The Flight Into Egypt: Binding the Book (Signed)
San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1995.
First Edition. Hardcover.
First Edition, First Printing. Signed by the author on the title page and half-title.
A reproduction of a one-of-a-kind painted book originally entitled Binding the Book: The Flight into Egypt, which was conceived in Portland, Oregon in 1983 and built in 1984. It was completed in 1985 in New York. The original is 16-1/2 x 13” and includes bits of papyrus and pigments ground from flint that was gathered near the site of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
In 1928, Clyde James Ely took a 16-week sojourn in Egypt. In 1985, his grandson, artist Timothy Ely, was inspired to create a handbound artist’s book to chronicle his grandfather’s journey.
From the artist’s introduction: “I wanted to create a manual, a device which, like a mandala, would impart or reveal certain knowledge if meditated upon. I envisioned a bookbinding manual that could function like a device for rote psychotronic memorization. By drawing the book, I could then build the book. By drawing the book, I could transform my oblong identity from Painter to Bookbinder. In this book, the maps of unspecified sites are so important that they overshadow the need for a decoded text. Isometry provides direction by expressing the journey of Clyde J. Ely through the Egyptian landscape into the inner organs of a manual on bookbinding: Clyde went to Egypt because of a book. The book traces part of its evolution to Egypt. My Egyptian book comes from Clyde’s (woodworking) tools. Hence the triad visual narrative."
From the foreword by Terence McKenna: “And then there it was, the open tome - part book, part journey, part secret doctrine, part jewel. The heavy pages must be turned carefully; the aura of magical craft is inescapable.”
Item #900912ISBN: 0811806200
11-1/8 x 14-1/8”, ¼ gilt-decorated leatherette, pictorial paper over boards, unpaginated, 56pp, color illustrations throughout.
Staining to title page, else fine with fine wrap-around band rear board.
Price: $75.00