The Vixen Press ~ Illinois
(Caryl Seidenberg)

insomnia
By Caryl Seidenberg
Winnetka, Illinois: The Vixen Press, 2007. Edition of 12.

7 x 6"; 20 pages. Set in Eusebius and printed on Number 4 Vandercook Press. Printed on Somerset cover stock. Hand-painted relief prints as well as drawings translated to polymer plates. Exposed stab binding using ribbon and wire. Illustrated cover.

Sleepless nights? Most of us experience those at one point or another in our lives. Seidenberg captures those feelings and turmoils as one tosses and turns.

    A thousand eyes watch you not sleeping ...
    Sometimes you think you are sleeping but you are not ...

$1,200

WHEN FORTUNE SMILES
I SMILE TO THINK
HOW QUICKLY
SHE MIGHT FROWN
By Caryl Seidenberg
Winnetka, Illinois: The Vixen Press, 2005. Edition of 10.

Assemblage: box, game board, dice, book. Box: 14.5 x 17.75" drop-spine; bound in black cloth; indents for each element; titles stamped in red on front cover. Game board: 14 x 13.5" closed, 28 x 13.5" open; bound in black cloth with exterior base in red paper; on cover of fold-outs two giclée prints mounted on red paper. Dice: 1" cube; paper covered in white; text in black; images in red. Book: 3 x 5.5"; 24 pages; red paper endsheets; bound in black cloth over boards. Letterpress printed in Eusebius on Number 4 Vandercook Press. Printed on Somerset paper.

The game board is a form of abecedarium. A booklet explains the beginnings and philosophy of board games in China.

"The rule in this game is that there are no rules. What you see is what you want to see. Or maybe it is what you are afraid to see. Perhaps it is what you used to see. Or maybe it is what you will see when you no longer can see. …

"So players, here is some advice:
Roll the dice and choose your story.
Make it a story just for play.
Chinese proverbs also say
Tomorrow is another day"

The project was commissioned by the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle.
$1,500 (Last Copy)

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Empty Nest
By Caryl Seidenberg
Winnetka, Illinois: The Vixen Press, 2004. Edition of 3.

3.125 x 2.5"; 16 pages. Set in 8 point Garamond, printed on a No 4. Vandercook. Hand sewn binding with paper covers. Laid in 7.5 x 6 x 2" nest constructed with hand colored and marbled paper over boards, sewn together on frayed out cords interspersed with feathers.

Caryl Seidenberg: "Constructed over many years. During this time a nagging memory, fragments of words, prompted me to search my files for the genesis of these thoughts.

"On January 5, 2004, just after having completed typesetting the final word of this book, I found it.

"In 1985 The Vixen Press published a small volume of poetry by the late Martha Friedberg. I went back to that book and read it again. I found the poem. It is entitled 'The Parents.'"
$1,000

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Shirt
By Robert Pinsky
Winnetka, Illinois: The Vixen Press, 2002. Edition of 125.

7 x 10”. Sixteen three-line stanzas with ten ink drawings were transferred to polymer plates and printed in color. Cloth bound book. Signed by both Pinsky and Gluck.

"Robert Pinsky has written a jewel of a poem, forceful, concise, vivid" says Louise Gluck. "Shirt" is about the process by which the elemental, monolithic shirt of the title becomes the shirt, the shirt resonant enough to stand as an archetype.
$400

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THERE ARE AT LEAST FIVE OR SIX SIDES TO EVERY TRIANGLE
By Caryl Seidenberg
Winnetka, Illinois: The Vixen Press, 1983. Edition of 5.

11.5 x 13.375"; 6 leaves. Five signed and numbered prints loose in drop-spine box with tie closure. Collographs tipped on cover lid with title label printed in color. Box (12.125 x 14.25") lined with original collographs. Introduction letterpress printed.

Introduction: "My friend, who is a big talker, always gets herself involved in complicated triangles sometimes as many as six at a time. I suppose the reason she tells me about them is that she expects me to unravel all the knots magically and patiently.

"To make matters worse she exaggerates like crazy and when she repeats her stories which is often, she usually adds a lot of color which changes the picture enough so that each telling has different SHADES of meaning.

"I am fed up with her entanglements. I told her I don't have any triangle solving credentials like Sigmund Freud or King Solomon or Euclid.

"So the best help I could give her is to take these five or six triangular embroilments she has gotten herself into and lay them down next to each other just the way she told them to me. Being extremely honest and somewhat of a sly fox myself, I hope to show her how she alters her tale, a bit here, a bit there, one day making an episode seem light and harmless, the next like heavy entrapment.

"Taking careful note of details, here's the first of the triangle problems she unloaded on me, with all the shifts and embellishments of local color."
$2,150

OPERATION RESCUE
in which 25 years of misprints
no 2 alike
are miraculously reincarnated
By Caryl Seidenberg
Winnetka, Illinois: The Vixen Press, 1980. Edition of 35.

6.25 x 8.25"; 20 pages. Letterpress printed on Number 4 Vandercook Press. Papers: Arches Etching Paper and Fabriano end sheets. Typefaces: Caslon Openface, Bauer Bodoni Italic, Bodoni Book, Bauer Bodoni. Five original etchings printed in color. One color lithograph. Illustrations tipped on. Bound with brown paper over boards, tan cloth spine. Paper title label on front board printed in brown with title and artist.

Poem by Seidenberg accompanied by her illustrations exploring the trials and mis-steps of a creative life in printing.

So rich am I in botched up schemes
My book of miscarriages fills up reams ...

$500