Lesley Dill collaborated with Dieu Donné master papermaker Paul Wong to custom design unique watermarks and pigments for each page of this limited edition artist’s book.

Dill also worked directly with master printer Peter Kruty over a period of three years to letterpress print 31 pages of imagery that illuminate the poem “Blueprint,” by Tom Sleigh. Each page is a distinctive print with binding designed to allow the pages of the book to be taken apart and framed individually or in layers, which accentuate the use of translucent pages to build the artist’s imagery.

Bound, the text block drapes beautifully as it is handled. The book’s sections are like a series of arias, each with a different emotional tone, that build to a climax at the end of the book.

Dieu Donné Press publisher Sue Gosin collaborated with the creative team throughout the project to create this edition of 30.

I had a blueprint
of history
in my head —

it was a history of the martyrs
of love, the fools
of tyrants, the tyrants
themselves weeping
at the fate of their own soldiers —

a sentimental blueprint,
lacking depth —
a ruled axis X and Y
whose illusions
were bearable …
then unbearable …
– “Blueprint,” Tom Sleigh, 2007