The Doll Series
Detritus Books
Biblical Related work
The Natural Order of Things
And, then ...
Miniatures by Lois Morrison

Geryon's Country
by Lois Morrison
2005. Edition of 25.
9 x 5.5" tunnel book with envelope fold attached to contain "paper doll" of Geryon. Color-copied from crayon drawings. Gocco-printed and color penciled onto digital color supreme glossy recycled Arches text wove and Fabriano Tiziano lava red. Typeface if Font Lister: Font Book #68. Handcut, grommetted and assembled. Wrapped in lined cloth with button closures. Embroidered runes on the cloth wrap. Text by Morrison on exterior accordion sides of the tunnel book.

In Greek Mythology Hercules had to perform twelve Labors for penance of the murder of his wife and children. The tenth of these Labors was to steal the cattle of Geryon from an island called Erythia, which was near the boundary of Europe and Libya. In the execution of this theft Hercules kills Geryon and the two headed dog who guards them. Geryon is described has being red, incredibly strong with six arms and legs. While Geryon may not have been the most attractive fellow he was after all protecting his property. Few remember that in the execution of the Twelve Labors Hercules actually committed a series of crimes.

At the beginning of the "Autobiography of Red," Anne Carson translates fragments of Stesichoros' "Geryoneis" that show Geryon as far more vulnerable and gives him a red dog that Hercules clubs to death. Stesichoros also gives Geryon a pair of wings and has Hercules split his skull with a single arrow. Thus, he dies protecting his mythical herd of red cattle from Hercules. Carson recasts the Geryon Labor as a contemporary homosexual love affair.

In Morrison's representation two Geryons share the pocket on the back of the tunnel book along with a red dog. These 'paper' Geryons can be placed in the tunnel book among the cattle. As one manipulates the Geryons and "reads" the story of the Labor, Morrison charges the reader to "Believe what you will."
$750

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After
Text, illustration, and binding by Lois Morrison. This accordion fold book tells the story of a gathering of broken dolls following a disaster. "After it was all over they gathered and found the world was as beautiful as ever," but they had been changed. In the middle two folds of the book, the dolls float above the long drawing of an herbaceous border. Color-copied background landscapes, photographs of broken dolls, and Gocco printed black and white missing doll parts. On Canson me Tientes and Masa papers. Hand cut and assembled. Thai Soft Unru paper over boards. Four folds. Edition of 25. (8.5 x 5.5 inches.)
$225

The Hollow Dolls
Written, illustrated, handcut, and bound by Lois Morrison. The continuing saga of the dolls from After (see above.) The dolls had found themselves "altered forever-but nothing else was." Through the shattered dolls, these two books explore the experience of surviving a trauma and being forever changed, while the world continues on as it was. Here, in a "magic purse" construction that releases only one box at a time, the dolls lay in one side and the text in the other. Hand drawn dolls with loosely grommeted parts. Color-copied backgrounds, photographic leftovers with Gocco printed inserts. On Canson me Tientes and Masa papers. With covers of Indian Bagasse and Moriki papers over boards. Edition of 18. (Approx. 4.25 x 10 x 1.25 inches; 12 pp.)
$300 (One copy remaining!)

In the Land of Shadows
Lois continues her broken doll series with the largest of her works to date and perhaps her darkest. The message seems to be a metaphor for any shock or disappointment or loss. "All is well in the land of Shadows until the Black Menace appeared humming in the sky." Six one sided panels reveal the Menace and other figures, all gocco printed onto Crosse Pointe synei. The panels are covered with hand dyed ticking over boards. All hand cut and assembled with crudely made boxes that are hinged with hand dyed twill tape. Closed 9 inches square by 57 inches opened. Edition of 18.
$1200 (Four copies remaining)

The Mechanical Baby
In this third installment in her saga of the dolls, and following her practice of using found objects as inspiration, Morrison continues to explore survival and aloneness in an oddly melancholic, yet hopeful tale. (I recall a line from Emily Dickinson: "After great pain, a formal feeling comes . . .") In this edition, the actual "baby" of the title is a rusty old toy that, wires exposed, is missing a head and is crouched in an eternal crawling position. Color Xerox pop-outs of the doll, photographed from different vantage points, crawl across a black and white, Gocco-printed, accordion-fold landscape that was drawn from the terrain around the artist's summer residence. There is the suggestion of autonomy, the survival of the spirit, inherent in the series, which began with her titles, The Hollow Dolls (1998) and After (1999). The lonely, isolated determination of the mechanical baby is an emblem of will, which moves us forward in the face of despair despite the odds. The terrain could be the landscape of memory or loss, at once a shared and an individual experience. With spare text, the pages are haunting, dreamlike. The reader is drawn into an altered world, and perhaps touches an altered, contemplative state. Gocco prints on Magnani Pescia paper; Amherst type. Color copied dolls laminated onto acid-free drawing paper. Color Gocco-printed cotton over board covers with ribbon ties. Hand cut and assembled. Edition of 25. (6.25 x 4.5 inches; 8 spreads.)
$300 (Two copies remaining!)

an irrational alphabet
By Lois Morrison
2005. Edition of 12.

8 x 9.9375"; 26 sheets. Housed in 8.5 x 10.75" sharkskin paper-covered clamshell box. Title in colored pen on front cover of box. Clamshell box slips into cornsilk colored canvas sacking cloth bag.

Morrison continues her series of detritus based books. "an irrational alphabet" is made up of hand-cut letters collaged with detrital material. A deluxe edition is available with the letters already cut-out.

A is an Assembly
of Baleful
Concepts
Designed
to Entice
the Fearful
Gargoyle
of Hope
Inasmuch
Jauntiness
Keeps
Lethergy [sic]
Mincing
Nevertheless
Options
Persist
Queing [sic]
in Rancid
Strings
Tenaciously
Unctuous
Veracity
Wakens
an X-chromosome
Youthfully Zonkered

Regular edition [letters uncut] $100.00 (Three remaining)
Special edition [letters cut out] $200 (One available)

Pink Water
By Lois Morrison
2005. One-of-a-Kind.
6.25 x 5" with five pages on archival scraps laminated onto Grosse Point papers. The detritus from which the elements are cut may not be archival. In a case of book cloth over board. Tied with cotton tape. Each page initialed by Morrison. Signed by Morrison on back board interior.

One in a series of surrealistic, detrital books whose five pages are interchangeable.
$325
                  The constant stroking went on for aeons.
          Rescue work went on unabated
                  The monkey spoke to the ear about the rise of                    the pink waters
          It took her deep into pink waters.
                  Plants grew in the pink waters.

Flowers
By Lois Morrison
2005. One-of-a-Kind.
6.25 x 5" with five pages on archival scraps laminated onto Grosse Point papers. The detritus from which the elements are cut may not be archival. In a case of book cloth over board. Tied with cotton tape. Each page initialed by Morrison. Signed by Morrison on back board interior.

One in a series of surrealistic, detrital books whose five pages are interchangeable.
$325
                   He was given his pollen directly by mouth.
          She played the bagpipes rather well.
                   She pondered what was there.
          Excelsior is up there!
                   The child sleeps on.

Through a Glass Darkly
2000. Edition of 4.
7.5" x 9.3 x .85" The text, 1 Corinthians 13:12 King James Bible, is hand lettered on scratch-lite. Multiple images, transparent and other, are laminated between distressed plastic. It is held together by brass rings. The base and case are covered with bunting from a 4th of July celebration. A plastic mirror is laminated to the base. The case is lined with Lana Ingres and secured with beads and tape. Four blue plastic pages with darkly seen images and text unfolded one by one to reveal a mirror in which one sees "face-to-face."
$400

The Gadarene Swine: Luke 8:26-33 & Later
1993. Edition of 25.
A two part book, enclosed in single case with red cloth boards using a button and crewel clasp. Two accordion books laid-in folded green paper which is attached to the interior boards. One fold-out is the Biblical text is from the King James version of the Bible with illustrations. The second fold-out text "Later" is written by Lois Morrison who also illustrated, lettered, and bound this total production. Printed on Lenox 100 and Arches Text Wove with a Gocco Printer. Returned to with watercolor and ink. SIGNED by Morrison. A tunnel book tells the biblical story of the swine jumping off the cliff and drowning. An accordion-fold book tells what happens later as people begin breeding the Gadarene swine.
$250

In Adam's Fall
by Lois Morrison
1989. Edition of 44.

4.5 x 6" Jacob's ladder construction. Each panel double-sided with illustration of bodies intertwined on each panel. Slipcase for book a clear plastic envelope with black ribbon tie as closure. Written, illustrated, hand-cut and published by Morrison. Printed on Lenox 100 by Julie Chen's Flying Fish Press.

Another of Morrison's takes on a Bible story. Of this book she says: "A Jacob's ladder book in which cut out couples literally "fall" through Adam's guilt but are redeemed by Eve's Perspective."
$175 (Last Two Copies)

Fibbonaci Crow's
On the proliferation of birds in a New Jersey town. "Once there were no crows in Leonia. Then there was one, another, then a third, and increasing like a Fibonacci sequence, they now cover the trees." The mathematical sequence, recognized by Fibonnaci, explains the patterns of sunflower seeds and the chambered nautilus. Single spread, with winglike pop-out, displays the sequence pictorially through the increase of birds per folded section of paper. (Hint for the mathematically uninclined: add the two previous groupings to arrive at the next. That is: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.) Gocco printed on Fabriano Tiziano. Some crows are pasted to foam and glued down so they rise slightly away from the page, adding visual interest. Bound in green sharkskin paper over boards. Signed edition of 25. (10.5 x 3.25 inches.)
$175

Incarnations
2003. Edition of 25.
Color copied and printed with a Gocco printer then returned to with Pigma Micron pens, colored pencil, water colors and Painters medium opaque paint marker. Type: Bard. Hand-cut, grommeted, assembled and bound. Fine, snakeskin and Cave's blue jean paper over boards. Enclosed in vintage feed sack material and lasped with three vintage buttons. Reviewing the possibilities of the life of the snake found flattened in the driveway - from Medusa's head to a garter-snake-in-the-grass.
$450 (Two copies remaining!)

Oblivion Lost
A six paneled book with drawings of exposed tree roots and animal skulls found beside the road near Morrison's house in Virginia. A snapping turtle, a raccoon, and owl lore, etc. fill the front of the panels and the back of the panels have the description of the finds and the family finders. Printed with a gocco printer on oriental paper and gone back into with Pigma Microi pens and watercolors (beavers' teeth). Piano wires support the skulls and balsa strips support the wires. Covers are an African cloth over board held together with hand dyed rayon seam binding. Held by a bone clasp. Edition of 25. 2002.
$700

Ste. Ostrich & St. Valentine
2002. Edition of 3.
Folds to 5.25" x 8.25" Constructed in the form of a pink silk stocking. Characters are sewn onto the stocking on both sides. Words are in voice bubbles like comic book characters. Lettering is in red while characters are in cloths of purple, dark pink, and other accent colors. Stocking is folded into a cloth-lined cloth envelope style case with embroidered titles. Envelope closed with an ostrich head tab and crocheted loop. Housed in folding case with red cloth boards, closed with same type of ostrich head (two) and crocheted looping. There is also a red cloth bag with blue rectangles for the whole to slip into. From Morrison: "Vintage kimono fabric is the background. The figures are woodcut rubbings that have been cut out and appliquéd. My granddaughter did the calligraphy which was then embroidered. It is enclosed in a stocking bag made from a vintage chicken feed sack. The buttons are Fimo that has been pressed into a woodcut." A delightful, colorful book art work.
$1,250

What's He Got Up His Sleeve?
1992. Edition of 8.
Arms are gocco printed, sewn, cut, found. Arms in felt, fabrics, metals, papers, and plastic laminates. In box. Vintage cuffs form the covers of this book which is filled with baby arms, Popeye's muscled arms, skeleton arms and more in all sizes and colors. Morrison's wandering mind takes up the question of "What's He Got Up His Sleeve?" then proceeds to give several possibilities.
$275 (Two copies remaining!)

Dead Kites
1993. Edition of 9.
7.25" x 7.75 x .25" Uses Garamond. Text and drawings printed on tissue paper with a Gocco printer. Laminated to tissue paper hands from a Mexican political banner. 18 laminated kite pages held together with one ring from which hangs crewel thread simulating a kite's tail. Housed in white pictorial cloth bag with button closure. "The little kites, flown from those flat roofs in Mexico City, hang tangled for months from the wires."
$200

Lois Morrison Out of Print Titles:
• Love Re-Turned
• Persephone
• The Egg Queen
• The Yellow Goat
• Baucis and Philemon
• Cows
• Endangered Species