Nightfall/A list of the broken
By: art by Elizabeth Raybee ; poetry by Armand Brint
Contributors: Brint, Armand, 1952- poet; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [Elizabeth Raybee]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: [Potter Valley, California]
Language: eng
Subjects: Violence; Pictorial works; Booksellers and bookselling; Bombings; Iraq War, 2003-2011; Protest movements; Books and reading in art; Intellectual life; Social conditions; Censorship; Terrorism in art; In art; War and civilization; Vehicle bombs; Visual literature; Specimens; Mosaics; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Other titles: Nightfall; List of the broken
Description: "Both artists were moved by hearing about al-Mutanabbi Street, and created work specifically for this project - feeling very much in solidarity with the reaction. Armand Brint wrote the poems Nightfall & A list of the broken. Elizabeth Raybee built mosaics for each poem and made an accordion with two covers, so that both poems are equally featured. A List of the broken represents broken lives in a way unique to mosaics. Nightfall is glass-on-glass, appropriately done on a window rescued from a junk heap in New Orleans several months after hurricane Katrina; rebuilding a new life out of disaster"--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

Elizabeth Raybee has exhibited widely in museums and galleries, has been commissioned for many public mural projects and has work in several mosaic books, including Mosaic art now, Making mosaics, Public mosaics of San Francisco and Design sourcebook: mosaics. Armand Brint was Ukiah, California's first poet laureate. He has three books of poetry: Schools of light ('95), The league of slow cities ('01), and In the name of wonder ('13).
Notes: Medium: Printed reproductions of mosaics & hand painted watercolor covers on Arches paper. Two books, one on each side of the accordion.

On March 5th, 2007, a car bomb exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. Al-Mutanabbi Street is located in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the longstanding heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community for centuries. In response to the attack, a San Francisco poet and bookseller, Beau Beausoleil, rallied a community of international artists and writers to produce a collection of letterpress-printed broadsides (poster-like works on paper), artists' books (unique works of art in book form), and an anthology of writing, all focused on expressing solidarity with Iraqi booksellers, writers and readers. The coalition of contributing artists calls itself Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition.

This collection supports and promotes awareness to the important mission and framework of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition's focus on the lasting power of the written word and the arts in support of the free expression of ideas, the preservation of shared cultural spaces, and the importance of responding to attacks, both overt and subtle, on artists, writers, and academics working under oppressive regimes or in zones of conflict, despite the destruction of that literary/cultural content.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.