Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn, n.d. (1999?)
6.5 x 5.2cm, 4pp very small artist's card with a text:
POEMS
Things can
go wrong -
The lines,
the colours
Finlay compares creating a poem with all its problems with that of painting.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.9 x 26cm, 2pp, a colour photograph of the fields around Little Sparta by Pia Maria Simig. The image is overlaid with the title "THE FLUTED LAND" which comes originally from German literature (which Pia would know well). The quotation refers to the undulation of the fields, the ploughing of the earth but also to the music Pan would play in a mythical arcadian land. VG+.
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Glasgow: Wax366, 2000
14 x 10.2cm, 16pp plus printed wrappers. String bound. Artist's book with a number of concrete poems made up from the mixed up letters of well known biscuit types such as Garibaldi, Rich Tea, Digestive, Custard Cream, Bourbon, Malted Milk and Ginger Nut. Of course biscuits are known to break up into small pieces. Small limitation. This example is signed by the artist on the last page. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
6.2 x 19.7cm, 4pp, black on white card with light blue and green abstract drawing by Stephen Duncalf. Internally Finlay has the words "WESTERN APPROACHES"
The drawing seems to be of a highly abstract side of a battleship painted in the dazzle style which was a form of camouflage during the battle of the Atlantic. Such ships would sail east to west as escorts - approaching Britain with conveys bringing supplies. VG+
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Magdeburg: Bundesgartenschau/Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
18.5 x 17.8 (folded size), gate-fold artist's card (with double fold sides) with a drawing of a sheep's fold by Laurie Clark printed brown on light beige card stock. A proposal for a former military training ground in Germany, Finlay proposes a stone built old fashioned shipfold with gate that visitors are welcome to enter. On the stone is a title of a Salmuel Palmer etching "Folding the last sheep" (a text used by both Finlay and more often by Thomas A. Clark) and on the gate are the carved words :SHepherd's song"). The text is also found in German on the card. This is both artist's card and proposal but we have placed it (as has the Press) in the latter category). VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
6.5 x 7.5cm, 4pp, black on grey card with a text:
Emblem
"Tallies - slips bearing the names of fishing boats and placed on top of their boxed catch - are all mechanically printed, except one to which the name has been added in an unselfconscious hand." then there is a box with a reproduced handwritten name "PLOUGH" in it. Below is
Luke 9:62.
Finlay has quoted that biblical passage before - it means to be optimistic and not look back. The handwritten tally may indicate that someone could not afford printing but it is left "unsubconscious"ly amidst the more expensive tallies. Additionally the name Plough reminds one of the Christian metaphor of fishing for men but with Finlay's often equivalence of farming the land and the sea. VG+.
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N.p.: n.p., 1999
30 x 21cm, 1pp exhibition handout for a show of photographs of Little Sparta by Dave Paterson. Formerly folded for storage else VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.5 x 15cm, 4pp, black on brown card with a text:
Emblem
A boat carrying a much-patched sail, the patches of varied sizes, shapes and colours. The blade of the rudder, where it is visible is also patched."
Variety in unity.
Finlay enjoys the way something is constructed in components to make the whole more than the sum of the parts. VG+.
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Eindhoven: October, 1999
20 x 55cm, full colour offset-lithograph with a reproduced painting by Janet Boulton of a bramble branch. Peter Foolen notes: "This beautiful watercolour is in contrast with the painful thorns of the bramble branch which resembles the long poles with hooks used to catch tunny (the boat used to fish tunny is named Thonier)". One of 125 unsigned copies. VG+.
This work was given by Finlay to Paul Robertson as a gestural gift during a visit to Little Sparta when the poet asked Robertson to proofread a small pamphlet by Finlay that had been translated into English by Finlay's assistant.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.5 x 15cm, 4pp, black on blue card with a text:
Emblem
After the bow, (a very long way after) and after the mast and the tabernacle, and the hatch, and the wheelhouse, and the thwart, and the sternpost, comes finally the rudder, which (all else being in order), gives direction to the boat."
First and last
The rudder is both first and last - first because of its importance to the boat's passage, and last physically. VG+.
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Paris: Yvon Lambert/Monk, 1999
4.5 x 8cm, 74pp plus covers. Artist's book which acts as a flip book with the 74 colour images taken from the 16mm film loop "Cartoon 1999". Now hard to find. Slight wear to edges else 1,000 copies printed. VG.
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Glasgow: WAX366, 1999
200 x 1cm, original measuring rule with rivets to allow the rule to open and close. Silkscreened on the first part of the measure is the text "ASSESSMENT OF EXTENT DEPRIVES US OF THE INFINITE". An object multiple released in a small but unknown number. VG+ although slight tear to the printed paper closing wrapper....