08 Jul

Posted at 19:47h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.5 x 14.1cm, 1pp artist's card printed black on grey. The text has a quotation from Heidegger's The Country Lane. Heidegger often walked a particular lane deep in his thoughts but this scene mentions how children he encountered made pretend boats from peeled oak bark and how "those play voyages knew nothing yet of journeys upon which all shores are left behind" - a consideration of how death is not a thought in the happy minds of the young. VG+.

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03 Jul

Posted at 19:21h in Artist's Postcards

Glasgow: WAX366, 1998
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp. Full colour artist postcard by Finlay's former assistant but visual poet in his own right. A photograph of one of Finlay's toy boats seen from outside the building through the window is on the front, vwrso standard postcard design. The title references "Family of Saltimbanques " painting by Pablo Picasso in 1905 - an itinerant group of actors. ...

01 Jul

Posted at 19:39h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10 x 6.5cm, envelope with printed label content of two 3.5 x 5cm 1pp folded cards.
The first card created by Thomas A Clark and Laurie Clark reads "FOLDING THE LAST LAMB" meaning the animals have been placed in a pen. The second card by Finlay reads FOLDING THE LAST SAIL" which has a double meaning of storing a sail and/or folding a sail around a dead sailor as a form of coffin before burial at sea.Both cards are folded - adding a physicality to the metaphors by altering the cards themselves.
This is the second version of Finlay's card - previously published by the Wild Hawthorn Press in 1997 in a larger size and alone but with an acknowledgement to the Clarks. This version has both the original card and its adaption.VG+.

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27 Jun

Posted at 19:34h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.5 x 15.1cm, 1pp artist's card printed blue and ochre on white. The text has a "b" then "oats" allowing it to be read both as oats and boats. Beneath is found "The Orcadian is a crofter with a boat while the Shetlander is a fisherman with a croft" apparently a traditional saying. Hence one can read the Oats/Boats as a direct representation of the saying. Finlay lived for some years in Orkney in a fisher community where he was employed as a shepherd. VG+.

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17 Jun

Posted at 19:26h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
9 x 13cm, 1pp artist's card printed red on white. The text "IN A FAUVE PAINTING THE MOST IMPORTANT COLOUR IS GREY" which is of course a jarring statement as the one thing Fauvism is identified with is a bright colour palette. VG+. .

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10 Jun

Posted at 20:20h in Artist's Postcards

Edinburgh: Morning Star Publications/Water press. Wax366, 1998
16.2 x 22.9cm, printed envelope content of four artists' postcards by David Bellingham, Alec Finlay, Ian Hamilton Finlay and Kevin Henderson issued on the occasion of the 1998 football world cup in France.
Ian Hamilton Finlay's card is "Relative Geography" which was a concrete poem originally published in "Tea-leaves and Fishes" from 1966. The text reads:

Britain: North Pole Equator South Pole Brazil: North Pele Equator South Pele

Pele of course was the world famous footballer who was often regarded as the Greatest Of All Time. All cards are VG+ in like envelope. The co-publisher Morning Star Press was the idea of Finlay's son Eck Finlay (now Alex FInlay).

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03 Jun

Posted at 19:22h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
7.6 x 16.5cm, 4pp artist's card printed red and black on light brown. This is a second card published by Finlay with the title. A drawing of ploughed fields by Ron Costley is conjoined with "DAS GEPFLUGTE LAND/THE FLUTED LAND". This version of the conceptual idea is more visual in its form than the previous card but the meaning is essentially the same - the rural landscape can be seen as a rutted flute. VG+. .

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01 Jun

Posted at 18:04h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
12 x 15cm, 1pp artist's card printed black on light brown. DAS GEPFLUGTE LAND translates to THE FLUTED LAND. The German comes from a number of early writers and refers to the ploughed fields and rolling countryside seen from a distance. Finlay quotes both Holderin and Schiller and gives a key to some german words for plough, undulating, flight and wing - bringing the text back to flying birds as well as the rural scene VG+. .

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06 May

Posted at 17:56h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.4 x 14.5cm, 1pp artist's card with two texts in a black oval:

The homeward star
The stitching sail

The homeward sail
The stitching star

Finlay notes the words "homeward star: occur in Samuel Palmers translation of Virgil's First Eclogue.
This card transposes the star and sail to alter the meaning of each phrase - a relatively common device used by Finlay in his poetry. The stitching sale being the way a sailor might be stitched into a sail when he died, the homeward sail being a reference to the end of life as well as a returning boat (again another Finlay trope). Both lines are momento mori. VG+.

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20 Apr

Posted at 17:48h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.5 x 21.5cm, 4pp artist's card with a drawing by Gary Hincks of the long line of hooked lines (called a spray) used in Thonier French fishing. The image also has the overall look of water spraying. This card has a lengthy ink note from Gary Hincks to Janet Boulton (both Finlay collaborators) pointing out the work is a "twin" of her work "Thonier". Hincks writes: "it is a rod with lines and hooks from the Breton "Thonier: (tuna fishing boat). The rod is raised - as here when sailing out to the fishing grounds." VG+.

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01 Apr

Posted at 17:41h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
11 x 14cm, 2pp artist's card with a painting by Janet Boulton reproduced on the front. The title notes the similarities of a boat to a lemon (something often noted by Finlay) and the cargo here is a mass of oranges. VG+.

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19 Mar

Posted at 17:33h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.5 x 13.5cm, 1pp black on blue card which refers to a Vickers-Supermarine Walrus "evoked in W F. Jackson Knight's Aenid" as an oarage of wings. The image is that of how oars move in the water looking similar to wings. The airplane was a reconnaissance biplane that could land on water and Montague writes of the oarage of the wings of a great bird. VG+.

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