Moving Parts Press ~ California
(Felicia Rice)

COSMOGONIE INTIME
An Intimate Cosmogony
Poems by Yves Peyré
Translation by Elizabeth R. Jackson
Art by Ray Rice
Book design by Felicia Rice
2005. Edition of 84.

10 x 15" accordion-fold book that extends to 18 feet. The binding adheres to the model of the livres d'Artiste. The book block rests in a printed paper cover wrapped in glassine. Housed in a cloth covered box. On 18 of the 20 sheets, long narrow poems and drawings mirror one another, the verso English, the recto French, while the drawings run to either side of the gutter. The pen-and-ink drawings by Ray Rice are enlivened with multiple colors using the pochoir or stenciling process. In the edition of 84 there are 12 deluxe copies which have been completely hand painted by the artist. The type is set digitally and printed from photo engravings rather than handset type.

The form of COSMOGONIE INTIME draws on that of the 20th century French livres d'Artiste, which combined the texts and images of celebrated authors
and artists in book form. It is a collaborative work made up of five poems by Yves Peyré, translation by Elizabeth R. Jackson, with drawings by Ray Rice, and book art by Felicia Rice. The five poems by French poet Peyre is a sequence that carries the poet and his generation through time and space, touching base regularly to evoke a familiar name, a place, a far gone era. These poems are at once intimate and universal, offering readers insight, revelation and passage on a poetic journey that illuminates our common ground.

In the first poem, "The Law of Passage," barques, horses and lost whales launch the voyage and set the scene for discovery. In "Distant Humming in Space," high altitude favors distant vision and penetrating insight. "Still Life" returns to earthly scenes, vignettes, and mortal pageants. "Chronicle of the Future" offers glimpses of eternity, the poet now equal to the task of attaining viable abstraction. "Outreach in Time" turns inward; having ascertained a heritage, we precariously reach an equilibrium.

Yves Peyré is a contemporary French poet who has published many volumes of poetry, essays and livres d'Artiste. He received le Prix Dada for his collection of poems "Recit d'une simple saison" published by Mercure de France in 1995.

This is the third collaboration between artist Ray Rice and his daughter, book artist and publisher Felicia Rice. Mr. Rice died in 2001.
$2,400

Codex Espangliensis:
From Columbus to the Border Patrol (Only trade copies available)

A collaborative bookwork composed of performance texts and poems by Guillermo Gómez-Peña interwoven with collage imagery by Enrique Chagoya and rendered into book form by Felicia Rice. This monumental bookwork chronicles and confronts the realities and surrealities of border culture at the turn of the millennium. Collage images are examples of graphic art from pre-Hispanic times to present-day Mexico juxtaposed to traditions of Western art and contemporary American pop culture. The series of performance texts and poems are selected from the writer's works over his twenty-year career.

Jennifer González, Assistant Professor of Art History at UC Santa Cruz describes the work as: "A rich unfolding of colonial conquest, cultural genocide and linguistic admixtures that have formed the Americas . . . [T]he Codex offers a critical analysis of a border politics through a density of historical references, icons of popular culture and masterful typographic compositions that orchestrate the many voices in the text." The book was inspired by pre-Hispanic codices from Central America and printed on thick, deeply-embossed, Mexican bark paper. Following the form of original codices, the accordion structure unfolds, in this case, to thirty-one feet in length, creating "a monumental space for the reader to inhabit." González's critical commentary is included in an informative sixteen-page companion pamphlet that also features commentary about the work and the working process from each of the artist's involved.

9.5 x 12 inches boxed; 15 full-spread panels. 1998.
A substantial accomplishment that was five years in the making.
Special edition unavailable.
Trade edition $29.95