Kaleidoscope
By: an Artists' Book with visual poetry
Edition: edition, 250, originally scheduled to be 300
Publisher: Marilyn R. Rosenberg
Published: June 1983
Place of publication: Funded, in a small part, by a grant from the N E A to the Writer’s Center Offset workshop
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 61
ISBN-13: 9780913615003
Subjects: History - General; Art & Art Instruction
Description: The offset medium in mind-Each color required a color separation -a frosted Mylar sheet upon which drawings and words were created in reverse image, for that particular color. From these separate color sheets  metal plates were made, each color to print separately. The dark blue is a mixed color, the other blue, yellow and red are process colors. In combinations, printed in  tone layers, the colors created orange, green and violet.  Die cuts on the press cut the holes and the folded edges. Creating violet, red and blue were printed from separate Mylar drawings for the cover. The collage pieces were  hand cut from the trim cover scraps and glued  inside. Each of the bookworks, in the edition of 250, has a hand sewn binding . The covers glued, and the reflective  Mylar was cut and pasted within it. The Mylar sheets and the signature sheets trimmed and folded were sew into the cover. After a year and a half the edition was completed. Each viewer/ reader enjoys finding her/himself the Mylar mirror image.  As the pages unfold, the mirror image facilitates the merging of forms, and the diffusion of edges. There is actual and implied fragmentation in the poetry, drawings and the reflections.  A few holes, collage, the folding and unfolding, plus semi-transparent paper on opaque, contributes to the adding on, overlap and taking away, enticing the reader/viewer in to involved playful participation.  As the bookwork can be read in either direction,  suggested and real, seeing is both forward and backward (in time), through and beyond  in time and in space. Numbers and alphabet function as content and form.  They act as clues to the content and to the refolding of the bookwork, once it is open.  The poems play games with words as they refer to some of the colors.  All of the words are actually found in the English language, and are derived from the few words in the poems titles.  A few of the poems are attached. All alludes to reflection, growth, expansion and compression, change, and movement.  Questioned is reality and illusion.
Notes: Reviews:  Judith A. Hoffberg,  "Artists' Books: news and reviews". Umbrella, 6, No. 5 (Nov. 1983), p. 152. Kempton, Karl.  "Visual Poetry & Language Art Books". Kaldron, No. 17 (Spring 1984).
Reference: Stephen Bury, ARTISTS’ BOOKS: THE BOOK AS A WORK OF ART, 1963 1995. Adershot (Hants, England)/Brookfield (Vermont, USA): Scolar Press, 1995, (a bibliographic listing p.136)
Jean Brown Papers, Research Library, Special Collection,  Getty Research Library . See IRIS  Getty Research www.getty.edu/gri/htm/findingaids/html
Oberlin Library: <http://www.oberlin.edu/~library/colldev/newbooks/apr-jun00/NB-N_NB..html>