Frolic Architecture

Howe, Susan and James Welling

Published by Grenfell Press, 2010

About this Item

11 x 8 1/2 in. clamshell box with 68 pp. sewn book, printed letterpress. Featuring 48 collage poems by Susan Howe and 10 photograms by James Welling, issued with signed photogram/poem. The poems in Frolic Architecture were inspired by Susan Howe's experience of viewing various manuscripts, sermon notebooks, books, and pamphlets of the eighteenth-century American Calvinist theologian Jonathan Edwards in the vast collection of Edwards family papers at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in New Haven, Connecticut. Especially by the folder in Box 24 titled "Wetmore, Hannah Edwards, 1713 1773, Diary, 1736 39, copy in the hand of Lucy Wetmore Whittelsey, with commentary/n.d." Using multi-purpose copy paper, scissors, "invisible" scotch tape, and a Canon Copier PC170, Howe collaged fragments of this "private writing" with a mix of sources from other conductors and revealers in the thick of "things-before." In August 2009, James Welling produced a group of black and white photograms on 8 x 10 inch Kodak Polymax Fine Art paper. He painted on a thin-enough-to-fold sheet of clear Mylar and placed this on top of unexposed photographic paper. After exposing and processing the sheet, Welling added paint to the Mylar to make additional unique photograms. Eventually the Mylar became covered in paint, and Welling began again with a new sheet. In Frolic Architecture Welling used 3 Mylar sheets. In the photograms, Welling acknowledges the collection of Edwards Family material at the Yale Beinecke Library that Susan Howe encouraged him to explore before beginning his work on Frolic Architecture. Frolic Architecturewas printed letterpress on Somerset paper at The Grenfell Press by Brad Ewing, with 10 photograms printed in James Welling's studio. The book was bound by Claudia Cohen using handmade Izumo Mitsumata-shi and Cave papers. This is from an edition of 26 copies, and issued with a separate, signed photogram/poem. As new.

Seller Inventory # 3717

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Frolic Architecture
• Publisher: Grenfell Press
• Publication Date: 2010
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Poet/Artist Collaborations
  • Susan Howe
  • Artists' Books
  • Fine Printing
  • Poetry