Bokeh: A Little Book of Flowers

  MIDNIGHT PAPER SALES 2020

The third book in a trilogy documenting one man’s struggle with the reality of growing old. After a quarter century living in the rural midwest he moves to the city where he observes the isolation of urban life and the tenacious existence of the plants, birds, and animals living there—a roster of beings that includes himself. Bokeh: A Little Book of Flowers was preceded by A Little Book of Birds (MPS 2017), and Departures (Ninja Press, 2019).

Bokeh: A Little Book of Flowers was awarded the inaugural FPBA Collector's Prize at the 2020 Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair.

68 pages. 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches. Printed in an edition of 119 copies on Velké Losiny and Zerkall papers. Eight multiple color wood engravings with poems handset in Polipholis, Bembo, and Blado types. Bound at Booklab 2 by Marc Hammond, Keri Schroeder, and Craig Jensen in two editions: a standard edition of 80 copies, and a deluxe edition of 26. 13 sets of sheets were left unbound.

CLICK to READ: Bokeh: A Little Book of Flowers Binding Descriptions by Craig Jensen

Standard Edition: $780

*Free shipping on domestic orders. *International orders: you will be notified of the cost of shipping before the item is sent, and billed via PayPal after shipment.

Deluxe Edition: - OUT OF PRINT

In Sheets: $500

Schanilec’s poetry is reminiscent of James Wright’s, who like Robert Bly was also influenced by Federico Garcia Lorca, quoted by Schanilec in this book. Unlike all of them, though, Schanilec is a poet of the page, printing press and book. Notice how he draws attention to two lines with a lighter ink, centers them across the double-page spread placed in a folio to be folded and sewn at just that point. The lines and their placement enact the reference to bridges from the poetry above and to the left, and they make the two poems above enact their reference to the tower and canyon wall. Beneath the images and noise of the tower and canyon walls, the two lines draw our eyes down to the flowers the artist/poet is photographing for engraving later. That is “unusual”, to say the least, and “beautiful” does not say the most it deserves.

The title “Bokeh” refers to the aesthetic blurring in photography produced in the out-of-focus parts. Based on photos taken by Schanilec with a 100 mm f/2.8 macro lens, the engravings in this book were produced with a multi-line tool previously used at the Sander Wood Engraving Company of Chicago early in the 20th century. The tool cuts ten very fine lines at once, which could be used to capture the “bokeh” for this bouquet of flowers. —Robert Bolick