Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998 6.3 x 9.3cm, 4pp artist's postcard with an image of a cruiser from the "Flower" series. The card might be seen as a valentine card and gift (a flower) but the name of the flower is also similar to Hearts' ease. VG+. ...
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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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.
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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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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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30 x 24cm, b/w original photograph taken by Robin Gillanders of Little Sparta for his book "‘Little Sparta, Portrait of a Garden". This shows one of Finlay's garden sculptures of an aircraft carrier. Gillanders took the images between 1994 and 1998. Originally a gift from the photographer to Janet Boulton, one of Finlay's later collaborators and a friend to both Gillanders and the poet. VG+.
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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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Edinburgh: Ingleby Gallery, n.d. (1999)
21 x 15cm, 2pp offset price list of available Finlay prints handed out a solo exhibition. Two punched holes for storage else VG.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.8 x 10.6 cm, 12pp, plus card covers and dust jacket. Content of 16 b/w drawings of knots used in netting by Gary Hincks- the subtle differences between them and the sequential way they are presented reminds one of the schematics of Sol Lewitt. The last pages of the book have a line by Finlay:
Variations on a Theme of Diamonds
net
A one line poem which notes the shapes of the netting as the ropes are pulled into diamond shapes. And the value of such nets to the fisherman.
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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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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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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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