The Assignment

Donna Globus
Philadelphia, PA

Title: LeaFutility

Number of Copies in Edition: 52
Size: 6" x 6" x 1/16"

Medium: Relief pressure print (with rainbow roll inking) and letterpress printed text from metal type. Books are printed four to a sheet, with the type rotated in the press bed to accommodate the angled text, then cut into strips and folded into trihexaflexagons. The flexagon is housed in a translucent pocket sewn inside a letterpress printed pamphlet-stitched book containing title page, instructions for the flexagon, and colophon.

Price: $50

To purchase, please contact Laura at 23 Sandy Gallery.

The Assignment

Assignment was to print a one-sheet letterpress book.

Artist Statement

While the outer printed folio alone would have "satisfied" this assignment as a one-sheet letterpress book, instead, I chose to print a trihexaflexagon about the endless cycle (and futility) of falling-raking-bagging leaves in autumn. In order to read each of the flexagon's three faces with the text parallel to the edge of the book, some text must be printed at a sixty degree angle. While printing from a single polymer plate would have been far easier and less labor-intensive, I challenged myself to accomplish this entirely using metal type.