“For quite some time I’d been turning around in my head the idea of making relief prints using sections of lumber rather than planks of wood.  I had already used sections of quarter-inch pine to lay out an image on a stone at ULAE (Universal Limited Art Editions), but it was only for layout purposes—seeing the wood laid on the stone was probably the first moment when it occurred to me to use wood as line, or wood as move.

Flying Horse Editions invited me to make a print with Master Printer Larry Cooper, and this project came to mind as something that could be worked on indirectly—wood could be cut according to a plan, much like an architect’s elevation.  When I found out that Larry is also a Master Bookbinder, wheels started to turn.  I’d just finished a book with Marjorie Welish at Granary Books that included some assembly/disassembly drawings, images that carry out the process of their making through a group of images in sequence, or a sequence of images on one page.

It had been my original intention to make the single print, by itself; single-sided, with numbers “explaining” the sequence of moves that determine the formation of the image.  But once the book idea came along, it was just too good an opportunity to pass up:  make a continuous folded book with all of the moves represented in a cumulative sequence, going forward on one side and ‘undoing’ itself in reverse colors on the other side.  And once that was determined, it was clear that the single print had to be double-sided, in order to reflect the idea of the book.”

— James Siena, April 8, 2010

Printed by Larry Cooper, assisted by Greg Leibowitz, at Flying Horse Press, Orlando, Florida.
Binding by Book Lab II, San Marcos, Texas.
36 relief prints from multiple oak blocks, printed on both sides of the Masa paper pages. 43cm x 34cm. 38 pages. Signed edition of 20, plus 3 artist’s proofs and 3 printer’s proofs. 2010.