Taking Flight: a portfolio of broadsides by women printmakers of the San Francisco Bay Area

Berkeley, California: Mayacamas Press, 1993. First Edition. Softcover. Near Fine. 4to 11" - 13" tall. This is a special portfolio indeed and that is scarcely available to the trade. O.C.L.C. lists a total of six copies in toto, complete, three being located in California, two in Massachusetts, and one in Rhode Island. This is copy #53 of only 75 copies, comprised of 30 prints struck on only one side, and 26 of those 30 are copies from the artists themselves. A matched, full, collated-as-complete set. Each is signed by the woman artist and then numbered. Barbara Parsons' Introduction says that "[m]any of the artists accepted the challenge of the broadside as an opportunity for dynamic experimentation with image and text; others illustrated more conventionally. It is not always easy to steer a clear course with so many hands grabbing for the tiller, but Taking Flight proves that ancient axiom: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." Robert Flynn Johnson, then head of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, highlights that "The works of art are by women," and that the format of the broadside is "as old as paper and ink." The title page is a bit soiled and smudged but notes the date, title, sub-title, press and location, and with some shadow-through to verso. The Table of Contents notes the special limitation of the item, that design and typography were carried out by Barbara Parsons and Gilman Parsons, that the letterpress was executed on Rives BFK, Hosho and Magnani papers were used by Barbara Parsons at the Mayacamas Press. The portfolio is missing the custom-built linen box. The portfolio is comprised of the following: "Fly out over the city," the first line in a poem by Marge Piercy; "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Boyd," illustrated by Linda Rae Boyd; "Dittany," by Rena Rosenwasser (illustrated by Kate Delos); "Our love was not other than this ... ," being the first line in an untitled poem by George Seferis (illustrated by Barbara Galuszka Parsons); "Impaled," attributed anonymously, illustrated by Norma Andersen Fox; "Parzifal," by Wolfram von Eschenbach (illustrated by Sue Rifenberick);"What is going on inside me I cannot tell," the first line of a poem by Antoine de Saint Exupéry (illustrated by Yun Sun Lee); "These two came into the presence of Zeus ...," the first line of a poem by Homer (illustrated by Eleanor Rappe); "Aurora," by Frederick Pierce (illustrated by Patricia Sondgren Smith); "Taking flight," a poem illustrated by Betty Bates; "Invective Against Swans," by Wallace Stevens (illustrated by Carol Meyer Doyle); "The way back," by Angelo Presicci (illustrated by Lilibet Dewey); "The windhover," Gerard Manley Hopkins (illustrated by Elizabeth Quandt); "The Artists," by Barbara Swift Brauer (Jackie Kirk); "In a memorandum which has come to my desk ...," by G.C. Brant (illustrated by Linda Rae Boyd); "Eternity," by William Blake (illustrated by Anne Hicks Siberell); "She took flight and he followed," illustrated by Soumaya Khoury Kassab and Aelyas Kassab; "The Flight," by Madeline Gleason (illustrated by Sherana Harriette Frances); "Nature had given him a sign," by Stephen Crane (Barbara Foster); "In placid hours well-pleased we dream of many a brave unbodied scheme ...," Herman Melville (Sherry Smith Bell); "At the new moon, Rosk Hodesh," by Marge Piercy (illustrated by Barbara Leventhal Stern); "Flower-de-luce," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (illustrated by Victoria Johnson); "Self-willed pinions fan the rise of incensed flames," by Clarissa J. Welsh (illustrated by Glen Rogers Perrotto); "No rack can torture me ...," the first line of a poem by Emily Dickinson (illustrated by Katherine Metz); "The hawk," by W.B. Yeats (illustrated by Holly Downing); "To test whether a genetically altered migration program was causing these birds to deviate some 800 miles from the rest," two snippets from "Bird-watching biologists see evolution on the wing," from the New York Times (illustrated by Sylvia Solochek); Barbara Swift Bauer, "The Artists" (illustrated by Jackie Kirch); "Taking control," by Jeannette Ross (illustrated by Robert Loach) "Heart and soul, floating journey ...," by Keiko Nelson (crimp to upper-left tip); Frederick Pierce, "Aurora" (illustrated by Patricia Sondgren Smith).Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. Additional postage may be required for oversize or especially heavy volumes, and for sets.