San Francisco Center for the Book

Emory Douglas, Reparations, 2010 Small Plates Publication, IMPRINT of the SFCB Photo credit: Michael Bartalos

Small Plates
We have invited selected artists and writers to create books of a specific size and cohesive theme. The books are available for purchase individually or as a subscription to the series. Subscription for the series is $160 or individual books are $40 (plus shipping, California residents add sales tax of 9.25%). To purchase, visit our online Etsy.com store at the links below or contact us by email or call (415)565-0545 You can view the books in person by visiting the Center during business hours.

Dog Dreams
by Michael Wertz
Edition of 100
Story, Illustrations, and Book design by Michael Wertz
Binding design by Carolee Wheeler
20 illustrated pages, 4 x 4 in.
esty.com website to buy a copy: http://www.etsy.com/listing/51098422/dog-dreams-by-michael-wertz

Dog Dreams, written and illustrated by Michael Wertz, is a children's board book that imaginatively reveals the hopes, wishes, and ambitions of over a dozen dozing canines through playful imagery and rhyming text.

The Artist
The featured artist, Michael Wertz, is a Bay Area illustrator and printmaker whose clients include Camelbak, Camper Van Beethoven, and the de Young Museum. His work has been recognized by Communication Arts and American Illustration. His "Dog Blog," featuring illustrations of 100 dogs in 100 days, was featured in Bark magazine. Visit: http://www.wertzateria.com.

REPARATIONS
Illustration by Emory Douglas
Book design by Michael Bartalos and Lili Ong
The book production was coordinated by Rhiannon Alpers with printing and binding assistance of SFCB volunteers and interns.
Edition of 100, 2009
4 pages with 1 continuos illustration
esty.com website to buy a copy: ($40) http://www.etsy.com/listing/49236208/reparations-by-emory-douglas

The imagery for this edition was initially a painting by Mr. Douglas' which was then translated into a 2 color, letterpress graphic. The pages of the book are a one-sided, accordion fold piece. The folded cover is made of Amate bark with hand-spun hemp and silk thread and letterpress printed in 2 colors with interior colophon page attached.

Emory Douglas describes, “The content of my Imprint publication deals with the subject of reparations and slavery with each abstract designed figure chained together making up the word, “REPARATIONS.”

The Artist
This featured artist, Emory Douglas, is renowned for his iconic representations of the Black Panther Party through his work the Party's Minister of Culture. For decades, he communicated the power and charisma of the movement through his compellingly straightforward graphic style. Recently, his work has been celebrated and displayed at the New Museum in New York City, the Museum for Contemporary Art in Los Angeles as well as in England at the URBIS Exhibition. In conjunction with his New York show, he worked with youth to design and paint a mural in Harlem titled "What We Want, What We Believe".

Bichos De Campo
Illustrations, type design and printed by Daniel Gonzalez
Binding was designed by Vi Thuc Ha
The book production was coordinated by Rhiannon Alpers with binding assistance of SFCB volunteers and interns.
Edition of 100, 2009
($40)
to buy in our esty shop: http://www.etsy.com/listing/29936844/bichos-del-campo-by-daniel-gonzalez

Bichos del Campo is letterpress-printed in 2 color on Rives Heavyweight 175 gsm and bound in Bhutan Shawa covers.
Bichos del Campo is a bestiary of three Mexican folk tales re-told and illustrated by artist Daniel González. As the artist relates: “My work is inspired by the folk stories that my parents and grandparents have passed on. I have a desire to invent and share my own narratives and vision through printmaking. I want to be able to communicate through the image an invitation to tell a new story to be told or an old one to be remembered.”

Bichos del Campo translates as Creatures of the Fields. Its introductory text and fables are illustrated in Daniel’s signature linoleum block print style, delivering on the mood set in his preface: “If there was ever a setting where anything was possible, where the real and imagined can coexist, it would be in the ranchos of my grandparents. At night, the small flicker of the kerosene lamp was the only light for miles in a night filled with sounds. In these adobe homes, I learned that bees pray, snakes steal milk from cows, and some people fly in the shape of owls.”

The Artist
Daniel studied graphic design and printmaking at the California College of the Arts. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles where he served a two-year apprenticeship at La Mano Press before striking out on his own. He draws on his Mexican heritage and bicultural experiences in much of his artwork. “Culture is about change and growth,” the artist explains, “I feel that it is my responsibility as an artist to be a vehicle for culture, to inspire a sensibility of the creative, to pierce the fence we have built to keep ourselves apart and to remind people of the common experience we share in life.”

Rabbitpox
Book and Box Design by Allison Weiner
The book production was coordinated by Katherine Case and Pam De Luco with printing and binding assistance of SFCB volunteers.
Edition of 100, 2009
($40)
to buy on our esty shop: http://www.etsy.com/listing/31147757/rabbitpox-by-allison-weiner?ref=v1_...

Rabbitpox, written and illustrated by Allison Weiner, casts rabbits as the heroes and the pawns in a tale of biological warfare. The story is inspired by a 2004 Harper’s Magazine item describing American scientists as having engineered extra-lethal forms of mousepox, cowpox and, of course, rabbitpox. Allison’s book combines text, inventive design, and diagrammatic illustrations with a whole lot of personality to find humor, absurdity, and alarm at the dark extremes of biological science.

The type in Rabbitpox was hand set in Century Schoolbook and printed on a Vandercook proof press by Allison, Pam DeLuco and the Center’s generous volunteers. Each book is housed in a handmade box and bound with thread spun by Pam from the fur of her pet rabbit Charisma, a white German Angora who reportedly had a show career.

The Artist
Allison is a Bay Area creative who studied at Stanford University, The San Francisco Art Institute, and the California College of the Arts. Rabbitpox is her first artist’s book edition. It is Charisma’s first foray into book arts as well.

God's Femur
Written and illustrated by Ward Schumaker
Type designed by Lili Ong and Michael Bartalos
The book production was coordinated by Rhiannon Alpers with printing and binding assistance of SFCB volunteers.
Edition of 100, 2009
36 pages with 20 illustrations, 4 x 4 in.
($40) http://www.etsy.com/listing/22552684/gods-femur-an-anatomy-lesson-by-ward

This hand bound book is letterpress printed in three colors on Somerset paper, set in Gill Sans, and printed on a Vandercook 4. The covers are printed in two colors on chipboard.

"It's 1965, I'm twenty-two years old, and six men are hustling me through the basement of the shopping center that is host to the Nebraska Governor's Annual Art Competition..." - excerpt from God's Femur

The Artist
Ward Schumaker’s work has appeared in over 150 periodicals, including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New Yorker, Esquire Japan, and Le Figaro. He has illustrated two limited edition letterpress books for the famed Yolla Bolly Press: Two Kitchens in Provence by MFK Fisher, and Paris France by Gertrude Stein. His work on the Stein book won a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators. He has received awards from the AIGA, CA Illustration/Design Annuals, Print Magazine, Graphis and American Illustration. His work has been the subject of articles in Communication Arts, Print, Step-by-Step, Design Journal (Korea), and Portfolio (Japan). With the Smithsonian Institution, Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York, he received a Federal Design Achievement Award. The artist lives and works in San Francisco with his wife, artist Vivienne Flesher. www.warddraw.com

Thumb War by John Hersey
Edition of 100, 2008
Book design and text by John Hersey
The book production was coordinated by Katherine Case with printing and binding assistance of SFCB volunteers.
36 pages with 27 illustrations, 4 x 4 in.
($40) http://www.etsy.com/listing/35756486/thumb-war-by-john-hersey

The book is hand-bound and letterpress printed in two colors using a Vandercook 4 at San Francisco Center for the Book.
The covers are laser-cut into finish grade plywood, with a small number of them laser-cut into chipboard.

The ancient sport of thumbwar was first recorded with pictograms on ceramics unearthed at Xanadu, the summer court of Kublai Kahn in the 13th century. Though there is earlier mention of a similar game 2000 years previous through buddhist texts where combatants engaged in zhi jue di, or toe wrestling, in a similar fashion. It is believed that Marco Polo brought the game to the West when he returned from his travels. Scholars have conjectured that the game was used to settle differences between rival officers as to who was going to sleep with the most popular concubine versus who was going to have to churn the ayrag in the morning before the great sky god awoke, but no one knows for sure.

The Artist
John Sherlock Hersey is considered one of the founders of digital illustration. He is the principal of John Hersey Illustration in Larkspur, California, where his clients include Sony, Bandai, Le Monde, Wired, the Times of London, Swatch, the New York Times, Newsweek, and Benetton. John has designed watch faces for Swatch, an Absolut Vodka ad, pattern designs for Esprit, on-air IDs for Nickelodeon, font designs distributed with Emigre, and various logos including the XM satellite radio logo.
He also wrote and illustrated the children's book binkobink (2002), and his work has been exhibited at SFMOMA. He studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Hersey is CCA's Senior Adjunct Professor in Illustration. www.hersey.com

Gray Matter Gardening
Book design and production by Nanette Wylde
4 x 4 in.
Edition of 100, 2008
($40) sold out

How Birds Sing
Poem by Kay Ryan
Book design by Tucker Nichols
The book production was coordinated by Katherine Case with printing and binding assistance of SFCB volunteers.
Edition of 200, 2008
9 pages with 6 illustrations, 4 x 4 in.
($40) http://www.etsy.com/listing/21322708/how-birds-sing-by-kay-ryan-and-tucker

Letterpress printed at the San Francicso Center for the Book on a Vandercook 4 press. Heavyweight paper cover printed in one color, with accordion fold interior of illustrations and poem also printed in one color. This book is hand-bound through the cover at the spine.

“Poetry should leave you feeling freer and not more burdened,”. “I like to think of all good poetry as providing more oxygen in the atmosphere. Poems just make it easier to breathe.” --Kay Ryan

The Artist
Ryan was born in 1945 in San Jose, and grew up in small towns in the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert, where her father found work as a prospector and oil well driller. She went to UCLA, earning a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, and moved to Marin County in 1971, becoming a poet somewhat reluctantly. Her epiphany came during a cross-country bicycle journey. Since then, for more than 30 years, she has focused on writing poetry while teaching remedial English part time at College of Marin in Kentfield. One of Ryan’s poems - “How Birds Sing” - is permanently installed at the Central Park Zoo in New York City. Ryan’s work has appeared in four editions of “The Best American Poetry” and in three Pushcart Prizes anthologies. She has also received a 2004 Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ingram Merrill Award, a 2001 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the 2000 Union League Poetry Prize and the Maurice English Poetry Award.
Kay Ryan was appointed the Library of Congress’s sixteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry in 2008. Kay Ryan’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and other periodicals. The recipient of numerous accolades, including the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She teaches at the College of Marin.

Lyrica
Poem by Michael Hannon
Artwork by William T. Wiley
Edition of 100, 2008
The book production was coordinated by Katherine Case with printing and binding assistance of SFCB volunteers.
24 Pages with 8 illustrations, 4 x 4 in.
($40) http://www.etsy.com/listing/40610308/lyrica-by-michael-hannon

This one color letterpress printed book features a minimalist coupling of Hannon’s two-word combination poem ("deep window / paper suit / child's hat") with Wiley's humorous line drawings. This edgy work is expertly printed on heavyweight column paper and hand sewn into a shimmering, metallic Stardream cover. Illustrations and type are printed from polymer plates.