A poem by Dan Carr with three woodcuts by Julia Ferrari created after hiking the Rattlesnake Mountains along the western edge of Squam Lake, New Hampshire. Squam, a large lake north of the more widely known Winnipesaukee, was featured in “On Golden Pond.” It has many coves and several islands and consists of two connected lakes. The early Algonquin name meant highland goose lake. It is the home of a large population of Loons, aquatic birds that have been called the most ancient surviving bird (now thought to be covergently evolved for similar habitat to the ancient grebe). Their call still evokes the sense of the prehistoric. Abenaki tribes lived on the hospitable shores of the lake for many centuries. The view from the popular Rattlesnake Mountain ridge is extraordinary and at the time of making this book showed the lake in a pristine state.
This is the first showing of the lowercase of Regulus, a type cut by hand by the poet. It records a moment in time when the momentum of cutting punches had achieved nearly the entire lower case, only the x is missing. At the same time that the typeface was becoming usable Julia was completing a new series of wood cuts. Julia’s images are an exploration of the intersection of different times, of the enduring and the transitory, of the overlapping spheres of the ancient, the present and the future. The images and the poem were directly inspired by the experience of visiting Squam.
The chapbook is printed on Mohawk Letterpress Text. The type was set by hand by the poet. The book is hand sewn and slipped into a paper wrapper with hand decorated keepers and unique hand colored woodcut. The large woodcut inside is individually hand colored by the artist. The book measures 6 1/2 by 10 1/2, 16 pages. Golgonooza Letter Foundry & Press, Ashuelot 1989. $250.00