ANAKED, one – 1972

ANAKED, one | Part One | Emily & Oscar | by | Joseph J. D’Ambrosio.

7 3/4 x 9 1/8 inches, [from front] [1]: text in green double frame, [2]: blank, [3]: title page, [4]: blank, [5–11]: text, [12–15]: images, [16–19]: text, [20]: blank, [21]: image, [22]: blank, [23]: text, [24 of front, 1 of back]: title of part 2, [from back] [2]: blank, [3–18]: [green] text, [19–22]: images, [23]: blank, [24]: orange image above [black] text.

Colophon:

A personal statement on the subject of LOVE.

This is copy number

[number]

[line]

of a limited edition of 200 copies

This story-graphic has been produced and assembled completely by hand by the author. All type set by hand and printed on a flat bed Adana press. All serigraphs produced from hand cut stencils and numerous silk-screen techniques. All serigraphs are removable for framing.

The entire contents of this story-grapic is Copyright © 1972 by Joseph J. D'Ambrosio and no portion may be reproduced without the written permission of the author.

[signature in green ink]

Joseph J. D'Ambrosio

Other story-graphics by the author:

YOU DRESS "FUNNY" - 100 copy limited edition

KROME - 100 copy limited edition

Binding: Accordion-style: yellow cloth over boards tied with green thread

Images are numbered in pencil on the bottom left, the title is in the center and the signature D’Ambroso ’72 is on the right:

Emily & Oscar

Emily & Oscar II

Emily & Oscar III

Emily & Oscar IV

Emily & Oscar

Sand Crab I

Sand Crab II

Sand Crab III

Sand Crab IV

Orange whale woodblock numbered and signed on right

From 19 Years and Counting:

1972

ANAKED, one

A Personal Statement on the Subject of Love

Edition: 200 copies

Size: 7-3/4 x 9-1/8 inches

Type: 10 pt. Century Schoolbook Bold and 12 pt. Americana

Leaves: 24 - consisting of art paper

Binding: Accordion-style: yellow cloth over boards tied with green thread

In ANAKED, one, printed on the Adana press, I wrote two separate stories sandwiched between the beginning and end of a third story. The word, "Anaked" is a composite of "ankh" and "naked," pronounced Ah-nah-ked. First, the reader finds the story of Anaked. The story is written in a manner which allows the reader to assume that it has ended. Then the second story, Emily & Oscar, appears. At the conclusion of Emily & Oscar, and the apparent end of the book, the reader finds on the very last page, [image]

Accordion-style binding, ANAKED, one. the title page for yet another story, The Little Sand Crab. And, since I bound the book in an accordion fashion, by continuing to turn the pages, the story unfolds.

The end of the story of Anaked follows The Little Sand Crab. A sequel, Anaked, two (or "too"), was planned but never realized. Taken in its totality, this work is an abstract presentation commenting on the deeply personal emotional conflicts confronting a young person in love—primarily, my own recollections. Sometimes the conflicts are so absurd they become humorous—and other times, dangerously serious. Emily & Oscar borrows its plot from the classic tale of Romeo & Juliet. This time they are not human beings who fall in love, but two leaves on separate trees split by a road. Their desire can never lead to coupling for if either left its branch, it would die. The Little Sand Crab is, metaphorically, me. I am tiny and report what I see without being seen. And, I "bite." At the conclusion of the story, 1 am so weary of human foibles in relation to tribal marriage customs that I not only welcome death, but I also reward my slayer. Around all of this, the mystical character of Anaked offers hope for future relationships. Since readers had asked for art to hang on a wall, all of the serigraphs are tipped in with library tape for easy removal.

1972-73

I did not continue this practice (with the exception in 1979 of Literary Figures for which I had good cause) because I did not want a future reader confronted with a story in which the graphics have been removed. Also included in this book is one block print printed in orange ink. Its style reflects my new exposure to the fluid lines of the German expressionists and Edvard Munch. I have known times of financial difficulty during my career as a book artist, and this period was one of them. A friend showed my first two books to a paper conservator from the Art Institute of Chicago who had opened the first archival frame shop in the city, and told him I needed employment. Gordon Heuter hired me and thus began my education in paper technology. My experience as an archival framer coupled with my art and engineering backgrounds proved to be a valuable basis for the book structures that I would do in the coming years.

"Anaked"

Block Print from ANAKED, one

From A Memoir of Book Design:

Anaked, One is the next phase on my way to a totally illustrative method of telling a story. I felt that it should be done in stages so readers would have some reference to what my goal was once I had reached it. My plan was to slowly make the text ebb away while increasing the importance of the artwork. Consequently, to allude to what | was doing, the outside structure had to subliminally suggest the world of the artist. It is bound like an artist's portfolio with yellow cloth over board and a green cord which is wrapped around its body and tied in a bow on the fore edge. The title is serigraphed in green ink on the spine. The pages are hinged with linen tape in an accordion fold fashion. The included graphic prints are each tipped onto their respective pages with linen tape and are nestled beneath face mats so that they can be removed and framed if desired. The face mats also keep the serigraphs from touching (and thus offsetting) onto facing pages.

In this work I wanted to tell a story within a story. In this case two totally different stories are sandwiched between the beginning of a story and the end of that first story. The relationship of the stories to each other not only in words, but in proximity, should conjure up the mental image of the message I sought to communicate to the reader/viewer. And, because the central two stories interrupt the telling of the first story, their moral essences play a large role in dictating the conclusion of the first story. The message is my thoughts on the subject of love. Be reminded that these thoughts change as we grow and those reflected in this book may not be the same that would be reflected today. So, why not just tell a simple story? Why sandwich two stories between another? Because I had never seen anything like this done. And if I was going to take the time to do something, why not try a different approach? Why waste my short time on this earth doing what someone else has done-and done quite well I might add. Craftspeople and mimics may hone a method; I wanted to begin one.

Anaked, the title of the first story, is a composite of the Egyptian emblem of life, "ankh," and "naked," pronounced, ah-nah-ked. It is the main story and has the story of Emily & Oscar and the story of The Little Sand Crab, enclosed within it. Anaked relates love in the form of possessive selfishness; Emily & Oscar as sacrificial love, and The Little Sand Crab as love and greed working together to reach a reasonable conclusion. Years later, I would redo Emily & Oscar and The Little Sand Crab separately as individual miniature books.

The story of Anaked is allegorical. And it is meant to reflect the pain and joy that can accompany jealously loving someone or something-wanting a person for oneself regardless of the wishes of the desired. In the first story, and this is only indirectly implied, the adored one is a captive and is solely dependent on the aegis of the lover. The implication of captivity may be applied to many situations, including a woman gravitating to a man simply for financial and physical protection or to leave the bondage of her parents' home. In the story, the lover's possessiveness actually creates a condition whereby the loved one is in mortal danger. At this point the text is split by the presentation of the two other forms of love. After the intrusion of the other stories, and because of enlightenment from them, at the end of the book, the covetous lover releases the loved one from emotional bondage. The book ends with a compassionate savior rescuing the loved one. This implies that there is always someone who will be responsible for the other, even when one party thinks that the other can't survive without him or her. It ends by implying that there will be a sequel. That is why the title includes the adjective, "One." It was never even begun. A sequel would have been titled Anaked, Two, or Anaked, Too.

The ornamentation for the story of Anaked and the art print at the end of the story reflect my admiration at the time for Art Nouveau, German expressionism, and for the graphic artwork of Edvard Munch. Munch is noted for his graphic art print, "The Scream." The sperm-like creature in the linoleum block print to the right is a direct derivative from Munch's graphic print, Madonna, and the sperm-like forms floating around her image. This rendering is in total opposition to the flat, hard-edged, serigraphic images used in the other two stories. Once again, the medium is part of the message. One could term this eclecticism, but that would be in error. It is using the medium best fitted for the subject. The humanoid look of the sperm-like creature in the block print looks remarkably similar to another humanoid figure that I will render for my next work Zarathustra.

The next story to confront the reader is Emily & Oscar. If it reminds one of Romeo and Juliet, one is quite correct, only this time we are transposed to the world of trees. It is sacrificial love where both must die to become as one. A series of four graphics show the futility of trying to attain the impossible. In this case an oak leaf falls in love with an elm leaf, and if the oak leaf tries to bridge the gap to the elm tree, it will cut off its life support and die. Which is what happens at the end of the story, and only in death do the lovers unite. The book is bound in an accordion fashion, so if one wishes, the four full-page graphics can be displayed upright by simply expanding the zigzag pages. Because the book is bound as an accordion (in a dos-a-dos fashion), when the reader reaches the end of the story of Emily & Oscar, that appears to be the end of the book. Merely by continuing to turn the page, the reader enters the next story, and is now going through the book backwards. The next story is The Little Sand Crab.

The Little Sand Crab is meant to show how the greed of one lover can goad the other into committing uncharacteristic acts. Only in this case, the act committed is precisely what the victim wanted. The story takes place on a tropical isle and is about a young man who finds a crab of which a legend states that to grant its one wish will gain for the grantor wealth beyond the capacity to spend it all. But first, one must find out what that wish is. Be reminded that the crab has been around for a long time, long enough for a legend to have been propagated from the ancients to the present-day folk. Even under duress the crab refuses to tell the young man of its wish. Because the young man needs the wealth for the wishes of his bride-to-be, not to mention his own male ego, he becomes frustrated and smashes the crab against a rock, ending its life. And the couple reap the reward of wealth.

Unspoken is that the crab's actual wish is to die. It has been around for so long that it is tired of all the silly people games and just wants to get out of it all. Death is the final reward. And the only way to die is to get someone to kill you if you can't do it yourself. How does one do that? Simply by financial incentive or, in this case, frustrating the slayer. And I was under forty years of age when I wrote this. I hope that somewhere in this dissection of my work, we can discover where this fatal desire stems from. Or is it inherent in all of us just to make the ultimate palatable? In my bibliography, Nineteen Years & Counting (1989), I relate that the crab is myself as a tiny entity, and this is my vantage point in relating the story to the reader. That is possible, and may help to explain, by relating myself to a character with a fatal obsession, my own obsession with dying. But, I had forgotten that I had ever made that claim, so I'd better get this exposition completed before my memory banks shut down.And I am the only eyewitness.

The fact that a very violent act induced by another could bring about the wishes of everyone involved sounds conflicting and contradictory. It turns out that conflict is the "stuff" of life and is even rampant within the universe. Without it the attraction needed to procreate would not exist. The theory of magnetism relates that opposites attract and like objects repel. That arrangement implies that the utopian tranquil lifestyle that | aspire to could never exist. Perhaps therein lies the disillusionment which manifests itself as a fatal obsession.

As in Emily & Oscar, The Little Sand Crab has a four full-page series of serigraphs, and they too can be displayed upright by extending the accordion binding. The graphics are not meant to be illustrative. Instead they are meant to convey emotion through the use of various colored shapes and their relation to one another within the same image. The colors for Emily & Oscar are warm tones and relate to the sun high up in a tree. The opposite is true for The Little Sand Crab in that the tones are much cooler and relate to the ocean. Each serigraph is tipped into place with linen tape underneath a hinged face mat so they are easily removable. Why would I make it so easy to tear the book apart? Making it easier for the willful minimizes damage. In my experiences as a picture framer (to augment my financial situation from time to time), I have seen pages literally torn from bound books brought in for the purpose of decorative display. The last graphic (see page 23) cannot be removed and is intended to be illustrative as well as emotional. At the base of it is the conclusion to the first story (Anaked), and if this page were missing, the entire presentation would make no sense other than three stories loosely related.

©Book Club of California.