Happy Abstract

Bound by Don Glaister

Happy Abstract by William Blake
New York, NY: Russell Maret, 2018
22.7 x 17.5 x 1.8 cm

Open:Set competition entrant and exhibitor.

Full leather, laced-on boards binding. Bound in gray Pentland Goat, with eight horizontal strips of lighter gray goat. Strip edges in red acrylic, and onlays of mylar, aluminum, brass, calf, snake, and kangaroo under the raised areas of the strips. Pastedowns and flyleaves in painted cork. Top edge in graphite. Silk endbands. Interior pages treated with acrylic paint and colored pencil. Untitled. Bound in 2019.

The book was printed one full line of type per page spread. Each line of type is lower by one space than the line before it on the preceding spread. To me, the interior book design is visually about sequence. The raised parts of the horizontal leather strips on the binding are offset from each other an equal amount as they progress from the upper right corner to the lower left corner of the recto, referencing the progression of the lines of type within. The bits of material under the raised strips are a reference to the joy that Blake reports experiencing as he seems possessed by his own creative spirit.