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Bird Mountain
Author/s: Amanda Park Taylor, Marshall Weber, Kurt Allerslev, and C.K.Wilde
Edition: 1
Year: 2004
Price: SOLD
Bird Mountain
A major piece in a long series of A.Y.P. collaborations by Allerslev, Weber and Wilde, whose work together focuses on using spontaneous expressionistic practices, innovative media, and organic materials to push the book to extreme structural forms in
order to evoke subject matter concerned with the interface between global ecology and human culture.Bird Mountain is a trapezoidal dose-do book and book sculpture with a text illuminating fateful encounters in fiery mountainscapes of gold and skies full of feathered wings. The book is a rollercoaster ride for the eyes, and knowledge of English is not a primary requirement for enjoying the book as riding your eyes down the craggy heights and swooning turns of the pages provides ample aesthetic stimulation. The book opens fully with front and back cover touching to form a sculptural evocation of a mountainous landscape further elaborated by the variant page sizes and shapes. The book also functions as a codex opening from the mountain side with smaller scale imagery and writing which forms a poem whose words literally start to dissolve and disappear as they meet another version of the poem from the bird side. Reverse and turn the book over and you can start from the bird side where the calligraphy is composed of large swooping lettering reminiscent of New York Wild Style graffiti.
The paper is Richard DeBas', Hannemuhl, and Rives Heavey weight, with HuPi and Cork end sheets. The original sheets were rectangles that were relief printed with blocks made of birch bark, old Styrofoam coffee cups, and silicon casting of worm trails (Amanda Taylor-Park contributed to the artwork during this process.) The sheets were then drawn, stained, painted, punched, rubbed and cut over a period of three years by the collaborators. Wilde then bound the book with linen tapes and wrapped the boards with Sake' packaging. The bound book (including glued in boards) was then cut on the New York Center for the Book Arts giant motor driven guillotine, much to the consternation of the studio manager.
Meanwhile the text bounced between the collaborators till it was finally calligraphed into the bound book by Marshall Weber. After further staining, painting and calligraphy a final pass with the Xacto blade by the binder revealed the shapes of the letterforms juxtaposed through the book. Allerslev, a professional pharmacognocist, contributed much of his knowledge regarding organic plant dyes and the final processing of the book included a generous washing with tumeric paint. Marshalls engaugement of the caligraphy makes the reader flip the book at the exact mid point and read the text upside down. We here at AYP favour the active reader particepent, as you may have noticed. This book is active on many levels, but check it out for your self.
MP3 of Marshall, Kurt, and C. reading "Bird Mountain" (MP3, 1.2 MB)
Bird Mountain KA
Quiet wands cross on
bird mountain
smoke wings float like dream mirrors
through lilac drifts
falling so noble that earth finds your feet
we were watching so we saw
did you see us up on
bird mountain
we were watching cloudy words punctuating
o
curves of flight
straight lines of conclusions led to
nowhere we could sea
no calculations exist
for the volatility
and swirling beauty of air
swayed
by the wings of
bird mountain
no grind for us to impose our casual
grandeur
no root or cause for the arcs of
grace
that caught us up and made us swoon high
over
bird mountain
we were so we saw
did you see us
we were watching
upon bird mountain
BIRD MOUNTAIN CW
Quiet swords cross on
bird mountain
smoke wings float like dream mirrors
falling is so noble when earth greets your
feet
we were watching where we saw
did you see us up on
bird mountain
we were watching cloud words punctuating
the curves of flight
and we were confused by attempts to draw
straight a line of conclusions
no calculations exist
for the unpredictability
and the beauty of air
moved
by the wings of
bird mountain
no grid for us to impose in our casual
grandeur
no explanation or cause for the arcs of
grace
that caught us up and made us swoon high
over
bird mountain
we were where we saw
did you see us
we were watching
upon bird mountain
BIRD MOUNTAIN MW
Quiet swords cross on bird mountain
smoke wings float like dream mirrors
falling is so noble when the earth greets your feet
we were watching
did you see us
we were watching
up on bird mountain
where we saw
cloud words punctuating the curves of flight
and we were confused
by our brain's attempts to draw straight line
conclusions
no calculations exist for the unpredictability
and the beauty of air moved
by the wings of bird mountain
no grid for us to impose in our casual grandeur
no explanation or cause for the arcs of grace
that caught us up and made us swoon
high over bird mountain
did you see us
we were watching
up on bird mountain
This book can be read at Smith College, MA.
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