Rebecca Chamlee
Simi Valley, California

At Low Water

My artist's book looks back to the beginnings of my passion for exploration and observation of native species, a time when I gathered sea animals at low tide and brought them home to live in an aquarium in my girlhood bedroom. The main text recalls the story of filling the tank with mollusks, fish, crustaceans, echinoderms, and invertebrates - anything unlucky enough to be captured by my bare hands - and the life-and-death drama that took place among the captive inhabitants. A poem, told from the viewpoint of the child in the moment of discovery, runs through the book on translucent leaves that overlay close-up images of the intertidal habitat. Field notes contain data from the year spent in the tide pools of Southern California researching and collecting images for the fourteen detailed plates of marine specimens and twelve habitat images found throughout the book.

Awagami Kozo, Niyodo Kozo, vellum, book cloth, St. Armand paper. 12.25 x 9.5 x 2 inches. 31 x 24 x 5 centimeters. Created 2017.

REBECCA CHAMLEE studied graphic design at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles in the early eighties. In 1985, she acquired a Vandercook 4 hand-operated cylinder press and began producing finely crafted broadsides and ephemera under the imprint of Pie In The Sky Press. Her work is in special and private collections throughout the US and exhibits widely. Chamlee is an associate professor at Otis and a workshop instructor in letterpress printing, bookbinding and nature printing.

Website: www.pieintheskypress.com