BOOKS
Desert Ballads
Desert Ballads is a response, of sorts, to Federico Garcia Lorca’s book of poems, Gypsy Ballads, in which the poet climbs the slope between narrative and its disintegration into lyric. About one of the ballads Lorca’s friend Salvadore Dali famously said, “You think there’s a story there, but there isn’t.” The four ballads in this book were photographed in and around Maupin, Oregon, which is my own version of Lorca’s beloved Andalucia.
Publisher: Loveheadhouse
Designer & Illustrator: Jeff Dooley
150 numbered copies, paperbound. $46.
Shipping starting in June, 2023.
You can buy it here.
Orion
Orion was a hero (half-man, half-god) and a mighty hunter in ancient Greek mythology. His story was so old that it was basically forgotten by the 6th century BCE, about the time Athens was flourishing. The surviving myths tell of his giant size and his hunting prowess, but also of his continual overstepping of his bounds in the eyes of the gods, for which he was frequently punished. Finally, Apollo tricked his own sister Artemis (one of Orion’s favorite hunting partners) into shooting an arrow at an object far out in the sea—which just happened to be Orion’s head. (He was walking across the sea floor.) To console Artemis’ grief, Apollo put Orion’s body up in the night sky as the constellation we know.
Publisher: Loveheadhouse
Designer: Fredrik Averin
100 numbered copies, paperbound (sold out).
26 lettered, signed copies with 5” x 7” archival pigment print. Paperbound. $75
You can buy it here.
Do You Have Fire for Me?
During a 2011 visit to the Berlin studio of Thomas Zipp in graduate school, I asked the artist what he did with his painter’s jackets when he discarded them, suggesting that they belonged hanging on a wall. Zipp immediately took off his paint-smeared jacket and handed it to me.
For years I tried to decide what kind of photographic work I might make using the jacket. Then, in 2016, certain chthonic forces were unleashed into the world, which led to the making of this book, which I see as an apotropaic ritual, similar to that practiced by the ancient Greeks, in order to avert evil.
An outtake Instax photograph is attached to the rear inside cover just in case the purchaser of the book might wish to continue the ritual action by burning the photograph.
Publisher: Loveheadhouse
Designer: Jennifer Timer Trail
Edition of 100 copies. Paperbound with sandpaper strip. $30.
You can buy it here.