Prints

American Crow: Report from Quarantine
 
Gaylord Schanilec

MIDNIGHT PAPER SALES 2021 During the first week of March 2020, as the novel covid virus blossomed in Manhattan, people from all over the world were gathered at the Lexington Avenue Armory, and across the street in the basement of the Saint Vincent Ferrer Church, to buy and sell books. Though the virus was on everyone’s mind, few refused to shake hands, and there were no masks. A week later, when I returned to the Midwest, the storm had struck. The list of the dead was growing dramatically—everyone was masked—and everyone stood at a social distance…almost everyone.

 

 

 

I returned to rural Wisconsin where I found a matted crow feather in the wake of receding snow on the floor of Glen’s Woods, and Glen had been dead for years. I made an engraving of the feather, set a few lines of type and printed, but the result did not feel right—it felt rushed and unresolved. I was feeling jumpy, like a needle across a scratch. I decided to embrace that feeling. Tossed by the relentless jolts of the news cycle, what began as a simple rumination on death evolved into a volume of illustrated concept journalism.

9 x 12 inches. Seven four-page, french-folded sections printed on gampi papers, with text handset in various typefaces. Three multi-color wood engravings, and various other elements engraved, or cut in wood. Of a possible 100 copies, 88 numbered and signed copies survived. The seven loose sections are contained in a chitsu case made by Matthew Lawler Zimmerman at Studio Alcyon, with assistance from Lisa Hersey of Antler Editions, Erin Clay Nelson, and Rebecca Fisher Staley. The original printing of Novel Corvid (Glen’s Woods) is entombed in the back panel of the case. $3,500.

Video of Gaylord Schanilec discussing the genesis of American Crow.