A Hymn to Hands; Reflections and Images by Jacqueline Thurston
Printed by Art Larson at Horton Tank Graphics, 2017. Full Leather. Fine binding. Item #10908
Folio. [12] leaves of varying lengths, some folding. Three Cibachrome prints. Limited edition, number 6 of 6 copies signed by Thurston at the colophon. As issued, in a designed binding by Donald Glaister of full ochre goatskin with rosewood veneer "hands" recessed into the front cover. Sanded and painted copper, brass and aluminum onlays represent bracelets at the base of the rosewood hands, and are dimensional, rising off of the binding and floating in space. The rear cover has recessed and raised areas that offer a shadow of the veneer hands on the front cover. Incised panels, painted at the base of the incision in reds and oranges run along the bottom portion of both boards, behind the design. Doublures and flyleaves of painted cork; handwoven silk headbands. The binding is stamp-signed and dated 2018 with Glaister's device on the rear hinge. Housed in a felt-lined clamshell box with printed paper title label.
While Thurston's mounted, still-life Cibachrome prints are the centerpieces of the three sections, her beautiful writing gives this book form. Thurston's complex reflections find a throughline from the earliest known expressions of art in the European caves, to her children reconciling with loss through art, and finally to the expression of love in a handmade quilt stitched two generations earlier; all bookended with two poems by Dickinson. Like all great essays, Thurston pulls together what might seem disparate items, ideas, events, and memories, bringing them into a single clear focus and allows us to learn something about ourselves. We recognize what it is to be a human and to tangle with the mysterious elements that define our existence: ritual, belief, loss, fear, connection, love…. A remarkable book in which, fittingly, Thurston takes our hand in hers and walks us through the most potent aspects of our humanity. It is not often that writing, images, and design come together so harmoniously.
Jacqueline Thurston is an artist, writer, and Professor Emerita at San Jose State University. She is twice the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and was a Fulbright Scholar to Egypt. Thurston's photographs are in major national and international museum collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Library of Congress; the International Museum of Photography; the Carnegie Museum of Art; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Cantor Museum; the University of New Mexico Museum of Art; the Center for Photography at Arizona University; the Bibliotheque Nationale, France; and the Bibliotheque Alexandria, Egypt.
Price: $6,500.00