Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1996)
8 x 7.5cm, 16pp plus printed card covers. Artist's book which prints four pages of four colours with the letters in a 5 x 5 lattice - GREEN, BROWN, BLACK, OCHRE followed by the same lattice with the word PATCH. Finally the whole is identified as "Jacob's Boat" on the last page. VG+.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
8 x 10cm, 6pp outer folder with an image of a starfish content of 6 8 x 10cm double sided cards.
One initially thinks there has been a printing error as the back of the cards seems upside down but if read in sequence the first side tells the story of a kidnapping of three Naval Protection Officers after a raid on a French trawler - La Calypso - by its crew, with the officers only released after a return to France. Red in the other direction the story of Calypso saving the life of Ulysses and holding him for seven years in her cave.
Finlay always enjoyed a naming co-incidence and the two stories obviously parallel each other in many respects. Small vignettes by Laura Gerahty. VG+
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
9.8 x 4.1cm, 4pp artist's card with a drawing by Jo Hincks on the front and inside a poem by Finlay:
HOT
DAY
Gary
Vida
Rhoda
Jo
in
boats
12.7.96
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1996)
13 x 9.5cm, 4pp artist's card with a reproduced watercolour drawing of a blue sailship by Gary Hincks and a long "quotation" supposedly from Heinrich von Osterdingen which Finlay dubs "An Alternative Opening" where a young man thinks about a tale of a blue sailboat and how much he would love to see such a thing. In a 1802 book about Heinrich von Osterdingen by Novalis the young man dreams about a blue flower (rather than a boat). The blue flower became a regular reference in symbolism for romance - here Finlay alters the symbolism to that of the sea and long voyagesVG+.
...
Munchen: Gina Kehayoff Verlage, 1996
21 x 14cm, 64pp plus card covers. Artist's book consisting of 62 b/w photographic images of 31 people showing both younger and older selves opposite each other on each two pages. Minimal text in German. VG+.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
7.8 x 7.8cm, 4pp, A drawing of a boat's rudder by Gary Hincks on the front of the card has a poem by Finlay inside:
NEW BOAT
BR>
Pintles cast bronze -
Rudder mahogany -
Varnish like ice on
A clear water pool.
A pintle is the attachment for a rudder. Finlay has other works that liken the varnish found on a rudder to ice. VG+.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
14 x 6.4cm, 4pp, The poem (after Louis Zukofsky) is
AFTER LZ
BR>
an
other
in
equality
wild
flower
The pairs of words when conjoined change the meaning to the opposite - which is also true of the last two words which are spaced apart to make the pairing less obvious. VG+.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
14 x 7.6cm, 4pp, A two part poem is illustrated by Gary Hincks with three feathers:
Drowned
fish?
feather
drowned
fish?
Finlay's fondness for minimal changes in word order is here - giving different images - a "drowned fish" (something which is not possible unless you change the definition of "drown") may be a feather that has been mistakenly identified, a feather drowned in turn might be seen to be a fish. VG+.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
7.7 x 7cm, 4pp, outer folder with an internal tipped in 14.3 x 6cm (open size) sheet with the word Daisy repeated seven times in different type fonts. Literally making a daisy chain. VG+.
...
N.p.: n.p., 1996
11 x 13.7cm, digital output on gloss paper. A handmade postcard perhaps with a photoshopped collage of "faces" taken from Boltanski works. However this has been signed on the reverse in ink by Boltanski,
...
Luton: Stockwood Park, n.d. (1996)
21 x 30, 1pp offset printed green on white - a site map of Stockwood Park which shows Finlay's "Improvement Garden" as an important area to visit. Finlay created for the venue a classical garden in which the sculptures are an integral part of the landscape. Folded for storage and a few ink words written on back including the date else VG+.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1996)
7.7 x 7.7cm, 8pp plus card covers. Artist's book with two drawings by Gary Hincks.
A text "Open the little hatch" is accompanied by a line drawing of a hatch in a toy boat - on a second double page spread the text is "Look in the little hold" and the drawing is of a nets inside the hold that can be seen now the hatch is open. Finlay enjoyed making model boats. VG+. ...