Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
6 x 2cm, 4pp. One of three cards issued by the press that displays the effects of the "clinker" method of boat building where the edges of hull planks overlap each other. The boat number (which for Finlay is often a poetic construct anyway) is broken up by the irregular sides of the hull. The drawing is by Gary Hincks. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
11 x 16cm, 1pp. A quote from Virgil is repeated twice:
-- THEY lightly skim,
And gently sip the dimply river's brim.
One quotation is allocated by Finlay as being about bees, the other boats. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1997)
7.4 x 6.5cm, 4pp. Artist's postcard a drawing by Gary Hincks of a row of growing beans above which a model airplane has been placed on a string and thin stake presumably to keep birds off the planting.
A text internally reads:
Row of beans
And one old bomber
To scare the birds.
It appears this drawing was from an actual such installation in the garden of Andrew Whittle's Rose Cottage. Whittle was a stone carver and a collaborator with Finlay. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, Christmas 1996
14 x 15.2cm, 4pp card. A drawing by Gary Hincks of a cross section of the midship area of a boat. The parts of the structure are all printed in black except one "carling" which is in red. In shipbuilding, carlings are two pieces of timber laid fore and aft under the deck of a ship, from one beam to another, directly over the keel. Carlings hold the ship together. Other meanings of carlings are less known - an old woman (perhaps a witch) and a type of pea. More than this we do not know - any information about this card would be greatfully received.
This card has a hand-written greeting from Finlay in black ink "love from Dad". VG+
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
14 x 15.2cm, 2pp. A balsa woodcut by Gary Hincks of a "bread-and-butter hull". Such hulls are used for models and they are hulls which are carved with an open top and the deck constructed using conjoined (by glue in a model) lengths of wood such as might be found on a real ship. Finlay's love of boat models has lasted most of his adult life and one can imagine he sees the very name of such constructions to be a wonderful poetic metaphor. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
14.8 x 10.5cm, 1pp. A symbolic image which represents a plate to be "worn on Andreas Muller's car" to suggest that he is a "Learner Editor". Finlay was upset by an article in Between Landscape Architecture and Land art by Udo Weilacher which Muller was the Architectual Editor for.
VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
Two cards, both 6.8 x 7.6cm, 4pp. Both cards have the same text and only differ in colour - one light blue, the other cerise. The front of the cards both have SOUTH COAST SAILS printed vertically in three columns and then in the final column the letters of SAILS become the first letters of Sunset/Amber.Indigo/Lovely/Still. South Coast Sails are a company who supply sails to the boat trade. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
10 x 13.9cm, 4pp. The front of the card has a b/w image of a model shop complete with a model boat. Inside Finlay lists imaginary places:
Atlantis, Xanadu, The Heperides, Tir-na-nOg, Arcadia
\
and below notes the name of a company that specialises in model making - Gee Dees.
The models are fantasies - perfect reproductions that are not quite real but imaginary perfect versions of their inspirations. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
9.5 x 9cm, 4pp. The front of the card has a line drawing of a part of a carburettor - the mechanism that mixes the fuel and air before combustion. It is not clear if this is for a model or not (but given the artist's interest in model then it seems likely). Internally Finlay creates a poem
Concentric Float Chamber Carburettor - top feed
gull
We suspect the metaphor here is the way seagulls open and close their beaks but in all honesty we are not sure. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
15.2 x 6.7cm, 4pp. Inside the bright red card ate two one-line poems:
On the uneven road the bobbin red sail of the postvan
On the nearby bush the distant postvan's rose-
The colour is crucial here - both metaphors rely on the easily identifiable colour for a sale or a rose. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
10.5 x 6cm, 4pp. A drawing of a butterfly on the wing by Jo Hincks. Inside is a poem:
ROLLING HOME
Over-
canvassed
Common
Cabbage
White
The Cabbage White is probably the most commonly seen butterfly. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
11.3 x 8.7cm, 4pp card with a drawing of women in a harbour Jo Hincks after M Denis printed black on brown.
BRITTANY
litany
The poem suggests that nothing much has changed in these Breton fishing villages, life is a repeating refrain. Finlay also quotes Caroline Boyle-Taylor on this "The painters felt that the peasants' lives had not changes since medieval times". Maurice Denis - the source for the original image - was one of the Symbolists and Les Navis who often documented small communities on canvas especially fishermen. VG+.
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