One Eye Less by Plimpton, Sarah - 2006

New York, 2006. Artist's Book, one of 15 copies, all on Arches 88 paper, signed and numbered by the artist / author, Sarah Plimpton. Page size: 14-5/16 inches x 10-5/16 inches; 20pp. Each of the 20 pages has original silkscreen prints by the artist / author in bold colors. The text is set in Monotype Bodoni and was printed in gray by the artist with the help of Brad Ewing at The Grenfell Press. Bound: loose as issued in original plain buff wrapper, housed in gray cloth clamshell box by Claudia Cohen with title and artist's name in gild on black morocco label on spine, fine. Ms. Plimpton's six poems are surrounded by strong shapes in a black, tan, light and dark gray, orange, light and dark brown, light and darker blue, and a magical red. Circles intersect with rectangles and squares, jagged edges, and forms with circular shapes cut out, intersect with perpendicular lines. What the mind's eye sees is interpreted in words and images by this wonderful artist. The tension created by the strong blocks of color sandwiching much small circles, or the blanks of white left in circular cut-outs are matched by the compressed texts, i.e. "Vertigo / the eye bent / inside / held tight / a railing / on the edge of looking down." An interior vision is made exterior and the reader, luckily, gets to share. Certainly this is one of Ms. Plimpton's strongest books to date. The rich colors are immediately compelling and pull in the viewer / reader.