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Flatfishes of the Hudson River Estuary, The; Owls of the Hudson River Estuary; Terns of the Hudson River Estuary; L'Etat de Fourire: Various Island Postal Services; L'Etat de Fourire: Mirages de Mer

Helen  Buttfield

1993
Author and artist: Helen Buttfield. Watercolor, color laser prints, letterpress printing. Number of pages vary depending on each book. Hand sewn bindings with soft covers.
hand-sewn, soft cover binding
3 x 3 in, each
published by Poste Restante

These miniature books were created in response to a class given at the Center for Book Arts in the spring of 1993. They also grew out of my desire to use the stamps which I had been creating for three years, and about which I was very excited, in a new way. I had been struggling with the problems of making these little watercolours into real stamps: replicated, glued and perforated. (The hardest part of making stamps is to find a decent, sober perforator.) The stamps look beautiful together on the sheet, with or without perforations, but a curious thing happened when I would put a single stamp on an envelope or a card and send it in the mail. The recipient would twitch and shout about that one particular stamp as if he or she had never seen it before. I realized that they needed to be seen individually, each one on its own page, as the little pictures I meant them to be. The miniature book has been very satisfying. Not only am I able to make books of the stamps I already have, but these books have drawn me into new ideas for other small books and also into the wonderful world of letterpress printing, paper folding, cut-outs, portfolio and box making. There seems no end to the wonders ahead. My heartfelt thanks to the Center for Book Arts and its great teachers and staff.

©2014 Center for Book Arts, Incorporated 1974

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