#stone pattern

Marbled Monday

This week's Marbled Monday is all about The Art of the Book! The Art of the Book: A Review of Some Recent European and American Work in Typography, Page Decoration & Binding was created by Charles Holme and published in New York and London by "The Studio" Ltd. in 1914. It includes examples of many different contemporary trends and styles and elements of book design, some of which are shown here.

It also includes a lovely binding with some interesting marbled paper. It is half bound in leather with marbled paper over boards. I say the marbling is interesting because it doesn't really follow an established pattern. It's most nearly a Turkish or stone pattern, but includes some irregular swirling that was done with a stylus. The colors are a great contrasting mix of light and dark blue, orange, and brownish maroon. The light blue is actually just the color of the paper itself, which we can tell because of the wear to the cover where it has worn through the marbling.

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Swordtember day 27: Pattern

Marbled Monday

Marbling reminiscent of river stones? Sure, why not?! This lovely blue, grey, and white marbling adorns the cover of Brief Lives, a book of poems by American poet and professor William Dickey (1928-1994) published in 1985. The poem shown here is the first poem in the book.

William Dickey was professor of English and creative writing at San Francisco State University and wrote 15 books over the span of his career. His partner Leonard Sanazaro was also a poet and teacher at City College of San Francisco, as well as a scholar on the work and life of Sylvia Plath. Dickey passed away in 1994 from HIV-related complications.

The marbling, book design, and printing were all done by letterpress printer and paper marbler Robin Heyeck at the Heyeck Press in Woodside, California. It is a stone or Turkish pattern printed on light grey laid stock with darker grey and light blue forming the pattern. To create this pattern, colors are simply dropped into the bath on top of one another—the new drops push the ones already in the bath away, creating the veining that mimics marble.

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Marbled Monday

This week's marbling was found on the binding of a book we've posted about before: Root and Sky: Poetry from the Plays of Christopher Fry. The text was compiled and arranged by Charles E. and Jean G. Wadsworth with collagraph-intaglios designed and printed by Charles E. Wadsworth (1917-2002). Charles E. Wadsworth was a painter, printmaker, and poet who lived in Cranberry Isles, Maine with his wife, author Jean G. Howard-Wadsworth. You can learn more about the book in our previous post here.

The marbling is most closely resembles a traditional stone pattern, but does have some swirling or dragging done using a stylus. The main background is a creamy color, which looks darker in person than in the photos shown here. On top of that is green and black and grey, which are sort of swirled around a bit in an asymmetrical way. Finally there is a mushroom-y purple-y brown sprinkled on top and sometimes swirled into the other colors. It's a very earthy color palette, which compliments the muted mossy green cloth of the spine and slipcase.

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An example of a huge farmhouse full sun backyard river rock landscaping in spring.