded into covers of Kuzuryu Green, an endsheet of olive dyed paper, and a label printed on Hagakure Brown. Leaves are accordion folded. With reduction lino cuts by Michaelis.

Text snakes down the page, suggesting the swirling wind and the seed pod descending. Michaelis describes the highly evolved and myriad ways that seeds are dispersed, from winged seeds, like the maple, called Samaras; to water plants with cork in or around the seed to help them float; yet sensual, evoking the unseen circus of the plant world. A variety of linoleum printed seed pods adorn the pages in a natural palette. Falling as they do across the spread of the accordion sheet pages, they illustrate also the wind on which seeds travel. Michaelis takes us on the journey of nature at work. "At first glance it may look as if plants drop their seeds without plan or design; but in fact, the dispersal of seeds is highly evolved." She shows us the carriers of seeds from air to animals and finally the ultimate time traveler. "From tombs of long ago civilizations, archeologists have found seeds that have the power to germinate after thousands of years of dormancy. This is how seeds travel through time."
$90