Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
13.4 x 14.2cm, 2pp brown on cream artist's card with typography by Michael Harvey in an old-fashioned style. The text notes that linseed oil, cod oil, red ochre, yellow ochre and seawater caused the colouring on older sails as if deliberately painted. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
11.2 x 16cm, 2pp artist's card with a full colour photograph by Pia Maria Simig of a model boat by Finlay. The highly colourful boat with its orange/red nets is an homage in colour to paintings of boats by Van Goch. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
14 x 6cm, 4pp black on blue artist's card with a drawing by John Andrew of a boat on the front. On the back there is a "definition" work:
Mirror, n. a boat we can see ourselves in.
A comment that not only suggests a boat may have characteristics of the owner but has a double meaning that one can imagine oneself sailing it. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
13.4 x 12.4cm, 2pp black on white artist's card with small drawings by Heather Deedman of wooden joints and supports. The card is entitled
BITTS
bits
. Bitts on a boat are posts on a deck or fastening mooring lines or cables. The closeups of each Bitt may be seen as bits of Bitts. VG+.
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Bremen: Neues Museum Weserberg, 1996 15 x 10.5cm, 2pp announcement card for an exhibition of Boltanski's artist's books from between 1969 and 1995 from the collection of Guy Schraenen. One b/w page from a book reproduced on the front, verso museum details. VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
15.3 x 12.4cm, 42pp black on white artist's card with a drawing by Gary HIncks of a model making process where the holes in the side of the model representing porthole are made by pushing a pencil through the wood. The card is dedicated as a "Homage to SImon Cutts" - a writer and poet who presumably makes his mark on the world by the use of a pencil also. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
6.5 x 5cm, 4pp black on white small artist's card which internally reads:
BOREAS
Plank bender
The drawing is of a tool used in model making that allows thin wood to be bent. Boreas being the North wind which makes growing trees bend under the forces of nature. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
6.5 x 9cm, printed custom folder content of 10 6.5 x 9cm, 1pp black on deep blue cards. Each card has a epigram by Finlay on it:
"5. The sail and the keel practice dialectic."<BR<
This sentence brings Hegelian dialectics into the consideration of a boat - the keel is at the bottom of the boat, the sail at the top, one keeps the baot upright, the other pushes it along. One without the other would have no effect - the synthesis of the two creates a journey.
All fine in like folder.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.
11.7 x 9.2cm, 8pp plus card covers and printed dust jacket with a line drawing by Mark Stewart of the golden temple to Apollo found on the edge of Lock Eck. Internally Finlay has four couplets one per page:
the flock of stones
the text from Virgil
the stray shot
the frozen gulley
the blue bow-rope
the bust in plaster
the black Bren
the golden temple
The lines describe the temple and with the title REDOUBT compares the small building with a military base (appropriate for Apollo). VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.
16 x 10.5cm, transparent resealable plastic bag content of a 12.2 x 6cm, brown manilla label with string. On the label is a poem by Finlay:
Simple and
useful,
attached
like the Idea
in Plato,
a circle
incised in
its rectangle
of cardboard
and string.
The poem describes the label but compares it to Platonic philosophy where items have perfect forms which are perceived by humanity.
Limitation unknown. VG+. Scarce....
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1996?)
11 x 8cm, 8pp plus card covers. Artist's book with two poems by Finlay that share a similar structure - that of a one-word poem:
On the left:
An Example of Closure
X
and
On the right:
An Example of Opening
X.
"X" can stand for a kiss and is often appended at the end of messages, it can also be used in place of a name and therefore found at the beginning of letters. VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. 12 x 9cm, 1pp ex libris (printed on card) with a drawing of a tank turret and the text above it: "SI FEDEM FREGERIS, FIDES TIBI PENITUS DISSONABUNT: which is given in an English translation as "IF YOU BREAK FAITH WITH ME, THE STRINGS OF YOUR LYRE WILL SOUND COMPLETELY OUT OF TUNE". Finlay as designated the tank (a Rh 202) as a Lyre in the drawing. One of a small number of Ex Libris designs Finlay made. VG+ Scarce. ...