PETER & DONNA THOMAS
260 Fifteenth Avenue Santa Cruz CA 95062 (831)
475-1455
The Wandering Book Artists' Collaborative Broadsides. (2011) Peter and Donna Thomas. 13 3/4 x 11 inches. In April through October of 2010 Peter and Donna Thomas traveled around the country in their homebuilt gypsy wagon visiting libraries, book arts centers and other book artists. This book is the collection of the broadsides made on that trip.
Twelve broadsides were made at the following places: the International Printing Museum in California, with Karla Elling and Catherine Nash in Arizona, the Tryst Press in Provo, the Hamilton Wood Type Museum and the UW, Madison's Silver Buckle Press in Wisconsin, with Andrea Peterson in Indiana, Don Rash in Pennsylvania, The Bread and Puppet Theatre in Vermont, UK's King Library Press and Gray Zeitz's Larkspur Press in Kentucky and IU Bloomington's Graphic Design Press in Indiana.
To describe the broadsides and the collaborations, we prepared and printed a 12 page pamphlet-bound introduction. It is printed on Peter's handmade paper, made from cotton rag colored ochre with dark teeshirt fiber inclusions. It was printed using polymer plates with Playbill and Century Schoolbook types. In that pamphlet we write about the idea behind making this collection of broadsides, "We wanted to document the adventure artistically, and decided we could do that by making prints and broadsides in the art studios, libraries, and book arts centers we visited. Envisioning that the broadsides would be collected together as a series, we set a few simple guidelines: they would have a common size and edition number; each print would have imagery or text that related to our gypsy wagon or our trip; and would also reflect something unique about the collaborators, their skills, or the place they lived. We are clearly indebted to the many artists that contributed to this project. We want to thank all the people who squeezed our gypsy wagon into their front yards, let us loose in their studios, housed, hosted, and helped us on our journey. We appreciate and thank them for their part in the creation of the Wandering Book Artists’ Collaborative Broadsides."
The binding is a simple "folder binding" structure we developed especially for this project. Translucent folded pages, which the broadsides can slide in and out of, are stab sewn between paper covers. The paper cover has two slits cut into it, and a "title page" (printed using antique metal Playbill type on paper made during the trip) is slid into the cover. A 5x7 photo of the gypsy wagon is also included with the broadsides. The "folder binding" is housed in a colorful clamshell box. The front of the box has a paper label printed with an image of our gypsy wagon, letterpress printed from Donna's original linoleum cut. 14 pages. 50 copies (35 copies for sale). $875.
