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Snowgarden

Item date(s): 2007

Nancy Ruth Leavitt


Pages: unpaged
Size: 345mm
Inscription: Signed and dated by the artist


Place publication: Stillwater, Maine
Publisher: Artists Book

Additional notes:
Snowgarden contains eight poems about winter by seven 19th century American women writers including Adelaide Grapsey, Eliza Lee Dabot Follen, Mary Weston Fordham, Elizabeth Clementine Dodge Kinney, Hannah Flagg Gould, Emily Elizabeth Dicinson, and Lydia Huntley Sigourney.

Pages are lettered in water color. This book was completed in April 2007, with deep snow lingering over the garden in Stillwater, Maine. In a cushioned drop-back box.

Bookseller's description:

One-of-a-kind artist's book by Nancy Leavitt containing eight poems about winter by seven 19th century American women poets, on vintage pale blue T. H. Sanders paper and the artist's own paste paper. Page size: 13 x 8-1/2 inches; 88pp; including colophon and painted flyleaves. Bound by Joelle Leavitt Webber at the Mermaid Bindery in midnight blue velvet studded with white seed pearls, covering paper wrappers, and housed in blue silk clamshell box lined in blue velvet with paper label painted and lettered by Nancy Leavitt in blue on lighter blue "skyscape." This is an extraordinary assemblage of texts, interpreted by the artist in a beautiful book, taking the reader from the "first breath of wintry wind…" which is lettered in an ominous gray on an equally-ominous gray landscape to the much anticipated "Snowdrop" lettered in vivid spring green. The paintings that surround or anticipate each page of text are impressions of the landscape. The texts between the gray of the first snow and the green of "Snowdrop" are lettered in a strong blue against or opposite a snowscape with the horizon line - actually snow line - at the top quarter of the page. The darker colors, then, are of the sky and the bottom 3/4 of the landscape is the whites of snow. The artist has also used embossing and debossing on many pages of the book - in vertical wavy lines - suggesting snow drifts, opposing the painted snow scenes which show the landscape horizontally.

Reading this selection of texts by 19th century American women poets leads us to understand why the artist chose them for such an extraordinarily beautiful and inspirational presentation. While elegant editions of Poe, Whitman, and Whittier abound, few exist honoring the work of these important American voices. This book goes beyond that - creating not only homage but a revaluing and reinterpretation completely valid today. Ms. Leavitt has lettered a brief biography of each author that is a fold out or a separate page preceding the text. Following is a short summary. Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914), Vassar graduate and Smith College teacher, developed a new verse form, the cinquain, a five-line form of 22 syllables which suited her concise form of expression. Eliza Follen (1787-1860), poet, biographer, editor, novelist, and abolitionist was part of the literary Boston / Cambridge of her day. Mary Fordham (1862-?) was an African American poet who we know only from the publication of her book, MAGNOLIA LEAVES in 1897. It featured an introduction by Booker T. Washington and the verse, "Softly as the gliding stream, / Falls the glittering, sparkling snow. / With its wealth of crystal pearls / Shining pure …" obviously the inspiration for the binding on this beautiful book. Elizabeth Kinney (1810-1889), published poet in her own lifetime, was part of the Brownings' circle in Italy. Hannah Gould (1789-1865) was born in Lancaster, MA but spent much of her life in Newburyport, MA where she cared for her widowed father and wrote poetry for a number of periodicals and book publication. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) is considered, along with Walt Whitman, one of the two quintessential American poets of the 19th century. Lydia Sigourney (1791-1865) called the "Sweet Singer of Hartford" published more than 50 books during her lifetime.

Ref: GB/11333







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