I was on my Way Up the Stairs to See You. Calligraphy by Nancy Leavitt

[Berkeley, CA]: Blood Root Press, 2000. One of 135 copies, all on Frankfurt Cream and Deep Green Ingres paper in three colors, each hand numbered and signed by the author / artist / printer, Jean Buescher and the calligrapher, Nancy Leavitt. Page size: 4-3/4 inches x 6-1/2 inches; 20 pages. Bound by Jean Buescher: hand-made papers by Anne Marie Kennedy of raw flax and cotton rag cover papers over boards, framed and pigmented pale blue and red oxide; appliqué and embroidery by Jean Buescher in shape of glove, outlined with hem stitch in white and vase in blue outlined in black basting stitch; second vase on its side outlined in black chain stitch, exposed spine, guards of Red Roma paper. Title page with original gouache of artichoke in greens and blue and brown on pink ground, small gouache device on colophon page. Letter press printed by Jean Buescher from metal engravings of Nancy Leavitt's original calligraphy in blue/gray, pink/red and brown on green and cream colored papers; printing accomplished on a Vandercook Universal I at the Digger Pine Press. Nancy Leavitt's beautiful calligraphy is elegantly spaced bringing life to Jean Buescher's tender words. Art critic Maureen Bloomfield has written of Ms. Buescher's work, "The energy...emanates from the interval; the space between act and aftermath; desire and effect. That her poems are thus often about space and the corresponding sensation and suspension of time makes me feel as if her work is best read not in typescript but in the context of a handmade book." In this book the combination of Nancy Leavitt's art is securely intertwined with that of Jean Buescher's - making it a distinct pleasure to hold, view and read.