Books 2000 — 2004

---

Martha | On | cOpper | mOuntain | by Joe D;Ambrosio | [#/25]  [signature] | Copyright © 2000 Studio D'Ambrosio | Phoenix, Arizona

9 x 7 inch hexagon base with boxes bound together in the form of a mountain with a multicolored plateau on top, front of first box, [inside cover]: title,  [1]: preface, [2]: blank, [3]: text and art, [4]: text [5–6] art, [7]: text and art, [8]: art, [9]: text and art, [10]: text, [11]: test and art that includes a paper portrait of Martha.

Outside of mountain is covered in ostrich appearing grained leather that is really pigskin with an embossed surface.

Separate base and plexiglass cover.

From A Memoir of Book Design:

I guess all of the conditions were right for me to do a book of boxes with a hinged spine. And it would take the form of a mountain. I still wonder why it took so long for me to embrace the concept, but, as any maker of books will testify, if the time is not right, it just will not be done. The structure of a book of boxes (which is not a book-in-a-box but a totally different structure) utilizes a form of material, be it leather or cloth, in the joint area where the boxes are hinged together. This area becomes bent when the boxes are opened, and, consequently is extremely vulnerable to stress. The use of a hinging technique, which I first used so many years ago on the copper binding of Art Deco (1987), relieves that stress to the point that even materials of lesser strength

Such as paper Can be utilized.

I am impressed with others when they perform beyond my expectations. I am especially appreciative of Martha Jacobsen. She and her husband, Leo, began as clients of mine, and when they gave a dinner party at their home in Beverly Hills, I was incredulous that Martha could spend so much time with her guests—and then all of a sudden dinner would be served. What little genie did she have in a bottle to perform this trick? When I give a dinner party, 

I disappear for at least half an hour to pull all the parts and pieces together. And Martha is also an accomplished artist. (It was through Martha that I met Gloria Stuart, and then Ward Ritchie.) So when they moved to the desert, I was surprised, but I understood. Then when Leo died and Martha chose to remain in the desert by herself, I really was impressed but I truly didn't understand. Perhaps that is why I had to create this testament to her. Because in this visual and literary form, it helps me to understand the motivation of a fellow artist.

On a recent trip to the desert in Southern California to see Martha and her one-woman watercolor exhibition at a local museum, one of her guests, who had driven over the night before from Malibu to Joshua Tree, told me chat she would not have understood what I was trying to achieve as an artist if she had not seen the area for herself, particularly the tall mounds of loose gigantic boulders. I tried to capture that essence in crumpled colored papers. A technique that began with Christus Apollo (1998), and was refined in A Nest of Robins (1999).

The exterior is ostrich grained leather (it is really pigskin with an embossed surface). And the exterior is coated for protection. It is extremely durable-and washable. I had originally thought that snake would work, but rattlesnake is not the right color and the skins are much too narrow. Originally, I thought I would have to skive (pare down) all the areas that wrap around the four-ply archival paperboard But that was not necessary. I found a wonderful copper metallic paper at a paper store in Tempe (another woman, C Grey, the proprietress, came to my rescue). I butted this sheet up against the edge of the leather just up to the surface of the material. Since I usually use four-ply board, there are many instances whereby I will pare away layers of the board instead of the leather, and then inlay the leather into the board. This technique is much better for thicker materials because the result is absolutely no bulge from the thickness of the leather. Its surface be comes even with the surface of the board, and its strength is not impaired from thinning.

Before I go any further, I must say that when I began as a book artist in Chicago in 1969, Mrs. Aiko and her paper shop on Clark Street were indispensable to the creative process of the book arts. The papers she brought back from Japan at that time spurred many a creative process simply because they were available, and their visual pattern or texture evoked new ideas from my brain. When I moved to Southern California from Chicago in 1979, my savior was RoseMarie Dawes and The Paper Mill, which had just opened. Then when I moved to the Phoenix area, my savior (or guardian angel) became C Grey as she was just opening up a paper store in the area. Without her and her wonderful collection of colored Asian papers, I could not have advanced my work to the present point (especially the crumpled colored paper technique). 

When the mountain is first opened, the title page appears, and there is a preface that explains the soliloquy. The title is printed on real copper leaf and adhered to a four-ply board. Then it is inset into the first box of the mountain. You'll remember that I discovered how to print on copper in Oaxaca and the Saguaro Cactus (1996). The depth of the title below the surface of this structure allows for crumpled copper like papers to surround the title. It is intended to give the reader a sense of looking into a copper mine located within a mountain. Also hidden in the structure of the first box are weights so that when that section revolves around to the rear of the structure, the weight helps the book stay in a readable position. It is not possible to give readers instructions on how to open and read this work, but l have found that most are inventive and will find their own way.

The preface was a literary mistake. I included it because I thought clarification was necessary. I was wrong. Martha should have remained an enigma. The fact that she is an actual person and that the poetry addresses a true condition takes some of the magic away from the tale. If I were to do it over, I would not have included the preface. Then the reader would find himself or herself sufficiently mystified to read much more into the words than what is actually there. The reader would tend to associate more personally with the words and find similar situations in his or her own milieu. Many have related to Martha's situation with positive associations. Some have not. The choice is for as little alienation as possible of reader to subject matter.

All of the typography was computer generated. Magnesium plates, mounted type high on wood, were made from the laser printouts so l could print them letterpress. The first box begins the soliloquy. The reader is confronted with three dimensional levels, each carrying poetry and visual texture. The three stanzas in each box are repeated within each successive box. Every third line rhymes, with the last lines of each stanza rhyming with each other. I hand painted some of the backgrounds for the poetry with water-based acrylic colors on dampened white paper for a soft ethereal feeling, but many of the other colored papers are Asian; they are not only poorly sized, but also include clumps of fibers from the papermaking vat. This kind of surface is extremely difficult to print letterpress upon because it is not perfectly flat. Consequently, the quality of printing suffers, but the "rawness" of the visual appearance is the essence that I was seeking. The crumpled colored papers have to be torn, crumpled, and glued in place one at a time with tweezers.

Each succeeding box reveals another part of the mountain's actual structure, and along with it another facet of Martha's motivation for staying alone in the desert. It is within the second box and the middle stanza that I found it necessary to change my original manuscript to more clearly define Martha's personality. Communicating her motivation was the main reason for making this piece believable and acceptable-as much for me as for the reader. My stressing her artistic background helped immensely in this literary task because artists are basically sentimentalists.

The second box, which features an image of a mountain in the Mojave desert, was particularly difficult to conceive. The only possible way to resolve the dilemma was to actual see the mountains in person. And from a distance on Interstate ten they look like unkempt drapery, folds and all. So that is how one is rendered, but in folded colored paper with lace paper suggestions of mist surrounding the edifice. The third box has an image in cast paper of a woman clawing her way to the top of a mountain. Small pieces of actual lava rock are glued in around the poetry to give a more factual suggestion. Crumpled colored papers within the lava rock suggest sparse plant and animal life. The fourth box depicts the desert on a crystal clear night with pearl stars and a three dimensional moon. I thought of using small crystals for the stars but the pearls work better because they are round and catch the light more like sparkling stars. By the time the reader reaches the last box, Martha and the mountain have become one. The rendering of Martha in crumpled colored papers is not a great feat. Reproducing it over and over again for an edition is. Once again, it is the spiritual essence that I am after, knowing full well that it is impossible within this medium to actually render an exact copy of her image. This image was taken from a windblown photo of Martha halfway up the mountain.

Because the sides of the mountain (the sides of the boxes) are at an angle, whenever a part of the poetry is presented on the verso (back side) of a box, it is arranged at such an angle that the reader will not have to twist the entire mountain to read it. It automatically swings to eye level. The boxes are hinged with one-sixteenth inch brass rods. They will not break like the plastic rods that I first used when I began

hinging. Brass rods are also used to strengthen the top "mesa" of the mountain. Because of the way the structure opens up, it could only be attached on one side. To make it more durable, two four-ply boards are laminated together with two separate rods occupying two channels within the lamination. They also traverse the top of the wall of the last box. This construction is similar to rebars placed into concrete for structural durability.

©Book Club of California