Artist's Postcards - Unoriginal Sins

11 Jun WINDOW. 1995.

Posted at 15:05h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1995) 11 x 11cm, 4pp artist's card with a b/w reproduction of a painting by Philip Wilson Steer (who often painted his subjects looking out of a window) and inside the text:

Philip Wilson Steer Paints the Waves at Walberswick.

"window"

Finlay also notes on the inside left page:

"window" - tinfoil strips scattered from an aircraft to confuse enemy radar

making a poetic correspondence between the flecks of rain seen in the painting with the war decoy. VG+. ...

10 Jun POLITICAL CORRECTIONS, NUMBER 1. 1995.

Posted at 18:57h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
14.5 x 10.5cm, 1pp. printed black on red card. Two quotations - one from a letter by a Untersturmfuhrer of the Hitler Youth Division before the Battle of the Bulge and the other from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie. Both quotations discuss the glory of death in battle. Finlay by this correspondence suggests that the views of both good and evil are often the same and "political correctness" (which sound very like "Political Corrections" tends not to allow one to consider the views of the defeated in anything other than negative terms. A final note says "The works of J. M. Barrie ...

10 Jun ECHOES SERIES. THE CAMOUFLAGED MAGPIE. 1995.

Posted at 10:46h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1994) 8.4 x 6cm, 4pp artist's card with two poems internally:

the camouflaged
magpie

whose white
parts are
sky

and

the camouflaged
Messerschmitt

whose blue
parts are
Humbrol
.

The living bird is compared with a toy war airplane - the former however has natural colouring whereas the latter uses the paint brand Humbrol. VG+. ...

04 Jun A MOMENT IN TIME. 1995.

Posted at 14:01h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1995) 10.4 x 14.4cm, 1pp artist's card. A translation from Virgil's Ecloga (translated by Jessie Sheeler) reads:
BR> And now from the steadings already
smoke is rising: the shadows
of the light blue mountain tops extend.

VG+. ...

30 May UNTITLED. (A LINE OF FOAM ALONG AN EMPTY SHORE). 1995.

Posted at 12:40h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995 10.6 x 11.3cm, 4pp outer folder in grey with tipped on 9.5 x 44cm opened out, 8pp concertina folded, white paper with the text: "a line of foam along an empty shore" which is printed with a font that is not solid to reflect the form of the foam. VG+. ...

20 May GILL SANS. 1995. TWO CARDS.

Posted at 18:15h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
Two different cards - one is 9.4 x 8.3cm and the other 8.3 x 5.2cm

The first card has a text:

GILL SANS

Whatever
GILL SANS
says
it always
says
'Gill Sans"

The second card has a design by Gary Hincks, where the Underground sign has the station "GILL SANS" on it.
Gill Sans is the name of a sans-serif font family based on a design by the artist and typographer Eric Gill. It was originally inspired by another font by Edward Johnston in 1916 - an "Underground Alphabet" which Gill had helped develop as a younger man.
The font was very successful and was marketed for its clarity and lack of fuss: this seems to have caught Finlay's interest in the short poem whereas the second card is a clear reminder of the origins of the letting style. Both are VG+.

...

04 May COMPOSITION (FRENCH DRIFTER). 1995.

Posted at 18:31h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
13 x 10.9cm, 1pp. The names of different fishing boats from around the coasts of Britain are arranged in a "constellation" form poem - the names are if read aloud sound poems - Mans Nobby and Manx Nickey, Fifie Skiff and Scaffie Yawl, Banff Zulu and Buckie Scaffie are matched up in pairs for instance.
The names and forms of boats has always fascinated Finlay who lived in a fisherman's community in his early life. VG+.

...

10 Apr ARCADIA. 1995.

Posted at 18:10h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
4 x 7cm, 4pp black on green folded card. Inside the poem is

ARCADIA
Rubber-powered aircraft are successfully launched over long grass on a calm day.
An image of childhood play with models is seen as an idyll of rural life. VG+.

...

09 Apr MONOSTITCH.

Posted at 12:52h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
6 x 12cm, 4pp. A monostich is a one line poem -
Inside the poem reads "It rains, and the old thatched hut blossoms again".

Finlay is comparing the new foliage after spring's rains to the roofing made of branches in traditional homes. VG+.

...

09 Mar TWO POEMS (2).

Posted at 17:04h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. 9.8 x 8.6cm, 4pp artist's postcard that show a drawing of a republican liberty cap on the front by Gary Hincks. Inside is a poem by Finlay:

For P.E.

A cap
of liberty
with a Spitfire
roundel

In place of the traditional cockade in blue, red and white is a Spitfire (airplane) roundel which is in the same colours (sometimes yellow or orange is a further outer colour). A reminder of the weapon is added to the revolutionary symbol - terror being alongside virtue. VG+. ...

09 Mar TWO POEMS (1).

Posted at 16:44h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. 9.8 x 8.6cm, 4pp artist's postcard that show a drawing of mouthwash bottles on the front by gary Hincks. Inside is a poem by Finlay:

Des Esseintes

The muddied
colours of
the mouthwash
cocktails

Jean des Esseintes is a fictional character in a novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans. The character hates the modern world and lives an eccentric, reclusive life in an aesthetic of his own making. Presumably Finlay dislikes the plastic fuctionalism of mouthwash bottles. VG+. ...

06 Mar ECHOES SERIES – BILLOW/WINNOW. 1995.

Posted at 13:59h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995 12 x 8.8cm, 4pp. Artist's card with two drawings front and back by Gary Hincks after texts by Bridgey Penney (A Catch of Poems about the Shipping Forecast) and Homer's Odyssey (Book XI) - the first drawing shows two boats, one of which is named Morning Star (the name of son Eck Finlay's small press) against a sunrise and the second an oar sunk into the ground as a form of monument. The first has the text BILLOWS PILLOWS under it and the second BILLOW WINNOW. The "pillows" of the first are nets and folded sails being caught by the wind, and the second similar pair of words meaning the wind through grass. VG+. ...