JD'A – 14A: DAISIES NEVER TELL — 1982

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JD'A – 14A: DAISIES NEVER TELL — 1982

Daisies Never Tell | by D’Ambrosio [signature in pencil ’82, #/50] Sherman Oaks, California.

6-1/4 x 8-3/4 inches, a circular accordion paper is at the top of the entire book, endpaper with daisies around edges, [1–8]: paper cut to outline of daisies at edges with dots for centers of flowers, [4–5]: title, [6]: copyright, [9]: dedication with outer green leaves, [10]: blank, [11–22]: text with with multiple colors on different pages: [23]: Ladies of the Garden, [24]: blank, [25]: Rose-Marie—text with signed image, [26]: blank, [27]: Daphne-dil—text with signed image, [28]: blank, [29]: Iris—text with signed image, [30]: blank, [31]: Nell—text with signed image, [32]: blank, [33–37]: text, [37]: blank, [39]: colophon, [38]: blank, endpaper.

Colophon: This edition of Daisies Never Tell, has been set in 14 point Joanna, and printed on Rives BFK with an Adana hand press. All serigraphs produced by band from handmade stencils.

This is copy number

[#]

of fifty numbered copies, and ten artist proofs.

Images:

[25]: in pencil: #/50 on left, Rose-Marie, signature on right ’82.

[27]: in pencil: #/50 on left, Daphne-dil, signature on right ’82.

[29]: in pencil: #/50 on left, Iris, signature on right ’82.

[31]: in pencil: #/50 on left, Nell, signature on right ’82.

Binding: Dark green cowhide and glass over boards; Natsume endpapers.

Clam-shell box of green Canson paper over boards with green felt lining.

Note: The copy with the alternative binding was in an auction of the PBA.

JD'A – 14B: DAISIES NEVER TELL — 1999

Daisies | Never | Tell | by Joe D’Ambrosio | with illustrations by the author | Phoenix , Arizona 1999.

4 1/4 x 6 1/8 inches, [i]: endpaper with daisies that extends onto front board, [ii]: blank, [iii]: colophon, [iv]: blank, [v]: title, [vi]: copyright, [vii]: dedication to Patrick & Trudy Magarick, [viii]: blank, [xi]: Part One: | Live, [x]: blank, 1: text, first letter highlighted with gold, 2: text, first letter highlighted with purple, 3: text, first letter highlighted with red, 4–12: text, [13]: Part Two: | Ladies | of the | Garden, [14]: blank, 15: Rose -Marie, text over image of rose, [16]: blank, 17: Daphne - dil, text over image of daffodil, [18]: blank, 19: Iris, text over image of iris, [20]: blank, 21: Nell, text over image of daisy, [22]: blank, [23]: Part Three: | Death, [24]: blank, 25–28 text with starting letter highlighted in blue, [29–33]: blank, [34]: endpaper with daisies that extends onto back board.

Colophon: Respectfully submitted for publication under a royalty basis.

Joe D'Ambrosio

4449 N. 12th St., #A5

Phoenix, AZ 85014-4520

(602) 279-7788

This story was originally published in 1982 as an artist's book

in a limited edition of only 50 copies.

It has herewith been reformatted for a larger, more commercial, audience.

4 1/4 x 6 1/4 inch gray cloth boards with green cloth spine with leaves of white and different shades of green that wraps 1 1/2 inches around front and back boards. 3/8 x 2 5/8 inch white paper pasted on spine the has black print: Daisies Never Tell – Joe D’Ambrosio.

Dark Green Dust Jacket with 3 1/2 x 5 inch image of flowers and black print: Daisies Never Tell, 3/8 x 2 5/8 white paper pasted on spine the has black print: Daisies Never Tell – Joe D’Ambrosio.

Note: Daisies Never Tell is a footnote toward the spine from the number of each numbered page. Images on pages 15, 17,19 & 21 are 3 inches wide and up to 4 3/4 inches tall. This is mentioned int the letter of April 28, 2000: JD’A 44–P(b): Letter about A Memoir of book design and Martha on copper mountain.

From 19 years and Counting:

DAISIES NEVER TELL

Edition: 50 numbered copies, and 10 artist proofs

Size: 6-1/4 x 8-3/4 inches

Type: 14 pt. Joanna

Leaves: 20 - Rives BFK Paper

Binding: Dark green cowhide and glass over boards; Natsume endpapers; clam-shell box of green Canson paper over boards with green felt lining

1982

Daisies Never Tell was prompted by witnessing my aging grandmother's children desperately try to keep her alive when her body no longer functioned properly. Theirs was an act of love intruding upon my wise grandmother's wishes to depart after more than 90 years of coping. Nell, the daisy in this story, is in reality my grandmother. And I, in the first person relating the story, am her children—my aunts and uncles. 

All of my books are painful projects. This one somewhat more so than others. Mr. Mundell was dying and I had no access to a decent printing press. I uncovered the Adana and found that it would print but only a small area at a time. I printed one half of a page at a time desperately trying to keep the register intact so it would appear that the entire page was printed simultaneously. 

The written structure of this story uses the device of amusing readers into complacency, and then, when their mental guard is down, exposing them to pathos. When I write, I begin a story by setting the place and the characters. Then I let them take over and merely report their actions. Halfway through this book, I lost the characters and did not know how to proceed. I took a month off and used the time to produce my first poster/ broadside using serigraphy entirely. When I returned to the story, the characters had also re-turned, and I completed the book. 

The binding was designed to allow a reader to "walk through a field of daisies" before the text begins. A cover with transparent areas (glass instead of plastic because it is more rigid) was used to achieve this goal. Daisy petals are cut out of the edges of the endpaper and the first few pages of the book including the double title page. Only the "eye" of the daisy is printed allowing the reader to use imagination to fill in the White areas of the design. The leather of California cowhide somehow seems more appropriate than if I had used Morocco on this story about an earthly daisy. 

From A Memoir of Book Design:

This allegorical story was prompted by witnessing my ageing grandmother's children strive to keep her alive when her body no longer functioned. Theirs was an act of love intruding upon a wise old lady's wishes to depart after more than ninety years of coping. Nell, the daisy in this story, is in reality my grandmother. And I, in the first person relating the story, am her children, my aunts and uncles. Relating the story as a fantasy allowed me to view the situation free of the burden of intruding upon the wishes of those whom I was taught to respect.

Mr. Mundell was dying at this time, and I had no access to a decent printing press with which to continue my work. Nor could I afford one. I uncovered the old Adana (The Adana at some point was left in the care of the rare book librarian at The Huntington Library in San Marino, California, with the assurance that it had found a good home.) tabletop printing press that I had used for my first five books and found that the rubber rollers were warped and worn. With difficulty, it would print, but only a partial area of a page at one time. I printed one-half of a page at a time, desperately trying to keep the register intact so it would appear that the entire page was printed simultaneously. The upper half of the page was printed first, and then the lower half. Lining up the lines of type in the middle so that they would look like they were printed at one time was the hard part, especially with inadequate rollers. That meant the inking of the top half of a page would barely match up with that of the bottom half. So, for those who see inconsistencies, that is the reason. Or, as Mr. Mundell would say to me, "Joe, you're the only one who knows the difference. Nobody reads your books anyway.

The book is presented in a clam-shell (or side hinged) box of earth-green paper over boards with a green felt lining. The felt lining, because it is fabric, will last a lot longer than the paper over the cover boards and keep the joints of the box from separating as the exterior paper begins to wear. The choice of colors and textures is obvious since this story has a botanical setting.

When the presentation box is opened, the reader is confronted with a front cover of dark green cowhide enclosing cutout areas of what appears to be glass (and it is glass), its weight crushing daisy flowers. Cowhide was used instead of luxurious morocco leather because the message had to be one of simplicity and that of an agrarian sense. The protective glass allows the reader to see through the front cover to the daisies beneath. The entire essence of the binding was to have the reader move through a field of daisies before reaching the text. When the cover is opened the reader is confronted with a multitude of daisies whose only indication is their cutout petals at the margins of the white mulberry endpaper margins. The golden center of each daisy is all that is provided and the reader's imagination must fill in the rest of the flower's structure. As the front cover is opened, another daisy evinces itself at the very top of the book block. In place of a headband, an accordion folded white flower unfolds. Thus the kinetic energy of the reader turning the pages is the force that begins the story.

Another field of daisies unfolds when the reader reaches the title page. It too has no other indication of flowers except the cutout petals of the white paper and the golden center of each blossom. The reader's imagination must fill in the rest of the picture. Once again, the title was drawn by hand and then a metal plate was made using photographic methods from which to print letterpress.

This book is dedicated to Pat and Trudy Magarick, because they provided the finances to buy the Rives BFK paper for the entire edition all at one time, which brought the total cost down considerably. It is also dedicated to Pat's sister, Yetta Bernhard, for her part in getting Pat and me to finally meet in her Los Angeles home. Pat had begun writing to me when he lived in Pennsylvania and I in Chicago. He began buying my work through a New York rare book dealer. I am not sure how he found out how to reach me but he did and there were many letters between the two of us. I asked that he continue to buy from the New York dealer as I didn't want to upset the dealer by selling books to him directly. However, when this book came out with the dedication to Pat and his wife, my New York dealer dropped me forever, and even put what she had of my work up for sale and quick liquidation. 

The written structure of this story uses the device of amusing readers into complacency, and then, when their mental guard is down, exposing them to pathos. When I write, I begin a story by setting out the place and the characters. Then I let them take over and merely report their actions to the reader. Halfway through this book, I lost the characters and did not know how to proceed. I took a month off and used the time to produce my first poster/broadside using only serigraphy. I even serigraphed the title because I did not have a printing press large enough to accommodate the poster. When I returned to the story, the characters had also returned, and I completed the book.

Now you may be asking yourself, or you should be asking yourself, if he has based this story on his relatives treatment of his grandmother, which is an event that actually happened, doesn't he also know where and how the story will unfold and end? Just because I know the basis for the story, and I know my grandmother eventually died, I do not know what unfolded in the minds of my relatives or that of my grandmother herself during that period. The entire story is an experiment in allowing events to occur unassisted to see how they evolve without intrusion by an author forcing a structured story the way an author wants it to eventually end. I know that in the end the daisy must die because my grandmother died. But I don't know how to honestly get to that point without contrivances. So, I resort to sequential occurrences. If I do not know what mentally motivates a character, then I reflect on the actions of that character to discover what precipitated that motivation. I then report the occurrence to the reader.

The opening page of text carries a gutter side-bar of multicolored flowers entwined with dark green unreadable letterforms. The letterforms can be seen as entwined stems themselves holding the flower cluster together. The entire side-bar was done using serigraphy and a multitude of colored inks. The following pages carry single-colored silhouette shapes of various garden flowers. The effect is one of hinting at the presence of objects so there is little distraction from the text.

At the center of the book are four graphic presentations of Ladies of the Garden. They are meant to poke fun, satirically, at various aspects of humankind's foibles using anthropomorphic allegory. And they are intentionally meant to distract the reader from the seriousness of the work that is yet to come. They are meant to amuse the reader into complacency. The method of this device is to provide contrast between joy and sorrow through suggestive elements. The flowers are: ROSE (Rose-Marie); DAFFODIL (Daphne-dil); IRIS (Iris); and DAISY (Nell). An explanation of each flower is

printed below the bloom within its leaves.

ROSE-MARIE: "Rose-Marie suffered from a slight imperfection when she was just a bud. A leafhopper took a tiny bite out of her before a bumblebee scared it away. As she grew it proved to be a blessing. She became as beautiful as the other roses, but the imperfection gave her a unique 'character which set her apart from the others and brought her to the attention of one of the floatmakers for the Pasadena, California, New Year's Day Parade, where Rose-Marie eventually reigned supreme." The implication is that aberrations pique our interest.

DAPHNE-DIL: Since daffodils are a part of the narcissus family, this ageing ex-Hollywood film-star flower's conceit is mirrored in her own image on the surface of a pool of rain water within the garden. The similarity between the reflecting pool of water and a giant movie screen is emphasized. The amusement is that a flower may have the ego of a human. The simile, because it is cloaked in satire, brings the reader closer to the acceptance of the anthropomorphism.

IRIS: Formerly flower-de-luce or fleur-de-lys, this heraldic symbol continues as an outstanding member of the garden social register and often serves on the boards of philanthropic organizations. Iris's elitism is stressed because it is necessary to provide the contrast between itself and the lowly daisy that follows in the next graphic.

NELL: The daisy's weedy background comes to light; she was not originally a member of the garden, but her seed floated on the wind from somewhere else, "until generations passed and the daisies proved their worth to the community by being productive as well as beautiful." This is much the same way my grandmother, of peasant stock from

Italy, floated to the United States on a ship

Next, the text becomes sad and continues on a background of gray rain clouds. The clouds travel from page to page picking up a touch of lavender color along the way. They end on the very last page of text within the golden eye of a daisy sunburst. Nell, the daisy, dies, but her energy goes back into the ground to provide the nourishment for new shoots to spring up, bloom, and die-the repetitive process ensuring the continuance of flowers, and, allegorically, human beings.

Although this story is an allegory about my grand-mother, the origin of the title has little to do with her. In one long era of my life, I would yearly visit San Francisco, coming either from Chicago, or when I moved to California, from the L.A. area. I have always been enamored of this most unusual city. I know someone who relocated there from the Chicago area, and we have remained very good friends for many years. He has always provided me with a place to stay when I am there. When he first moved there he did so with his then male lover. They would go to work every day and leave me in freedom to wander about the city. One day I came home too early and was present when my friend walked in the door with someone other than his lover—a new assignation. The new boyfriend presented me with a daisy flower and said, "Daisies never tell,” (I first heard this enigmatic phrase from the mouth of Mr. Paul Johnston.) implying that I should keep my mouth shut. I liked the phrase.

©Book Club of California.