Many Hands Make Light Work!
MEDIUM:
Archival paper board & mat, collage, handmade paper, film positives, thread, brass round head fasteners, paper backing board.
ARTWORK:
16″ x 18″ x ¼” (mat window opening).
FRAME:
Natural oak finished wood.
27¼” x 29″ x 1″
RESERVED FOR DONATION OR AUCTION
GUTENBERG’S REVENGE DRAFT
Many hands make light work! 1.
Artist Statement: Ever since Johannes Gutenberg (c.1398-1468) advanced the printer’s use of paper, type, ink & glue the anomalies of these mediums for centuries has frustrated those who employed them. The more a printing job “steams ahead” the more skills and participants are required. Instead of many hands making light work it was more likely one medium eventually would collide with another reversing any progress made.
Selected Exhibitions: New England Chapter Guild of Book Workers, Rhode Island School of Design, RI., 1989. Other GBW exhibitions: Grolier Club, 1981, Folger Shakespeare Library, 1986, Yale University Library, 1975.
Quote Sources: 1. Hey, John, (1497-1580), “Many Hands Make Light Work,” Bartlett Familiar Quotations, Little Brown & Co., Boston, 10th edition, 1919, Part two, Chapter 5. or www.goggle.com/search & Wikiquotes. Note: The balloon steam boat illustration from: The Power of Steam, University of Chicago Press, 1982.
Origins: The antecedents for this book artwork begins with my introduction and training in fine printing, bookmaking and publishing when a student (1963-1967) at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bookmaking materials saved from that period are incorporated within the artwork, i.e. handmade paper, engraving of a balloon steam boat, etc.
Robert Hauser