Simplemente Maria Press~ California
(Mary Heebner)

Mary Heebner specializes in exquisite portfolio editions and books inspired by her journeys and grounded in a sense of place. Earlier works highlight Icelandic, American Western, and Southwestern French landscapes.

A Sacred Geography: Sonnets of the Himalaya and Tibet
Poetry by Sienna Craig
Art by Mary Heebner
2005. Edition of 20.
Twelve sonnets printed letterpress from photopolymer plates in Democratica on kitakata paper at The Lumino Press. Poems are places onto handformed sheets of individually pulp-painted paper with in a border of two of the eight sacred Tibetan Buddhist symbols, the Endless Knot and the Conch. The frontispiece is a signed and numbered print, Drifts and Plates. A reader's chapbook with the poetry and commentaries, printed in Spectrum types, is recessed in the bottom of the handmade clamshell box.

This is the latest book from Mary Heebner and is collaboration with the poet and anthropologist Sienna Craig. A Sacred Geography was inspired by the landscape of Tibet and the Mustang region of Nepal. Each sonnet is written in response to a specific place.
The design of the book alludes to traditional Tibetan texts.
$2,400

               out of an ocean mapped in drifts and plates
            those continental shelves, these shifts of blue
            mountains rose tall as gods in their slow wake
                 and incremental moves bid sea adieu

            turn time round and bottomless floor soars high
               coolest pressure, the sky as it weighs down
                 high earth crevassed in monumental sighs
                 sheds its salt like tears, deliberate ground

Seeking the Open Heart
By Michael Hannon
2002. Edition of 75.
Individually painted covers. The paintings were, made specifically to print the edition of Giclée images on Somerset Radiant White paper using Pinnacle Gold archival inks at Duganne Atelier, Santa Monica, California. The text is printed letterpress from photopolymer plates, typeset in Baskerville MT. It was printed and handbound at The Lumino Press, Santa Barbara, California. The paste-papers for the cover were created by Mary Heebner. Signed by both Michael Hannon and Mary Heebner.
Ten acrylic and pastel paintings on paper were created in response to a set of poems by Michael Hannon.
$850

Old Marks, New Marks
1996. Edition 45.
Handmade paper collage with chapbook, in clamshell box. Contains a signed and lettered chapbook together with an original handmade paper collage.
Created in collaboration with the Marija Gimbutas and Joseph Campbell Library, housed at Pacifica Graduate Institute near Santa Barbara, California. It served as a catalog for an exhibition at the Institute in November 1996. The introductory essay by the Library's archivist, Carolyn Radlo, draws parallels between contemporary and ancient mark making.
$600

Bayon: Sketches from Bayon Temple, Angkor Thom
By Mary Heebner
2003. Edition of 20.
Contains two accordion folded pigment prints, made directly from Heebner's watercolor sketches, on Somerset Velvet rag paper, plus a booklet with a detail of a map from ANGKOR: Guide Henri Parmentier (Saigon, 1950) on the front. These are wrapped in a cotton khataj, a Buddhist ceremonial scarf, and contained within a folded paper box with a thumbnail of one of the BAYON SKETCHES as a label. Prints numbered and signed by the artist.
Comments on the inspiration for this book from Mary Heebner: "We spent the day wandering among the Khmer ruins of Angkor Thom, drawn towards the absolute center of this square, walled town; BAYON. What appeared at a distance to be beehive shaped rock formations, were the clusters of towers that crown the temple ruins of Bayon. The towers were built of sandstone blocks, then carved in situ with enormous portraits gazing out in four
directions. Some see the faces as Buddha, others Brahma, while others note the likeness of King Jayavarman VII. It was beginning to rain and I found shelter under a carved lintel. The ochre stone shone golden and furtive recesses deepened in the rain. I made watercolor drawings, dipping my brush in the puddle beside me, watching the sky blush and then blacken against these gigantic forms."
$300

Full Lotus: Sketches from Ayutthaya
By Mary Heebner
2002. Edition of 50
Contains two accordion folded panels of the paintings and sketches printed on Somerset Photo Enhanced Velvet 100% rag paper plus an accordion folded booklet of journal notes and images that are printed letterpress on handmade Bhutanese daphne paper, that was printed at Lumino Press, Santa Barbara, California.
Comments from Mary Heebner: "When sketching among the ruins at Ayutthaya, Thailand in August, 2002, I used watercolor and graphite to make pictures on both sides of two 30" long x 5" high sheets of folded paper. I reproduced these two-sided sketches with an Epson 7600 printer, using archival ink pigments. After printing, I drew and painted with graphite and acrylic on each of the prints in the edition. This book is a meditation about creativity and destruction, balance and imblance, peace and war, as represented by the rose colored paintings of figures seated in lotus position and the drawings of the severely damaged bodhisattva statues at Ayutthaya, also seated in lotus position."
Fifty headless bodhisattvas seated in lotus position became the models for a series of sketches, photographs, and this book, Full Lotus.
$550

Western Trilogy II: Mountain, Canyon, Dune
2000. Edition of 20
This is a boxed set of three books. Mount Shasta in Caliofrnia, the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado have inspired the text as well as the 45 original watercolor paintings on Sekishu paper in this sequel to Western Trilogy: The Prairie, The Sert, The Ocean. Typeset digitally in Bembo and Trajan and printed letterpress from polymer plates by John Balkwill of Lumino Press. Book covers are made of Brasilian banana paper over board and USGS topographic maps are used as endpapers. The text is excerpted from "The Western Horizon," Everton, Heebner, Morris, (Harry N. Abrams, New York, 2000). Signed and numbered edition.
From Mary Heebner: "In order to make the 900 watercolors necessary for this edition and to assure consistency I painted like images, twenty to a sheet, and then tore the large pattern-paintings into the smaller watercolors and tipped them onto accordion-folded Tiepolo paper opposite the text. I made a second set of paintings, which I will leave intact and mount onto rag paper covered panels to create three murals: Shasta, Bright Angel, and Medano.
$2,000

Island: Journal from Iceland
By Mary Heebner
1997. Edition of 60.
A portfolio of twelve Giclée prints which were scanned directly from original watercolor and raw pigment monotypes made on Kitakata paper, under the supervision of the artist and printed on Somerset rag paper at Duganne Ateliers, Santa Monica, California. Each image relates to a specific poem and can be seen through the transparent abaca paper enclosure which was handmade by Rie Hachiyanagi, assisted by Gail Berkus. The text, laid out in Galliard by Lucy Brown, was digitally typeset and reproduced from polymer plates and printed letterpress onto the abaca enclosure by Inge Bruggeman. A chemise wrap made with white Kyoseishi and indigo Kozo paper over onyx board contains the set of twelve poems and prints. The collection slides into an acrylic sleeve. Signed and numbered.
Island is Heebner's poetic and visual interpretation of her trek through the volcanic terrain of Iceland.
$950

A la Orilla Azul del Silencio/
On the Blue Shore of Silence
Poems of the sea by Pablo Neruda. Twelve poems in Spanish with English translations by Alastair Reid. Twelve giclée prints from original watercolors by Mary Heebner. The rugged Pacific coastline of Chile and the poet's verse inspired Heebner's Isla Negra series of collage paintings. "Neruda was a curator of memory," writes the artist. "He gathered up objects as if to store his thoughts among them." Thus are Heebner's paintings repositories of memory. Forms that she sketched in the poet's Isla Negra living room began to surface in her studio as she saturated thick, fibrous Japanese paper with bluish-grey pigment. She added earthy Sienna tones to draw figures forth from the depth. Oceanic colors and textures thus draw us into deep places, the places Neruda's language also leads. "Let us look for secret things / somewhere in the world . . ./ coins of time and water, / debris, celestial ash / and the irreplaceable rapture / of sharing in the labor / of solitude and sand." Twelve hand folded folios of Fabriano Tiepolo each contain a different image from the series. Poems are letterpress printed in Adobe Jenson and Trajan from photopolymer plates on handmade linen paper and tipped-on alongside the images. Folios presented in a linen wrapper painted by the artist with indigo pulp at Dieu Donné Papermill and housed in a cloth-covered, clamshell box. Edition of 50. (11 x 14 x 2 inches.)
$3000

Out of Print editions from Simplemente Maria:
Scratching the Surface: A Visit to Lascaux & Rouffignac