With horses neighing nearby, I crouched down to study the California Poppies, sketching them as light hit their petals. I thought of the people who lived on this land before me - Costanoan, Coast Miwok, Luiseno, Cahuilla, Pomo. It is in looking back that we often learn the best way forward.
Cup of Gold references the indigenous people of Northern California who relied on the poppy for its healing properties, juxtaposed with the Spanish settlers who viewed land as for the taking. Poem and pochoir-printed images all on Crane’s Lettra. Text is set in Kabel and letterpress printed from wood type and polymer plates. All prints are housed in a folio made from Saint Armand paper and attached using non-adhesive methods. The deluxe variable edition, numbered 1-5, includes an original landscape monotype on Rives BFK and is housed in a four-flap enclosure made from Colorplan paper. In the standard edition, numbered 6-40, the monotype is reproduced as an archival pigmented print on Red River Aurora Art White paper.
This book was created in a horse barn (turned print studio) at In Cahoots Residency in Petaluma, California and in the artist’s studio in North Adams, Massachusetts.
8 7/8” x 5 3/4”
Deluxe Edition (1 - 5) $300 includes original monotype and paper enclosure. Two copies remain.
Standard Edition (6 - 40) $125.
Selected for inclusion in the following exhibitions: Reclamation: Artists’ Books on the Environment at the San Francisco Center for the Book, The International Art of the Book Exhibition at Rochester Public Library, Pulp: Book and Paper Arts Exhibition at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, New England Guild of Book Workers 40th Anniversary Exhibition at the Boston Athenaeum, and Ecology: A Monotype Guild of New England Exhibition at The Silver Center, Plymouth State University.
In the collections of Baylor University, Colby College and Bryant University.
Photography by Stephen Petegorsky
Generations walked these fields
gathering the fiery flowers in springtime.
Leaves to soothe restless sleep
Roots to cure toothaches
Pollen to paint on bodies
Petals to chew for sweetness.
Spanish settlers arriving off the coast
thought the land was on fire.
They called the flower copa de oro,
and there they foolishly dug for gold.