Joe on Joe, About Joe and Joe with others

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JD’A 8: A CHECKLIST by D'Ambrosio __/60 – 1977

JD’A 25: NINETEEN YEARS AND COUNTING [A RETROSPECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY 1969 TO 1988 by D'Ambrosio – 1989 

JonJ 1: A Maverick in a printing office, by Joe D’Ambrosio Matrix 9, Winter 1989.

JonJ 2: "The Compulsive Printer of Portage, Indiana," Matrix 11, Winter 1991, pp. 53–59.

JonJ 3: PROTECTIVE STRUCTURES FOR TREASURED WORDS —THE BOOK-IN-A-BOX  from CSL Foundation bulletin #44 July 1993

JonJ 4: norman e. Tanis & the santa susana press by J. Anthony Gardner & Joseph D’Ambrosio BCC News-letter V59–1 Winter 1993 pp. [3]–11.

JD’A–BBC–43: A Memoir of Book Design –2003

JonJ 5: Working with Poster/Broadsides from Matrix #26, Winter 2006.

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onJ 1: A Maverick in a printing office, by Ward Ritchie Matrix 9, Winter 1989.

onJ 2: A Maverick in a printing office, by Gloria Stuart Matrix 9, Winter 1989.

onJ 3: CA State library Bulletin - July 1991- Article on Triptych and photo on back cover

onJ 4: Not Quite A Book by William E. Ashley, Sure, First Issue, May, 1991

onJ 5: CA State library Bulletin October 1992 - article about workshop and Triptych

onJ 6: CA State library Bulletin April 1993 - Triptych on cover and reproduction of annex by D'Ambrosio

onJ 7: CA State library Bulletin - January 1994.-,.Letters in Terrazzo will greet Library users by- D'Ambrosio

onJ 8: CA State library Bulletin - January 1995 - Photo of rotunda floor and illustration

onJ 9: Joe D' Ambrosio and LX Commute: My Sentence by Dr. Adela Spindler Roatcap BCC Quarterly News-Letter Summer 2000, LXV Number 3 pp, 83–84.

onJ 10 : Lunch at Albert’s: Reflections on Joe D’Ambrosio's A Memoir of Book Design by Adela Spindler Roatcap: BCC News-letter V69-2 Spring 2004 pp. [43]–48.

onJ 11: Review of A Memoir of Book Design, by Adela Roatcap in Matrix 24 pp. 158-9.

onJ 12: Memories of Joe D’Ambrosio, Artist of the Book by Gary E. Strong CSL Foundation bulletin 96, pp. 14–17

onJ 13: Joe D’Ambrosio, The Book As An Art Form, 8-6-2015 https://cslfdn.org/2015/08/06/joe-dambrosio-the-book-as-an-art-form/

Jw/ 1: Fine hand bookbindings for Book Club of California publications : an exhibition at the Book Club of California, San Francisco, January 10-February 26, 2001

Jw/ 2: Design, construct, engage : artist books published by Ed Hutchins –2003

Accordion fold book. One sheet maze with multi-cuts (87 x 56 cm., folded to 22 x 14 cm.) printed on both sides. When opened one side displays

Jw/ 3: Visual poetry : treasures of the Book Club Library — 2023

Intro from 19 Years and Counting:

I was raised raised in the confinement of a close-knit ethnic Italian American family. One can imagine my astonishment while growing up to find that the world was overflowing with varied peoples and tongues and traditions. All of my cognizant younger life I ached to communicate with the outside world through the medium of the theater: oral words, visual settings, and music. As I grew, I realized that my aspiration would not be achieved as there simply was not the funding available for formal education in these areas. I must admit to a shyness on my part to aggressively pursue my goals. So l chose an opportunistic path which led to graphic art and engineering. At the age of thirty-five (1969), I found that mental sanity required that I return to my dream. I tried to write a musical play but my inexperienced background would not permit it. Somehow, in some manner unknown to me, I discovered the medium of the book as my communication tool.

My first book, You Dress "Funny," was in reality an idea for the musical play I was then trying to write. The "book" of the show became the text, the lyrics became the poetry, and the music became the graphic art. Thus the story in book form is counterpointed on three separate levels just as a musical play is on a stage.

Binding came a few years later and added yet another dimension which literally

"bound" the inner levels more closely together to form an entity which must be appreciated as a whole. Years later cast paper would add visual depth. And the use of handmade paper-some embedded with real foliage and some with California Burgundy wine-dyed fibers-added a tactile surface no finger could resist.

I began with absolutely no experience on a tabletop Adana (English) printing press which I purchased from a mail order house. This is reflected in the poor quality of printing in my earlier works. When the Adana refused to respond to my needs, I became associated with Elmore Mundell, the Compulsive Printer of Portage, Indiana, and his marvelous Vandercook proof press. Mr. Mundell taught me an unusual method of typesetting and letterpress printing which fit perfectly into my unorthodox method of communication. When 1 moved to California in 1979, our association diminished, he expired, and I strove to print wherever I could find a press. I revived the Adana for one book (Daisies Never Tell, and used the Woman's Graphic Center in Los Angeles for another (Birds in Paradise). I was finally able to obtain a Vandercook No. A proof press through the persistence of a wonderful lady, Miss Gloria Stuart, and that is the printing press upon which this page is printed.

As you go through the years with me, please notice how my style changes, but, more importantly, please notice how each new work builds upon the experience gained from the previous one. I have made numerable errors along the way, and you will see how those mistakes turned into assets which I do not believe I could have attained any other way; I continue to make mistakes.

-D'Ambrosio - July, 1988

A Maverick in a Printing Office

D'Ambrosio on D’Ambrosio

In 1969, when I first began my chosen path as an artist working in the book medium, book dealers said they did not want to carry fine art, and art dealers said they did not want to handle books. Thank goodness, twenty years later, attitudes are beginning to change. Looking back, I believe the single most important thrust to the book arts renaissance has been the computer revolution and mankind's need to justify that the human hand is capable of more than operating a video terminal. I use the word, renaissance, because the book arts are not really new. If I were living a few centuries ago, I would probably be a scribe in a monastery illuminating manuscripts. What I do today is to learn from the roots of the book form, and build upon those roots to take the book into new realms of creation. If I am called an intermediate within the book arts, it is because I try to show the reader that what l am doing has a basis in the past.

Since I write, set type by hand, print letterpress, do the art work, and then bind my books, I strive to bring all the facets of book making (including making the paper in some cases) together to form one object, which requires the reader to bring all of the pieces together to understand the whole. The text is prime and dictates the aura of the entire work, and I am somewhat surprised that many think of me only as a binder of books. Perhaps that is because they only know my work through exhibitions where binding is usually the area most easily displayed. Or, maybe it is because my bindings are so unusual, and reflect my separate engineering and art training. But, so is my writing unusual, and so is my typesetting. In Daisies Never Tell (1982), I introduce the reader to a daisy that speaks. From my conversation with the flower, one can identify with the human cycle of birth and death. It is a profound subject which I attempt to treat with humour and pathos. I bound the book in California cowhide and glass.

The cowhide with its uneven textures is more appropriate for the earthy daisy than Moroccan leather. The glass allows the reader to see through the cover into the interior of the book. I use layering effects in my work to allow the reader to see beyond objects and thus give a feeling of perspective through depth.

In The Small Garden of Gloria Stuart (1986), I achieved depth by making the paper for the first signature. I dyed the fibres for the separate pages with different fabric dyes and 'pulled' holes in the paper as I was making it. The result is a four-folio signature which allows different colours to be exposed at various levels. This lies just inside the front cover which is cast paper with open areas between human-like tree trunks. The entire design is meant to allow the reader to walk through a forest during all the seasons of the year before getting to the title-page. In this manner, the reader has a sense of the story and is in the correct emotional state to begin reading the words. Visual effects throughout the book continue to heighten the reader's emotional involvement in the text. The glitter of gold kid used for the balance of the cover is meant to suggest tinsel town because the story concerns a bonsai garden and human relationships within the Hollywood film community. The book needed the pizzicato that only gold could give to it.

Using a musical term is quite appropriate for me. My childhood dream was to become a composer and write Broadway musicals. Gilbert and Sullivan, and Rogers and Hammerstein, were my early idols. I channelled my desire into the book form by producing my first book, You Dress ‘Funny' (1970). I transferred the book of the musical into the text; the lyrics into poetry, and the music into the graphic art work. Over the years, I have experimented by moving these three forms around within the book para-meter, and ultimately branched out beyond the footlights into the theatre-house itself with the binding of the book. Birds in Paradise (1984), is a culmination of fifteen years of experimenting within the book form and embodies all I had learned up to that time. I honestly did not know what direction I would proceed into next, and thought that perhaps I had nowhere else in which to take the medium. Then I met Gloria Stuart and Ward Ritchie.

For much of my earlier years of working within the book medium, I kept a low profile so would maintain my own attitudes and be unaffected by outside impressions. As a professor at the University of Southern California once told me, 'You are your own best kept secret.' No more. Just before l met Gloria and Ward, I thought my brain had gone about as far as it could in advancing my work. But now, twenty years and thirty-six separate books after I began, there doesn't seem enough time to execute the new ideas emanating from it. I only wish I had Gloria and Ward's energy, and, of course, no need for sleeping. Perhaps if I had Ward's capacity for spirits - but that is his 'best kept secret' for longevity.

I was trained in letterpress printing by Elmore Mundell, the Compulsive Printer of Portage, Indiana. I was living in Chicago at the time. His unorthodox methods were perfect for the direction I set myself. We worked on a number of books together until I relocated in Southern California, and he unfortunately expired. I learned about paper technology from Gordon Hueter, paper conservator to the Art Institute of Chicago at that time. I learned silk screening from a book on the subject, and binding by first dismantling a bound book and then from a technical manual to clarify what I had discovered. I attended the American Academy of Art in Chicago which is mostly a commercial art institution. I did not graduate from it but obtained basic design essentials from it. I left it when I realised that my work was beginning to look like other's who had attended the same school. My contemporary art knowledge was gleaned from working with a French art dealer in the Chicago area, Gilles Abrioux, who put together many fine corporate art collections nationally, and privately had one of only two complete collections of Henry Moore prints in the world. 

My engineering background was gained from the Illinois Institute of Technology and the knowledge gained there is probably the most important asset to my present work. Creative writing continues to intrigue me and I will never learn enough about the task.

A hallmark of my work is that I use materials for their tactile surface and colour. After all, one does hold a book in one's hands and touch is very important. A reader's eye is also important. Using the natural surface of a piece of material is not unlike my use of wood for a woodblock print. I try to find a piece of wood with plenty of grain in it. I want the viewer to instantly know the basic origin of the medium. In The Twilight of Orthodoxy in New England (1987), there are three woodblock prints. One is of Thomas Paine. After I cut out Thomas Paine's likeness in the block, I further scored the grain of the wood to enhance its printing texture. When looking at the print, there is no doubt that it was done from a piece of wood. This visual technique was used by Munch and Nolde, and is not new. Applying it to portraiture may be.

Needless to say, some of my toughest problems are those bindings done for someone else's text. I am literally 'bound' by the author in my will to compliment without overpowering. A recent example is the design binding I did for Ward Ritchie's latest work. It is a bibliography of his Laguna Verde Press simply titled, Laguna Verde. I wanted the binding to reflect all that letterpress printing entails. I decided to laminate the archival boards of the covers so that a gutter would exist at the top and fore edges. I then inserted 10-point Della Robbia type into the gutter. The type extends just beyond the boards. If an inked brayer is run across the type and then the edges of the book pressed into paper, a comment on Ward Ritchie and his press will be printed. My biggest problem was the ambience of the material to cover the boards. I got my answer from Gloria Stuart. She has an old shirt which she wears when printing. It is one which Ward has used to clean the ink from his press and is mottled in various colours. I did the same thing with cloth. The effect clearly suggests what the text is all about.

I have been called eclectic because my entire design style is dictated by the subject matter of the book and changes accordingly. I have also been called mad because of some of the book constructions that I attempt. Mad or eclectic or not, they all have, and show, roots within the traditional craft of book making.

PROTECTIVE STRUCTURES FOR TREASURED WORDS —THE BOOK-IN-A-BOX

By JOSEPH D'AMBROSIO

The binding of a book has always been intended as a protective structure for the treasured words inside. Like a cathedral, its design must be functional first, and only secondly decorative. This is usually the case, but, upon viewing a Gothic structure, only an engineering student would appreciate the fact that the decorative arches not only hold up the ceiling but in actuality create the very ceiling itself. The Chicago architect, Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) perfectly coined the phrase: "De-sign ever follows function." When one is awed by the shiny gold leaf on the top and fore edges of an old book, one may assume that it is a decorative touch. It is, in fact, a design with a function. The layer of gold prevents dust from adhering to the fibrous edges of the paper pages. Since gold has a slick surface, it is more easily cleaned with a feather duster.

Likewise, fore edge paintings perform the same function. However, in order to view a fore edge painting, undue stress is placed on the spine of the book and care should be taken when doing so.

A slipcase is also a good protective covering for a book. However, a slipcase has an opening at one end which does not entirely keep out dust and light. The abrasive action produced when the book is slipped in and out of it creates another problem, a problem French binders solved with the chemise, a wrapper which protects the covers from chaffing action.However, this action limits a contemporary book designer to a one-dimensional flat surface for a cover. Leather onlays in a cover design would indeed be jeopardized without a chemise.

A box, preferably a clam-shell or side-hinged box, appears to be the best choice for the designer to protect a book. Usually, boxes are austere objects with almost no external design except for a title on the spine area. Why embellish that which is meant to protect the embellishment inside of it? Thank goodness the original cathedral makers did not think along those same lines or Europe would be littered with bread-box-like Notre Dames. And Chartres would not be a tourist attraction. There would be no communication to visually tell passers-by that, "within these walls is something which might spiritually interest and uplift you."

In 1969 when I first began as an artist working within the book medium, I had no intention of including the binding as part of the art-work. It took only two years to realize that bland covers suffocated the work within, that books have a voice inside of them which can't be heard unless an outside voice stirs the interest of a passing reader. My first attempts were rather modest in that they still utilized flat covers, albeit visually conveying an object other than a book. My next attempt, while I was still mired in the concept of flat covers, was to see through the covers to the work inside (Anamorphosis of Eve by F.B. Cornell, 1974). This was done through the use of clear acetate that allowed the viewer to see through the front cover to the title printed on the first page (not the flyleaf as this is a Japanese stab binding which has no flyleaf). It seemed a natural progression that the following year I would attempt a dimensional or sculptural cover (The Ondt and the Gracehoper by James Joyce, 1975). I fashioned a base-relief by building up 26 layers of silkscreen ink to convey the images of the Ondt and the Gracehoper. In order to keep the raised surface from being scratched when the book is wedged between two others in a bookcase, the image was set below a frame around it. However, I had no idea of how to bind the pages within it, so the pages were loose within a book-like structure. This was the first use of the book-in-a-box. It would take a few more years before I could actually bind (or sew) the pages within the box (The Mookse and the Gripes by James Joyce,1977). At this point I called the concept, a Book-in-a-Box, because, simply, that is what it is.

This basic concept has allowed me to stretch into design directions I never before thought possible. It allowed me to create a copper binding with hinged panels (Art Deco by Ward Ritchie, published by the Book Club of California, 1987). The archival box-like structure within the copper covers protects the pages from airborne oxidation as the cover panels naturally tarnish. And, it allowed the cost-cut-ting measure of using ultra thin skiver leather instead of full leather on hinged panels (The Twilight of Orthodoxy in New England by William Nykamp, 1987). These two books are virtually jointless because the panels rotate on plastic rods producing little or no wear to the material used.

But it wasn't until 1990, that I refined the concept of a Book-in-a-Box to a likeness of the sheer purity of an Andre Gide narrative (Variations & Quotations by Ward Ritchie). I used it again for a miniature book the same year (Dance Circle by Carol Cunningham) and again in 1992 for Olympe & Henriette by Villiers de L'Isle-Adam. Each time the design carried slight modifications to keep it structurally sound.

In my latest work, D'Ambrosio's DAVID, 1993, there appears to be no reason for a Book-in-a-Box binding structure. The book is bound in cast paper and Masonic Sheep, and presented in a specially designed clam-shell box to protect the cast paper cover. However, the book within does have a Book-in-a-Box structure. The design on the front cover is a cast paper representation of a marble quarry with a hint of the figures waiting to be released by the sculptor's chisel. A suggestion of the block used by Michelangelo to carve his statue of David is nestled within the quarry. This creates a weak thin area at the top and bottom in the center portion of the cover. The 8-ply archival board uprights used to create the box around the pages are like a structural I-beam and impart the strength needed in those weak areas. This gives strength with protection to the structure.

When I teach a workshop in a Book-in-a-Box binding as I did recently at the California State Library for the California State Library Foundation, I emphasize the need for functional design. I am one of the first to agree that an artist's creativity should not be snuffed out in fundamental rules, but it is quickly apparent to my students that if a Book-in-a-Box design does not function, then it does not fit as decoration either. And, fittingly, vice versa. In the two-day workshop we explored many design possibilities such as using multi-layered designs, various complementary materials, and even openings in the cover to allow the viewer to see into and through the cover to the endpapers. Structural soundness of the materials was stressed every step of the way, as well as the use of archival materials for permanence. Teaching the workshop is a great joy to me because invariably the students will say they cannot create a design in such a short time, or they simply are not creative. Yet, they do, and follow it through to some of the finest creations I have seen. Each one so different, and yet all based on one theme: a Book-in-a-Box structure binding. The next step in the natural progression of this concept's evolution is fairly evident. Can you guess what it is?

Joseph D'Ambrosio is an artist who has worked in the book medium for more than twenty years and currently is a California State Library Foundation Fellow.

His latest work is D'Ambrosio's DAVID (1993).

[image of Anamorphosis of Eve book]

Anamorphosis of Eve, completed in 1974, is bound Japanese stab style with two colors of gray felt and clear acetate that allows the viewer to see through the front cover to the title printed on the first page.

[image of books]

Left: The Ondt and the Gracehoper (1975); right: The Mookse and the Gripes (1977). Both bindings include a gilt relief-serigraph.

[image of books]

Variations and Quotations (1990) is bound in linen and paper over board. Olympe & Henriette (1992) is bound in decorative fabric, blue fabric, and Roma paper over board. Dance Circle (1992), a miniature book, is bound in black fabric and colored papers over board.

[image of books]

Art Deco (1987) is bound in copper with hinged copper panels. The Twilight of Orthodoxy in New England (1987) is bound in black leather skiver and marbled paper with gilt cast paper.

[image of books]

D'Ambrosio's DAVID(1993) is bound in Masonic sheep and cast paper.

Intro from A Memoir of Book Design:

When I first began designing books in Chicago in 1969, my goal was to create a visual environment for the written word. And, in so doing, I hoped to evoke emotion in the mind and heart of the person reading the text—previously a task for italics and boldfaced type, and, of course, diacritical marks such as exclamation points and question marks. I wanted to extend the depth of emotion to greater levels through graphic artwork. I had no idea that the work would evolve into three-dimensional and structural depth, tactile surfaces, and, in essence, an engagement of all the human senses (including hearing and smell) to highlight the telling of a tale. When I first began, I did not set out to make a book. I set out to write a musical play. My childhood aspiration was to be a musical composer. I can faintly recall at a very early age seeing an upright piano in my grandparents' living room, hitting a key with one of my fingers, and being amazed at the sound that my action produced This was my first indication that a physical movement by me could produce a response in a separate object. In effect, I was the controlling factor, and my very presence mattered. It also helped that my close relatives (of which there were many) encouraged me. It is usual within our close family structure to enforce one's positive assets (and discourage negative ones). I asked Santa Claus for a piano every Christmas from then on. When I didn't get one, my parents dealt with my disappointment by reminding me that, with six children, the family was too poor for such an expense, and that everyone had to share in the celebration of the Nativity equally. Maybe this is why I have never really believed in Santa Claus, or in receiving something for nothing.

As a child I had a very lonely existence. Even though I had at first a sister and two brothers (and later, another brother and sister), I seemed to be always in my own little dream world. I was sheltered and coddled by my parents because I was a weak, thin, frail child, suffering from erratic muscle spasms—chorea, or St. Vitus's Dance. I guess my actions were an embarrassment because I was generally left alone to find my own diversions. Actually, because of my condition, my parents, through overprotection, would not let me engage in play with other children for fear that I would be hurt. So I grew up channeling my activities into solitary pastimes. And I recall that at first it really didn't bother me. I enjoyed my own company. I turned my interests into miniature stage settings with screw people for thespians. Small metal screws worked best because the flat nut heads would keep them erect. I created elaborate sets with lots of draping curtains, and as I grew older I would buy original cast recordings of musical dramas and play them along with my miniature performances. I had no idea what the actual musical play was about, so l improvised and made up the story line as I went along fitting it to the music.

At a very early age, and without realizing it, I began to create greeting cards for family members. It is pretty embarrassing to see some that have been saved from that era, but they were the beginnings. I wrote the verse and did the artwork. Then, as I grew older, I began making Christmas cards that had more than one folded page-multiple pages, but still not a conventional book. It was not a pamphlet either-just a story line with pictures. The pictures, however, were not illustrations, but graphic representations that required deciphering while one was reading the legible poetry. I guess I have always wanted the reader to play an active part of my creations by having to exert intellect and imagination while reading them.

My somewhat pampered existence, coupled with my artistic manifestaions, made me think that I was someone special. Perhaps this pompous view of myself was meant to block out the negative aspects of not engaging in social discourse with others, but it worked. And so it made me illogically think that any show of creativity was bad because it stifled interaction with others. I then suppressed my artistic nature because l wanted to play just like other children. I was lonely, and much of my future work would focus on how we all need one another-even when we think we don't. I felt that the creativity that was coming out of me at that time would damage a normal childhood, and I worked very hard at suppressing anything that would brand me as abnormal. Another reason for this posture was a result of what I was being told by my parents: I was not to do anything that would embarrass the family, especially since many of my actions were considered eccentric in polite society. What I did not realize at the time was that my need for others was a silent cry associated with my coming of age sexually. The notion that the suppression of my creative energies would make me naturally desirable would in later years manifest itself in physical maladies.

It took suppressing myself for thirty-five years and finding a good psychiatrist to unleash all that was building inside of me. I had been through four years of active U.S. Navy duty, which included radio operators' school and teletype maintenance school; a starting job at the local Chicago electrical utility (Commonwealth Edison Company) as a mail boy working my way up to an engineering assistant's position; attending The American Academy of Art but never graduating, and the Illinois Institute of Technology to become an electrical engineer, and still not graduating-symptoms of my building inward frustration. I began to incur stomach problems. A good friend suggested a doctor. When the doctor found nothing physically wrong, he recommended a psychiatrist, and the problem was solved. The security of a steady job was frustrating the energy within me. Even though the prospect was frightening, I needed to shed the safety net my steady job provided. Protection stifles freedom of expression, because one is cautious not to offend the provider of the paycheck that pays the rent, buys the food, and keeps one under a roof when it rains. I needed to create. I needed to create the musical play of my boyhood dreams.

At the age of thirty-five (which is rather late to begin a new career) | tried to do just that. But with no musical education, I felt that I could not write decent music to go along with my lyrics and plot line. I certainly could not blame my parents for not providing a piano or musical instruction for me. I could have obtained both at any point along my way. Was | lazy or just trying to live the normal life I feared would elude me if I gave in to my creativity? Perhaps the simple answer is that I was not ready. Still, something was lurking in the back of my mind, because as I grew I asked questions about musical notation from those l encountered who possessed that knowledge. Was I seeking my destiny even though I did not realize that I was doing so? I still don't know what prompted me to turn my musical play into a book. I guess it just seemed to be the most practical thing to do. I didn't even question the fact that it would have to be printed in multiple copies to be a book. I saw an English-made Adana tabletop printing press advertised in the downstate Galesburg Dick Blick art catalog and I sent for it. I purchased a book on How To Silkscreen and followed its steps with no difficulty. I used the story line of the musical as the text of the book, and inserted the lyrics of the songs (as poetry) in those places where a song would be inserted in a musical play. I used emotional graphic artwork in place of the actual music. For nine months I devoted my nights to working on that first book. When friends asked me to go out with them, I turned them down. Many became angry with me, but | at last had a mission. Social relationships were no longer a priority. I would create what I was meant to do in my life-and then I could die!

One day someone will figure out what makes us do what we haven't a clue we are doing and then the surprise of living will be gone. Maybe that will be a good thing, but all of my creative experiments have shown that chaos is the best creator.

When I finished the book, I felt my existence had finally been justified. I sold all of my furniture, piled the Adana and accessories into my Volvo, and headed west for Seattle to get a meager job sweeping floors while I waited for death to finally claim me. But something changed my attitude along the way. I took the book along with me and showed it to people that I met. The response I got in San Francisco from book store owners was that this was something never before seen and that it was a good thing. When I got to Seattle, 1 knew that I had to return to Chicago and pick up the pieces and do another book. I gave Seattle a try (two weeks), and then drove back to Chicago at speeds so fast that I destroyed the clutch on the air conditioner of the Volvo somewhere between Boise, Idaho, and Salt Lake City. I was happy for two reasons. One, I had another mission in life, and, two, I didn't have to die immediately-that part of my destiny could wait a while. 

Since I began with the premise of turning a musical play into a book, l knew what I wanted to do. Classical ballet is my first love, even before musical plays. My goal was to slowly, with each new edition, eliminate the words until the book communicated without language-with visual images only, just as a ballet communicates with no words but music and movement only. I came close to that goal three years later with my fourth book, Zarathustra, and soon realized | was making another mistake. Without the printed word, I felt I could no longer call the structure that l was creating a book.

Now, where is that definitely inscribed in the basic laws of life? No-where. My premise that words are necessary in a book may not agree with yours. A structure with words does not solely determine if a thing is a book. A book is a consolidation of communicative thoughts strung along in a series (words, images, words and/or images) and presented in any structural form that carries and enhances its message. In order to be a "book," the structure must not reveal the entire communicative thought all at one time, but in unfolding successive sections. If a thing is an artistic structure without words and can be comprehended all in one visual sweep without the viewer's physical participation (i.e., turning the pages), then its form corresponds to a sculpture as an artistic expression. Is a brush painting which hangs on a wall and includes legible words a book? Of course not. Why? It is necessary to delve into the artist's intentions to understand why. The words would have been laid onto the canvas purely for visual effect and not necessarily to be read. The artist is using words as visual images along with other images on the canvas to communicate a thought or idea or statement. The words are not intended to be read, but to be seen, even though they can be both. The fact that they are legible enough to be comprehended is a device which the artist employs to gain your trust. You may certainly understand the words you are reading, but you may not comprehend the shapes and colors that are presented with it. The fact that there is something that you find familiar leads the viewer to delve further into the work to discover the relationship and thus the artist’s purpose in creating the piece.

The fact that I felt I needed words to accompany images in order for my work to be classified as a book is my own personal artistic opinion. It does not mean that a purely illustrative series of pages is not a book. In Mad Man's Drum, by Lynd Ward (1930), a complete series of pictures without words relate the story. The pages are bound within a hard cover, and because each section of the story is revealed in segments (by turning the pages), it can clearly be considered a book. Some may claim that it is like a cartoon with illustrative panels to tell a story. A cartoon has words as well as pictures. Mad Man's Drum is clearly not a cartoon, but a serious early attempt by an artist using the medium of the book, other than a canvas, to convey a message.

My next big hurdle was to find a venue for my work. That was not so easy. The local art dealers told me that what I was doing was a book and had no place within the fine art market. And the local bookstores told me that what I was doing was art and had no place within the book market. I did, however, find one art dealer in the Chicago area who sold European artists' books. He encouraged me to continue my work in Europe. But the knowledge that what I was doing was being done in Europe led me to think that if I stayed in Chicago and continued my work I would be at the beginning of a new form of art in this country. At that time Europe was usually ahead of the United States when it came to the subject of art. So I continued to create books as an art medium for several years, selling very little as I went along, until | happened to meet a local book dealer who also sold art prints.

I had at that time produced F.B. Cornell's Anamorphosis of Eve, which had additional prints not bound within the book. The prints were for sale separately so it seemed only natural to investigate a shop that dealt in graphic art prints: J&S Graphics. To my amazement it was more of a book store than a graphic art gallery. I was euphoric and probably spent the entire day talking to the clerk, Tom Joyce, and the owner, Larry Kinnetka. Together we set up a formal opening at the shop for Anamorphosis of Eve, and Larry gave me some fatherly advice in the privacy of his office: "You'll never get rich producing your own work or some obscure writer's. Do something by a famous author, and then the collectors will need to buy it." I brought up the fact of copyright laws, but Larry didn't think anyone would come after me for an edition of only fifty to one-hundred copies. Later, when Tom Joyce suggested I do James Joyce's The Ondt and the Gracehoper, from a book titled Two Tales of Shem and Shaun (a work in progress), which he had in the shop, I still refused to plagiarize. I wrote to the U.S.

Copyright Office to do a search and see who owned the copyright. The answer came back that there was no U.S. copyright on the material. I found that difficult to believe but I had my affirmation on government letterhead so I went ahead with the project. Years later I learned that Two Tales of Shem and Shaun is included in Finnegans Wake and thereby copyrighted as a part of another entity. But Larry was correct. For an edition of fifty copies, no one bothered to prosecute me. I made so little income off the book that it would have cost both parties more in lawyer's fees than was actually involved. At one point a London book dealer came to Chicago and bought my remaining copies of The Ondt and the Gracehoper. However, he did not pay me on the spot, and later when I tried to get payment from him in London, my requests went unanswered. It took a letter from me to the famous and influential London book dealer, Bertram Rota, explaining my predicament, and payment was forthcoming. I was still ignorant of the Joyce copyright when two years later I did the second of the two tales, The Mookse and the Gripes. At one time for a Raymond Chandler piece I contacted the executrix of his estate through her agent in London. But I was informed that she would not allow me to do an edition of only fifty copies, and I did not do it. I did send one of my miniature books as an example, and promised her some artist's proofs of the edition, but I was still refused permission. There was no reason given. I can only guess

She felt that notenough royaltincomewold.

While on the subject of copyrights, allow me to clear my conscience and set the record straight on another matter. Mr. Mundell (The Compulsive Printer of Portage, Indiana), whom I collaborated with on the printing of the Joyce books, brought a number of works to my attention, all of which were by famous writers and surely had copyright protection. One writer was Dashiell Hammett. I was told that Hammett was under strict contract to the Hollywood Studios at one time. In order to do outside work he had to write under pseudonyms, one of which was Mary Jane Hammett, and, hence, "The Crusader" Mr. Mundell and I printed it without formal permission. The short story had appeared in print only once, in The Smart Set magazine some time in the 1930s. The magazine copyrighted all of its stories under a blanket copyright for each edition. They were long out of business when Mr. Mundell and I came along.

I call myself an artist working in the book medium, rather than a book artist. I am definitely not a craftsman. If I were, I would not have tried some of the structures that I have created. A craftsperson fabricates what he or she has been taught to fabricate. A craftsperson plays by all of the rules. An artist deviates from the rules. However, I have always maintained that the evidence of a broken rule must be accompanied by an indication that the person who broke it knew full well the rule existed, thereby justifying the breaking of the ruler 

Another problem for me over the years has been the authoritative hierarchy within the book arts academy. Most subscribe to the French notion that no one person does two things well. Every aspect of book production must be done by a competent person within that singular field, and no human being has the capacity to be an expert in more than one. Hence, everything from the writing to the binding is the work of a different person. And that notion has much merit. However, it means that the core of the work becomes fragmented and is pulled in many directions at one time as each ego working on the project follows his or her own agenda. The ensuing conflict is basically an asset to the finished product, but the entity that evolves is no longer the pure reflection of a singular being: the writer. When I worked with Mr. Mundell, he was trying to produce a "fine press" book, and I was trying to produce an "artist's book." What evolved was something in between the two. This is not a bad thing, and probably explains why I need the printed word as an integral facet of my work. It was only later that I realized that progress is made by reaching out beyond the acceptable, and to do that, one must take risks not compatible with collaboration. An artist's book may be done as a collaboration to satisfy the pundits. Even so, when it is done by more than one artist, it ceases to be a unified vision of a specific subject. And only through experimenting within a given field can one expand to create new areas of expression.Does a painter share a canvas with another painter?

©Book Club of California 

Working with Poster/Broadsides

BY JOE D’AMBROSIO

A BROADSIDE communicates an announcement using typographic images. A poster relies on typography combined with graphic imagery to further enhance the message. Since I use typographic images also as an integral part of the graphic image, l use the term poster/broadside to describe the result. The origin of my poster roadsides is as serendipitous as my other works, and the firs evolved out of a need to move a particular project forward.

In I982 I was working on a book, Daisies Never Tell. Usually, when I work on a project, it is done with no preconceptions as to how it will eventually look after it is completed. I begin with an idea, and then allow the visuals to evolve along with the text to move the project forward. Approximately half way into the production of the book, I lost the flow of the plot line. I decided to pause from that project, work on something else for a while, and allow time to suggest my direction. At the time I had as a printing device an Adana tabletop flatbed press that was imported from England. It had a very small printing area (probably no bigger than a single octavo), and deteriorating rollers.

Why I endeavoured to print a sheet much larger (II × 15 ins) can only be attributed to my instinct to start a project without considering too fully the difficulties involved in completing it [2].Concentric coloured letters emanate from the centre of an image of a daisy in an anthropomorphic stance - stem akimbo and leaves like arms. I was using serigraphy [silk-screen] extensively at the time so that is the medium employed for both the image and the titles. The random letters do not spell out any words. They are placed because of their shapes - some capitals and some lower case depending upon the need for ascenders or descenders, conical points or curved surfaces. Since the letters are associated with a floral work, their col-urs are gradational—from very dark green to lighter green as the rings work their way outward from the central daisy. Thirty-three colours later, the poster/broadside was completed. The titles were hand-cut from a lacquer stencil (as were all of the colours) and then fixed to the screen with a soluble liquid such as acetone. At that time water-based inks were not available, but I would still choose oil-based inks because the colours are more vibrant.

It should be noted that the medium of serigraphy (silk-screen usıng only hand-made stencils — no photographic stencils) is basically (rather as pochoir) flat colours laid one next to the other to create a carpet of graphic design. The use of a halftone gradation in the colours is not natural to the medium. It can be done by utilising a split font whereby two different coloured inks are laid side by side on the plate and then blended in the middle by pulling the squeegee across them, Or it may be done by overlaying transparent colours over one another.

The year after I completed the Daisies Never Tell poster/broad-side, 1 was invited to have a one-man exhibition at a gallery in Northern California. The reception to the relatively new genre of artists' books was so overwhelmingly warm and wonderful that I resolved as soon as I returned home I would do another poster/ broadside to commemorate the occasion. I finally had a large enough printing press a Vandercook no. 3 that I had purchased at auction) that would accommodate a large piece of paper so the titles could be printed by letterpress. The scene is the view I enjoyed of the Pacific Ocean from the house in which I stayed [I, opposite].

The sunset, however, is the first time that I used letters which may be read as well as seen as visual images. They are all of the people responsible for mounting the exhibition, with the name Heidi at the centre. Not all of the colours in this image are stencilled. The plate for the trees was created by drawing the branches and the leaves (all those images to be printed in a single colour) on a stretched piece of silk with a grease pencil (with an oily rather than a graphite base). Then the entire screen was coated with water-based glue including the grease-pencilled images). The silk was then washed in a solvent which dissolved the greasy image of the pencil, but not the water-soluble glue. This left only the image openings on the screen, through which the ink could reach the paper. It gave the trees a feathered look, as opposed to the sharp edges of a cut stencil. This technique cannot be used if the inks are water-based, as they would remove the non-printing areas and eradicate the image.

Not to be outdone by their rural cousins, that same year I was asked to address the Colophon Club of San Francisco [3]. Since there are so many O's in the word colophon, I decided to elaborate on them in the title by making them larger than the other letters in the word, and expand on them in the visual area by placing the city not on hills but on the rounded apexes of the O's with the word again gigantically repeated in the background along with the fog coming in from the ocean. My notes remind me that it took sixteen runs to complete this print. However, some colours had to be reprinted more than once to keep the landmarks of the city in their proper place and thus convey believability. I think it was done entirely with lacquer stencils except for the grey clouds which were probably done with a grease pencil. The size of the print is the same as most of the others, a quarter of a 22 x 30 ins BFK Rives sheet. 

It was another three years before I did another poster/broadside.

In 1987, at the request of Norman Tanis, Dean of Libraries at California State University, Northridge, I completed one for a book that the university (Santa Susana Press) had commissioned me to design and print: The Twilight of Orthodoxy in New England [4]. 

It is about Thomas Paine’s age of enlightenment at cross purposes with the era's prevailing Christianity. have always been attracted by light and dark and how the two contrast to bring out crisp edges to various shapes. Some of my early paintings were conceived not for subject matter alone but to show how areas of light and dark could be used to heighten the emotion conveyed by the various shapes. The image on this poster/broadside is a good ex-ample. Background letters rise in ascending shades of colour from behind a totally black rounded shape (the earth) with a country church complete with a spire at its apex. The fire and brimstone subject of the text is thus alluded to by the contrast of the varying shades of colour. The letters do not spell out any words and are placed for their particular shapes to complete the composition.

However, the huge T in the centre is intended to convey Christ's cross and the large curlicue S just below is snaking from the church's spire, itself embedded in an I, and snakelike enough to convey the sin of sloth.

The following year, 1988, once again saw me working on a commission for Santa Susana Press of Cal State, Northridge. This time it was Type-Faces: Ward Ritchie, a portfolio of Amanda Blanco's photographs of Ward [5]. Since the subject is not only Ward, but also photographs, my conception was to look at Ward Ritchie from within the lens of a camera, and allow all the light entering the camera to show as letters when they hit the negative film. The central letters around Ward's image had to be rounded so they could frame the spiral opening of the camera's shutter. Exploding outward beyond the inside of the camera and onto the white margins are the letters that spell out Ward's last name.

This explosion of letters would also manifest itself in the next poster/broadside in the following year, 1989, with D’Ambrosio: Nineteen Years and Counting [6] which I dıd to commemorate not only the publication of my bibliography, but the opening of my retrospective exhibition at The Book Club of California in San Francisco. It is an explosion of letters flying out and away from a book that is opened to pages that display B and C respectively for Book Club. The Club's bookplate is reproduced at the base of the open book. I used as many different typefaces for the letters as it was possible, and injected one personal comment. At the top of the montage of letters is a lower case g without a serif on the top bowl, a reference to Bruce Rogers's Arrighi italic, and typographic quirk that has always annoyed my sense of proper type design.

All of the plates are created with glue resist. No grease pencil is used in this technique. Water-based glue is applied to the screen only in those areas that do not get printed. When the glue dries it resists the ink. Printing can only be done where the ink can pass through the openings in the silk screen. Once again, this method can work only with oil-based inks.

By 1992 I had worked extensively with paper sculpture, especially for the book D'Ambrosio's David. When the proposal from the then State librarian, Gary Strong, came to commemorate the California State Library's 150th anniversary in the year 2000, I immediately thought of the façade of the Romanesque building itself which has steps rising to three double doors, and a Georgian marble statue on either side of the outward doors. Each door would compose a separate serigraphic print, and paper sculpture images of the statues would be placed in their proper positions: a three-dimensional triptych that would be issued for the occasion.

While working on the previous project became aware that the old library building was running out of space and that a new library because the entrance was mostly glass, the display cases and any was scheduled to be built; it would have an entrance rotunda, but artwork would be on a balcony surround rather than the main floor. I mused: If there is no space for artwork on the rotunda main floor, how nice it would be if the artwork could be put into the toor. Ten years earlier I had done the poster/broadside for Daisies Never Tell in which random concentric letters surround a daisy flower in the centre. I redesigned it in a larger format to be executed not in serigraphy, but terrazzo. After all, isn't a library a 'house of letters' [9]:

Within the imagery of many of these posters I have used sequences of letters which tor the most part do not spell out any words. They are used as building blocks to create new shapes, and, while so doing, they imply that the shapes have texture that is of an intelligent nature. This has annoyed some who firmly believe that letters are the property of words and are thus sacred objects of human communication and should not be tampered with. And there are others, who, as the electrician installing the dome lighting over the rotunda floor while the installation was being executed, came down from his ladder to tell me that he put together some of the letters in the rotunda floor (where there are no intentional intelligent words) and they spelled out: City of Man. As time passes and language evolves, perhaps I shall find more unintended phrases in other examples of my work.

___________________________________________________________________

Adela Roatcap reviewed his A Memoir of Book Design in Matrix 24, pp. 158-9.

A Maverick in a Printing Office

Ward Ritchie on D'Ambrosio

We are living in an age when technology is developing and changing so rapidly that yesterday's concepts are obsolete today and today's will be abandoned by tomorrow. Micro-computing, which is the basis of much of this development, has had such hypergrowth in the past half-dozen years that more electronics were manufactured in the past year than even existed at the beginning of the year. In a recent lecture at the California Institute of Technology, Gordon Moore, the chairman of Intel Corporation, concluded that 'If the same progress had been made in the auto industry over the past seven years you'd go a million miles per hour and get half-a-million miles to a gallon of gas. It would be cheaper to throw your Rolls Royce away than park it down town in the evening.?

While the evolution experienced in the printing industry has not been as spectacularly explosive, the methods of printing have changed so completely during a generation that even such former great designers and printers as Bruce Rogers, Sir Francis Meynell and Stanley Morison would hardly recognize the mechanics that now produce printing. Most of the equipment traditionally used for centuries past has been discarded and replaced with computers, cameras, lasers and offset presses.

Some of this equipment and the solid lead types have been salvaged by artists and amateur printers who, often irreverently, have been transforming the old craft into a new art form, calling their creations "Artist's Books'. In these the content is usually subordinate to the visual expression.

It would be difficult to give an exact definition of an "Artist's Book', as even the term 

'Book' is a misnomer in most instances. The shape, the appearance, the materials are subject to the whim of the creator. I have seen 'Artist's Books' in many guises — accordian folds twenty-five feet long, pleated pages, unfolding fans, a gutted old book filled with montages, a bundle of printed strips of paper that can be haphazardly arranged and rearranged to create a textual mishmash. One creative artist even glued together the pages of an old book and exhibited it as an "Artist's Book'.

The artist and printer Joseph D'Ambrosio is equally innovative, but more traditional inasmuch as he adheres to the true book form. He was an emigré from Chicago to Southern California some ten years ago. In Chicago he worked as a draughtsman for the Commonwealth Edison Company and one day, on sudden impulse, he bought a small Adana press and acquiring a bit of type, cautiously began to print. He had been attending classes at the American Academy of Art and decided he'd combine the processes and make a book which he would write, illustrate and print. It was a frustrating experience, as the baby Adana was hardly suited for book printing. Fortunately, a generous friend, E. H. Mundell, who called himself the 'compulsive printer' came to his rescue and offered to do the presswork on his larger equipment. Since D'Ambrosio had difficulty in finding a binder who was willing to undertake his intricate bindings he had to learn the craft himself with the help of some books in the local library.

After completing a few books with Mundell's help, he moved to California in 1979 to devote his full time to the writing, illustrating, printing and binding of his own books. As the Adana press was impractical, he would set his type and then carry it across town to the Woman's Graphic Center in the Woman's Building to print on their Vandercook proof press. This was an organisation which had been formed a few years earlier as a protest against the lack of recognition given women artists by the local museums. However, they were tolerant and allowed this male intruder to use their equipment. Eventually he was able to purchase a Vandercook of his own and became self-sufficient.

While D'Ambrosio's creations are usually considered to be "Artist's Books' because of the novelty of their conception, his adherence to the basic form places his work in an intermediate area. He would probably prefer recognition for his writing, illustrations and typographic innovations, but his bindings and colourful, handsome posters have received the most recognition and acclaim. Yet his books must be considered as a whole.

In his Birds of Paradise he combines a variety of papers - a domestic text paper with Japanese tea chest, Japanese lace, stark black Ingres, foils, French marbled and wood-veneer. They are ingeniously combined, some laminated with see-through lace work and others used to form pop-up forms of multi-coloured serigraphed (silk screen) paintings. It introduces a new dimension in bookmaking which qualifies it as an 'Artist's Book'.

As I have mentioned, his bindings are possibly his most original contribution to this new art form. Gloria Stuart has described the innovative binding he created for The Small Garden of Gloria Stuart. For his Birds of Paradise he serigraphed the cover in a brilliant multi-coloured image of cranes in the Japanese style of painting. This is enclosed in glass, framed with a border of black and gold kid leather. The spine is created of six matchstick bamboo staves, sewn together vertically with ten differently shaded threads - from pale beige to dark brown - to make a surprisingly functional hinge.

The incredible amount of time and labour put into the production of his books is evidenced in his Daisies Never Tell. To introduce his subject and give the reader the impression of entering a field of daisies, he has cut an irregular opening in the front cover of the leather binding in which glass is laminated. It exposes a succession of leaves of the pages with the corners cut in a variety of daisy forms to give a further feeling of the daisy field. The title-page continues the theme with a pop-up illustration of daisies.

The concept of The Twilight of Orthodoxy in New England which he designed, printed and bound for the Santa Susana Press of the California State University at Northridge is quite orthodox. That is, except for the binding, which is unusual and possibly unique in its conception. The binding is a clamshell box with marbled paper sides and doublures, with a square-back leather spine of two piano hinges of 1/16 in. plastic rods around which leather strips are woven. Laminated to the front cover is a bold three-dimensional Image of sun rays made of cast paper coated with white glue and gilded with gold leaf.

D'Ambrosio's books are ingenious and totally original, while they transgress tradition as the late John F. Kennedy counselled us in his eulogy to the poet Robert Frost, 'If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.’

Not Quite A Book

From Sure, First Issue, May, 1991

by William E. Ashley. . .

NOT QUITE BERNADETTE is a classic Bukowski short story that made its first appearance in HOT WATER MUSIC in 1983. Neell Cherkovski, in his biography HANK, quotes BUK as being pleased with the clarity of these stores and felt they are "closer to the vest. You can tell that things are going good when you find yourself enjoying the writing." NOT QUITE BERNADETTE has lively characters who interact with a poet who is famous to Bernadette but still is a very suspicious burden to society. She gets him going with her ongoing tale of unappreciated love. Frustrated after his advance is repulsed, he turns to his trusty bottle to satisfy his virility. After the bottle fails, he dangerously lacerates his cock. This is a finely woven tale that includes; Do we really see things as they are?, Fear of castration, voyeurism, near rape, misdirected signals of love, uncaring medical personnel and shame. There is so much life and understanding in these few pages. Art with words. So many images and insights.

The illustrated NOT QUITE BERNADETTE is a Bukowski-Johnson-D'Ambrosio collaboration. All three are writers and artists, with their best blended to go beyond any of the individual parts. The project was conceived by Jack Bourdelais, who has been a Charles Bukowski and James W. Johnson collector for years. In 1988 he contacted his friend and bookseller Jim Lorson about a special Bukowski book. NOT QUITE BERNADETTE was chosen with the permission of Black Sparrow Press. Johnson, who also enjoys BUK, started a process that involved initial etchings and then a full run of 9 prints. Two of the first etchings were found to be too graphic (not for BUK), and are only to be found separately or in the Special edition of 15. D'Ambrosio was then contracted to do the book design, printing and binding. Greybeard Press has started off with an ambitious project. To date, this is a solo effort from them. Currently there are no plans for a trade edition, which would allow many to enjoy this great blending of talent.

The pictures chosen show great insight into one of the main thrusts of the story - NOT QUITE. Just as Margritte did with his famous painting — This is not a Pipe - Buk has captured this in words. James Johnson has astutely magnifled several of these instances. The titles are all variations of Not Quite: zipped, a bandage, shut, stuck, a job, caring (the doctor), rape, and Bernadette (the bottle), All add to the nuances of the story and are enjoyable by themselves. The etchings are done on zinc plates. Some of these plates are included in the special editions which also have the pictures colored. Johnson is a poet and artist who lives in his studio in Lubbock Texas. In the colophon he notes his interests are "Making art, having a sexual relationship, eating and drinking" in that order. His poems have a rap/ street sense and his art, with artistically sexual elements, often have a dark aspect. His most recent work is CURES FOR A HEALTHY WORLD. Jim Edwards describes this work as the chronicles of "A Pathological mechanic who has raided the household tool chest in order to sadistically prune away any and all modes of self-expression." It is a poem with graphic art. Shown are two dozen people who experience violent solutions to their often trivial problems. The self-proclaimed doctor is the last picture which is titled A CURE FOR LIFE. This is a self portrait; one eye open, shot in the neck, laying in a coffin. This show will be at the Robinson Galleries in Houston, June 6 through July 6, 1991.

The format and presentation of the book is a work of art in itself. Augmenting the text and pictures, D'Ambrosio has achieved a perfect balance where all elements are brilliant and still harmonious. The pages are torn and cut to tease the reader. Partial and provocative glimpses of the art is viewed until the page with text is turned to allow viewing of the entire etching. There are also stimulating configurations to the pages with the text interwoven and well placed. The pages of the book are uniquely mounted on lucite rods, a format that D'Ambrosio has developed. This allows the book to lay flat and to be optimally viewed. The union is a delight. For the special and deluxe copies there is also a bold back side that is done in paper and sculptured on the cover.

In an article in Matrix, D'Ambrosio states, "The text is prime and dictates the aura of the entire work. I strive to bring all facets of book making together to form one object. I write, set type by hand, print letter press, do the artwork and then bind the book." In some of his work, he has made the paper. He has made his books the essence of his being. As he states in his bibliography. "My heart and soul are in all my works." He tries to have, and has achieved, a very organic sense in his work. He understands how to "allow" his work to grow; creativity with experimentation. Much more than the visual sense is pleased; it must be expertenced. Leaving a career in engineering for art, he started making books as a total art concept. He has now done more than 40 different books. There is a special skill and sensitivity in all his work.

The book is being showcased in an exhibit at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor March 30 through June 16, 1991; Wednesday-Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is one of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and is located in Lincoln Park. Admission is $4.00 for non-members. The show of 27 books is: 'By its Cover: Recent work from The Hand Bookbinders of California'. D'Ambrosio has two other books shown: OLD WINE, FINE WINE? and DANCE CIRCLE. There is also a demonstration on the steps in book binding.

Copies are available from Lorson's Books, 116 West Wilshire Avenue, Fullerton, CA 92632.— two extra etchings — all encased in a clamshell box.

The DELUXE EDITION is $1,500.00 — 25 copies - sculptured paper cover design — etchings not colored — encased in clam-shell box.

The REGULAR EDITION is $950.00 — 35 copies — without colored etchings, cover design or clam-shell box.

5 hors d'commerce copies complete the edition of 80 books. Additional unbound sets of the nine, not colored, etchings are available at $600.00 per set.

This is more than a book, more than art, an experience that can be savored.

Joe D' Ambrosio and LX Commute: My Sentence

By Dr. Adela Spindler Roatcap

AMONG THE MANY impressive items, such as S. Gale Herrick's gift of Matrix,  that stunningly printed and indispensable yearly "review for printers and bibliophiles" from John Randle's Whittington Press, included in "Gifts to the Book Club" (January 24 through March 27, 2000, at the Club), one small book stood out for the quality and elegance of its front cover - Ann Whipple, LX Commute: My Sentence. Designed and typeset by Joe D'Ambrosio in his studio in Phoenix, Arizona, this small artist's book was published in 1996 in an edition of 250 copies. Typical of the work of Joe D'Ambrosio are books which elude definition as books through their sculptural effects or a variety of graphic media. In this case, L X Commute prompts the viewer to ask, "How did he do it?" or "How did he achieve such vibrant colors?"

Now, it has been a truism that one should not judge a book by its cover, and I venture to suggest Ann Whipple's book as a fascinating read. But here the cover adds an artistic dimension to the text. For those of us who live in San Francisco, that smallish big town surrounded on three sides by water, the Golden Gate Bridge, leading north to Marin, Sonoma, and Mendocino, and the Bay Bridge, which takes us east, to Berkeley and Oakland, are strong symbols of the unique geographical position. Since Mrs. Whipple's story concerns her daily travels across the Bay Bridge on an AC Transit bus, the LX Express (now LD), D'Ambrosio created a striking steel-blue image of the Bay Bridge towers and, in subtle hues of yellow, rose, and green, he depicted the treacherous, whirling waters of San Francisco Bay. How did he do it? In Joe D'Ambrosio's own words:

I cut the paper plates from 4-ply paper board and coated them with white glue. As the glue was drying, I either stippled them with a brush or used brush strokes to create different effects. The use of the white glue came about by accident. When I first tried this method, the force (or suction) of the printing press quickly tore the plies apart. So I simply used white glue to hold the entire plate together. It was then I realized the effect I could achieve if I worked with the white glue surface. Not only have I raised the surface of the paper plate with white glue; I can also create effects by tearing away parts of the plies of the board where before I was building them up. All of my paper plates are now in my archives at the California State Library in Sacramento.

One more feature gives this little book its unique character. On a felicitous suggestion from Susan Acker of the Feathered Serpent Press, tiny black buildings, just one or two, but sometimes a whole row of houses or factories, were interspersed throughout the text. As we travel with our author on her LX Commute, the text obliges us to see, as from the window of a bus, the changing scene. Perhaps even the blue-gray paper was meant to suggest early morning or our characteristic evening fog. One more distinguishing characteristic - LX Commute is a bona fide artist's book: signed by artist Joe D'Ambrosio on the front cover. But the price is a mere $45, unusual for a book of this quality. Does D'Ambrosio still have a few copies at hand? You can find out by writing to him at 4449 North 12th Street, #A5,

Phoenix, Arizona 85014-4520.

Lunch at Albert's:, Reflections on Joe D'Ambrosio's A Memoir of Book Design

by Adela Spindler Roatcap

IT’S BEEN OVER TWENTY YEARS since Steve Corey invited me to lunch at Albert Sperisen’s place on Twnty-ninth Avenue. “You’ll like him,” Steve; "he knows everything there is to know about books." It was at Albert's that I first saw the work of Joe D'Ambrosio. Now, while holding in my hands a copy of Joe's A Memoir of Book Design: 1969- 2000, I can only imagine how pleased Albert would have been with this handsome book. It's the Book Club of California's 216th publication. It was written by Joe D'Ambrosio, designed and printed to his specification, with attractively lettered endpapers, front cover quarter-bound in blue-gray paper patterned with his "baby birds with open beaks." There's an introduction, a chronologically arranged description of all his books, decorative bindings, and lettering projects. There are over one hundred and seventy illustrations, almost all in color. There's a list of posters, prints, and broadsides. I'm drawn into reading further by the earnestness of Joe's autobiographical narrative. Our protagonist, like Dorothy in the Land of Oz, struggles to find his way to the land of artist's books.

Joe D'Ambrosio was born in Chicago during the waning days of the Great Depression. Early on he discovered music, or rather he found that just by flexing one of his little fingers he could make a sound on the upright piano in his grandparents' parlor-or that "a physical movement by me could produce a response in a separate object." Powerful insight. Would Santa bring him a piano? As Joe was one of six siblings, the devotedly prayed-for instrument did not materialize. "I have never really believed in Santa Claus, or in receiving something for nothing," our hero tells us. His disappointment brought about a life-long attitude of "I can do it by myself," as reflected in his artistic credo:

An artist's book may be done as a collaboration to satisfy the pundits. Even so, when it is done by more than one artist, it ceases to be a unified vision of a specific subject. And only through experimenting within a given field can one expand to create new areas of expression. Does a painter share a canvas with another painter?

Yes, Joe. The history of art is chock-a-block with painters sharing their can-vases. William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti collaborated in painting the portrait of Jane Burden. Some of Leonardo Da Vinci's canvases have caused graybeards to duel over who painted what. Peter Paul Rubens hired specialists to paint feet, hands, drapery, etc. It's heartrending to discover that such admired artists as Jan Van Eyck, William Blake, or Henri de Fantin-Latour "shared" their canvases with wives, children, or apprentices while they, we hope, were out drumming up new business. Aren't artists entitled a few foibles, to little white lies?

Joe D'Ambrosio's career in the graphic arts began with Christmas cards. Starting with a single sheet, he moved on to multiple pages and texts made up of lines whose "graphic representations required some decipherment." After a stint in the U.S. Navy, decades of acquiring skills in electrical engineering and art, Joe, while healing from an illness, finally began printing "visual environments for the written word." That was in 1969. Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev were dancing at Chicago's Civic Opera House, and though Joe had planned to write for the musical theatre, it was classical ballet that became "his first love among the arts." How is it, he asked himself, that in ballet the story line (what Lincoln Kirstein called the "plot or pretext") is told by non-verbal languages such as music and gesture? Could books communicate the meaning of their text without using words? (Could "pre-text" exist without "text"?) Read on.

Playing with words is symptomatic in the world of Art and Artist's Books. There's "Art," in the learned sense of the word, and "Art" which, like "Love," no one can quite define but everyone recognizes. Can children, monkeys and elephants make Art? Can they make Artist's Books? Really? There is Art without Craft and Craft without Art. There are "artsy" books without Art, and "crafty" books without Craft. Like Dorothy, we're lost in the Land of Oz. Joe makes clear his attitude towards the artists/craftsman conundrum:

I call myself an artist working in the book medium rather than a book artist. I am definitely not a craftsman. If I were, I would not have tried some of the structures that I have created. A craftsperson fabricates what he or she has been taught to fabricate. A craftsman plays by all the rules. An artist deviates from the rules. However, I have always maintained that the evidence of a broken rule must be accompanied by an indication that the person who broke it knew full well the rule existed...

Art takes effort. It takes ten years of daily work for a ballerina to learn to stand gracefully on her toes. Shouldn't an artist's book be as breath-taking as a dancer’s pirouette? In A Memoir of Book Design D'Ambrosio lays bare every detail of how he manages to "stand on his toes." This book can be read as an instruction manu-al. It was an American writer who said the "tricks" with which artists achieve their goals are the saddest secrets of their lives. Joe tells us:

...I wanted my readers to be entertained. Isn't that what a musical play does? I did not want my readers to be aware that I was planting seeds in their minds. Sneaky? The seeds could only mature when associated with a situation outside the reality of the book. Hence, the flowering of an idea may occur only when the subject is ready and willing, much like hypnosis…

Joe printed his first five books on a tabletop Adana press. With each new book he re-defined his artistic goals, becoming proficient at serigraphy, design, and creating ever more complex binding structures. Bindings, says Joe, must always reflect what's inside a book. The story begins before the book is opened. When his Adana wore out, he found that Elmore Mundell, an enthusiastic letterpress printer in Portage, Indiana, with a Vandercook No. 3 proof press in his garage, was willing to help.1

In 1989 Joe published his first retrospective bibliography: Nineteen Years and Counting. He handset the Della Robbia type, printing the book by hand on a Vandercook No. 4, completing seventy-five copies and ten artist's proofs. Nineteen Years and Counting is a precursor to the 2003 A Memoir of Book Design. The earlier book is, of course, a more exciting artist's book-but the Memoir, printed offset using 10 point digital Della Robbia on Mohawk paper in an edition of 350 copies and bound by San Francisco's Cardoza-James Bindery, is a more complete narrative and, for now, at least, still available to collectors.

In the pages of his books, as well as on his bindings, the design and placement of the letters is key. What better example of this than the stunning mosaic (or ter-razzo) floor decoration Joe D'Ambrosio designed in 1992 for the California State Library in Sacramento. His task was to create a device (made up of letter forms which did not actually spell out any words) for the foyer of "a house of letters." It's my favorite among his many lettering design projects.

Any book is "bound" to go astray. This is the case with Joe D'Ambrosio's binding of the Mr. Whistler's Ten O'clock commissioned by Albert Sperisen. Joe and Albert met at Gloria Stuart's in Los Angeles. Thereafter, Joe was invited to lunch at Albert's whenever he visited San Francisco.

The procedure at Albert's was always the same. After a spare though elegantly presented lunch in the wood-paneled dining room overlooking his carefully manicured back-garden, one was ushered, generous drink in hand, into Albert's dark green, shuttered drawing room, where the almost imperceptible sounds of Mozart wafted in air. On the walls hung many framed drawings or prints by Eric Gill, on which Albert was "the" expert, Rockwell Kent, etc. The fireplace was surrounded by bookshelves which, when I first saw them, were bulging with a collection of first editions relating to American expatriates in Paris, such as Alexander Calder, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and others. As time went on the shelves thinned out, the prints became scarce. The grandest of grand pianos took up at least a quarter of the room. On its music rack, Albert proudly displayed the poster for the 1989 D'Ambrosio: Nineteen Years and Counting retrospective exhibition at the Book Club of California. The poster (still available from the Club) depicts an open book with letterforms, punctuation marks, and printing devices floating like ballet dancers from and in front of its pages. Albert would settle down into his tall, wing-backed chair, smile, light a cigarette, and the discussion was on, Albert surveying his listeners as intently as Velázquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X, the Grand Inquisitor. Lighting one cigarette after the other, Albert would soon be enveloped in smoke, while the Velázquez likeness would metamorphose into Francis Bacon's vaporous study of the Spanish master's painting. But I digress.

For knowledge of printing, of books and their trade, for questions of art, fashion or taste, for intimate details of what the book community was doing, Albert Sperisen was your man. Occasionally, as when Serge Diaghile's visit to Oscar Wilde and his interest in Aubrey Beardsley's Salome was mentioned, Albert would jump out of his chair, sprint up the stairs and return brandishing a "gem" he knew full well I couldn't resist. I was glad to find both English language first editions of Salome, (the "pure" and the "profane"). The "pure" one, the one with gold peacock feathers on a green cover, has the bookplate of Martha Cobb Snow, Jane Grabhorn's mother. An hour's lecture on the Grabhorn Press and its printers followed. Then Albert sprinted upstairs and brought down the Limited Editions Salome with pochoir illustrations by André Derain. When Albert had refreshed our drinks, taken his position by the fireplace and lit a fresh cigarette, we chatted till dusk. He was the greatest of Wizards. Albert minced no words, and insisted his guests not mince theirs. He had delightful stories to tell about his W.W. II adventures. Did he really, in 1945, when Paris was full of American GIs, fly through l'Arc de Triomphe? Why not? Albert could do anything. He even stopped smoking. One afternoon he brought out a drawerful of cigarette cases. Would I like to have one? I asked which was his favorite. He took out a solid silver one engraved with his initials, AS-which happened to be my initials as well. I wrote a check wondering what would be next.

They were special, those bookish afternoons at Albert's. Anyone might be asked to lunch once. Being asked a second time was a mark of having passed the acid test. Being given a copy of Mr. Whistler's Ten O'clock signified graduation.

In 1940, Albert Sperisen, Harold Seeger and Lawton Kennedy printed three hundred copies of Mr. Whistler's Ten O'clock; Being a talk delivered by James McNeill Whistler in London February 1885, at the Black Vine Press. There is a "JP" monogram watermarked in the paper. The book was chosen as one of the "50 Books of 1940" by the American Institute of Graphic Arts. Albert planned to have some copies specially bound for an exhibition at the Book Club. Joe was the recipient of a copy and he describes how he went about creating the binding:

I chose to highlight Whistler's flamboyant monogram, JMW (or MJW). The letters of the monogram are cut out of four-ply archival board so that it is possible to see through the letters and beyond the board. The board is then wrapped with light blue paper and laid over another board which is lined with gold tea-chest paper. So, instead of looking beyond the cutout monogram, the viewer looks through the board to the gold paper. Thus the monogram appears to have a shiny gold surface. Another layer of board covered in the same blue paper is then laid on top of the preceding configuration, with an opening to display the monogram in its entirety. The front cover is actually three tiers of four-ply boards. Cloth makes up the balance of the covers. The title is calligraphed on the spine. Once again, the protective slipcase has a cutaway area for easy access. The same fabric used to quarter bind the book is used on the edge openings of the slipcase as a trim. Its purpose is mainly decorative but does function to make the friction area where the book slides in and out of its case wear a little longer than if it were paper-but not much longer.

In his 10 O'clock, Whistler spoke of Art with all the vehemence, all the passion of a man who'd rather be bankrupt than alter what he feels to be true.2 "Art," Whistler said, "is a Goddess of dainty thought, selfishly occupied with her own perfection." Joe confides to his reader that although he still strives for perfection he now knows full well that perfection does not exist for him. Really?

Whistler went far in his vituperation of the despoilers of Art: "those manufacturers of gee-gaws, those hucksters" and (is nothing sacred?) "that Hammer-smith crowd." In this new Millennium, Joe, may we still return, as Whistler wished, to that fabled era in which Art flourished, those happy days when "the Amateur was unknown-and the Dilettante undreamed of"?

"Whistler was quite a maverick," Joe says, wondering how he kept such wealthy and powerful Victorians glued to their seats until midnight. (Yes, that's why it's called the "10 O'clock lecture.") Is it possible, Joe, that after a late-night, many-coursed Victorian dinner, the gentlemen having been at the clarets, ports, and brandies, and ladies foolish enough to have eaten being so uncomfortable in their laced-up stays and tight corsets-is it just possible that these Victorian worthies would not have ventured a whimper had Gabriel himself appeared among them and blown his horn at them? Maybe Albert's dear Mr. Whistler, so full of American indignation and self-righteousness, had finally learned when to speak and when to keep his peace.

As for Joe D’Ambrosio—well, Santa Claus never blessed him with a piano, but life has its little compensations. To you, Joe, the Muses bestowed priceless gifts of Inspiration and Originality. Mind you, a lack of Originality is the deadliest malaise in the field of artist's books. As for Inspiration, isn't the devastating lack of joyful Inspiration what book artists dread more than anything?

So, whatever happened to Joe's exquisite 10 O'clock binding? It's lost. When A Memoir was being assembled, not even an illustration of it could be found. And alas, our dear Albert is no longer among us-that he may invite us to lunch and reveal the secret of its fate.

I've enjoyed reading A Memoir of Book Design. It's been like having a Christmas chat with an old friend in a room filled with beautiful books, watching the log crumble in the fireplace while sharing a glass of good California wine-drinking from crystal goblets and seeing the crackling flames reflect on the glass. I've found much here concerning the wisdom of life-knowledge that can only be learnt by living. Joe says that, having done one's best work, "as with one's children, one must let go of them and go on with one's own life; they have a life of their own." How he endears himself to his readers when he writes, "My heart and soul are included in everything I do." That's all.

DR ADELA SPINDLER ROATCAP

1. Joe D'Ambrosio, "The Compulsive Printer of Portage, Indiana," in Matrix 11, Whittington Press, 1981, pp. 53–59.
2. In 1878 Whistler won one farthing damages in his flamboyant libel suit against John Ruskin, who had accused him of "flinging a pot of paint at the public face." The expenses of the trial bankrupted Whistler. Mr. Whistler's Ten O'clock was first published in London by Chatto and Windus in 1888.

Memories of Joe D'Ambrosio,

Artist of the Book

By Gary E. Strong

[image of A Nest of Robins book]

I first met Joe D'Ambrosio at a garden party at Chuck Monell's home in Hancock Park in 1985: Friends had gathered to celebrate the noted printer Ward Ritchie's eightieth birthday. What a treat for this green "Californian" to join with Ward and all of his friends. Of course, Gloria Stuart was there, but also Larry and Faye Powell, Bob and Lorraine Vosper, Jake Zeitlin, John Dreyfus, Muir and Agnes Dawson, Glen Dawson, and a host of others; too many to really remember all of the names.?

But it was my meeting with Joe that sticks in my mind. Chuck took him and me into the alcove in the living room and introduced us. He encouraged Joe to show me his latest book, Birds of Paradise, that Joe had finished the previous year. Almost embarrassed, Joe pushed it over to me. I was not prepared for what I would see. A new world of books opened for me on that day. Sure I had seen beautiful rare books; what good self-respecting librarian hadn't been in a rare book room or two. We certainly had them at the State Library, and my history of the book course at the University of Michigan had introduced me to the possibilities.

This was a new experience. The book covers were glass covering a set of incredible serigraphs, signatures bound with bamboo rods. But it was inside the covers that dazzled the eye. The double-page folding screen, the inset patterned paper encircling bold type, the decorations throughout were all something quite dif-ferent. There was something about this experience that would stay with me through my association with D'Ambrosio that spanned that time until his untimely passing. Incidentally, my copy of the broadside Joe made to commemorate the event of the day is numbered "1/100" which he slipped to me during that meeting. He told me the "dignitaries" were all to receive those marked "AP." I treasure that to this day along with most of the broadsides joe created over the years.

I was later to learn that he had been in Los Angeles only a short time, coming from Illinois where he had ventured into the creation of artist's books after a career in engineering. His almost apologetic nature that someone would appreciate his work would follow our relationship over many years. As our friendship grew, I would often stop by his print shop-half of the garage in the San Fernando Valley where he would have otherwise parked his car—to catch up and visit. I was always welcomed as a long-time friend. I began collecting his books; actually a stretch for my budget with a family and an all too small salary paid to the State Librarian of California. Each became a treasured addition.

As we began to plan for the 150th anniversary of the California State Library, it was to Joe that I turned to create something very special to mark that event. The result was a triptych of the front of the State Library rendered with cast paper of its two statues and the three entry doors. Credit to myself and Gary Kurutz was arrayed in the rendering of the work. That limited edition would mark the anniversary. Joe produced a prospectus in which his interpretation of the California poppy would serve as an ornament. When I arrived at UCLA, Joe used that ornament as the background for a bookplate that he created for my own collection. When my wife Carolyn and I established in endowment at the UCLA Library on my sixty-fifth birthday, Joe used that design again to create the bookplate that will note our contributions into the UCLA collection in future years.

With the triptych project behind us and a project to construct the Library and Courts Il on the horizon, I approached Joe and asked if he might be interested in designing the floor of the entryway to the building. We had talked about such a commission over time and it was now time to see if it could be executed. Joe's design was a burst of random letters encircling a stylized "CS in the center. It would be rendered in terrazzo under Joe's careful eye. Today this is one of the highlights one crosses as you enter this building, a living testament to his legacy among book artists in California.

During the time when the State Library hosted the California Center for the Book, Joe presented classes, always filled, on book arts topics. He had done this in various places in the past, and having him in Sacramento for these was a treat. I recall one such visit where he insisted on coming to our home and making Carolyn and me dinner. The risotto was memorable. Joe also began a long-term relationship with The Book Club of California and the Sacramento Book Collectors Club, creating exhibitions and keepsakes that are precious to those who were lucky enough to pick one up at an event or gathering. His attendance and talks at both of these groups were legendary.

In March of 1994, Carolyn and I drove to the Bay Area to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the California Literacy Campaign. Hundreds of learners, tutors, and library staff were gathering for a gala celebration of reading and literacy. Coming off of the elevator we ran into Joe. I could not believe our luck. Here he was; but why? We chatted a moment and he made some lame excuse as to why he was there-obviously flustered with our meeting. As I was rushing off to open the festivities, it didnt really cross my mind until later in the evening, when I looked down from the dais to see him sitting in the audience. During the course of the evening's program, I was presented with a "one-of-a-kind" volume that the staff had orchestrated without my knowledge. They had gathered individual written greetings and best wishes from every program and many leaders in literacy that Joe had assembled and bound together with an introductory section. Carolyn and I sat up into the night reading them all, and it is a high spot of my D'Ambrosio collection.

I would leave Sacramento in 1994 and move to Queens, New York City, but my relationship with Joe would flourish. He had moved to Arizona after the Northridge earthquake, so when Carolyn and I would visit Scottsdale during the February retreat from New York winters, we would catch up. Joe would set aside a copy of every book or broadside that he did, sending it along to me for my growing collection. When I decided to curate an exhibition at the Queens Library on the "Book as Art," I asked Joe to create a broadside for the exhibit opening and exhibited many of his books as an integral part of the exhibition. He would design a personal bookplate for me using the Queens "Q" as a design element.

For our daughter Jen's wedding, I asked Joe if he could create a book similar to what he had done for me earlier as a gift to Jen and her fiancé Josh. We placed bond paper and pens around the tables on that day, people wrote messages to the newlyweds, and we gathered them together. Joe created a truly wonderful remembrance of the day with a unique design that included blank pages for Jen and Josh to add memories of their lives together over the years to come.

During the past six years, I have worked to fill in the gaps of my D'Ambrosio holdings, acquiring a number of his one-of-a-kind commissions, mostly from his friend and collaborator Jim Lorson, as well as from the rare book market. As Joe experimented with books on CD, he made sure I had some of the mock-ups he used to produce these electronic creations.

It is difficult to say enough about someone who influenced one's life in so many ways. Joe's friendship, our collaborations, and my appreciation for his talent, artistry, and belief in creating beautiful things will be remembered and treasured.

ENDNOTES

I. Joe D'Ambrosio died on September 18, 2009. The State Library has many examples of his work including mockups, trial proofs, letters, and photographs. Joe created for the Library & Courts Il Building a spectacular terrazzo floor celebrating the Roman alphabet. Dr. Monell, then a resident of Hancock Park, Los Angeles, served on the Foundation's Board of Directors for many years.

2. The names mentioned at this garden party included distinguished librarians, book collectors, antiquarian booksellers, and book artists.

3. ”AP" means artist's proof.

Gary E. Strong is UCLA University Librarian, former director of the Queensborough Public Library California State Librarian, and founder of the State Library Foundation. He is a generous donor to the Foundation and has formed a truly elegant collection of California fine press books.

[notations on images]

(Opposite page: Top) A Nest of Robins (1999) shows D'Ambrosio's incredible imagination and skill. In addition to this copy, the Library has four experimental models of this delightful miniature book.

(Opposite page: Bottom) This photograph beautifully captures the gentle and beaming nature of this brilliant book artist.

(This page: Top] In 2003, Joe generously created this miniature keepsake on the occasion of the hanging of the Gregory Kondos oil painting On the Sacramento River in the reading room of the Braille and Talking Book Library.

(Bottom left) Joe created for Gloria Stuart this binding with castpaper of her The Inscriptions at Tor House and Hawk Tower. The Library has copy eighteen of fifty copies.

(Bottom right) Using a variety of materials, Joe produced this stunning binding of leather, copper, and hand-marbled paper for his retrospective bibliography, Nineteen Years and Counting. It was published in 1989 in an edition of seventy-five copies. The Library has copy number five.

D'Ambrosio created this extraordinary binding for The Small Garden of Gloria Stuart. It is copy number forty of fifty copies.

The tide page and binding for Oaxaca and the Saguaro Cactus (1996). The Library has copy number three of twenty-five copies of the deluxe edition. It is bound in Clansmen Niger goatskin with an inlaid figure of cactus on the front cover.

(Left Middle and bottom) Printer's plate and silk screen printing in honor of Gary Strong's contributions to the State Library. A copy hangs in the rotunda of the Library & Courts Il Building.

(Below) A Memoir of Book Design, 1969-2000 superbly documents his notable career as a book artist. The binding shown here is copy nine of twelve copies of the deluxe edition. It is bound in morocco grained leather, copper, and crumpled paper. It features a self-portrait on the front cover and a sunrise / sunset on the back.

Preliminary drawing for Birds of Paradise.

Ann Whipple recenty donated this artist's proof copy of D'Ambrosio's The Diamond Wager. A miniature book printed in 2005, it demonstrates the amazing blending of his artistic and engineering abilities.