02 Oct

Posted at 23:54h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
6 X 6cm, 4pp outer card with a 5pp concertina folded sheet tipped on that opens up to 5 x 23.5cm list of all the monarchs of France from Louis Premier to the deposed and beheaded Louise Seize and finally the last name is Louise David the revolutionary painter who documented in paint the events from before 1789 to Napoleon and to the restoration of the Bourbons hence David is the culmination of the succession and the most noble of the men listed. VG+.

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24 Sep

Posted at 23:46h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
10.5 x 5.7cm, 4pp card with a series of purple numbers made up of the randomly changing sequence of 1 - 6 (apart from the top number which is made up of seven numbers 1 - 7). A green line moves erratically down through the numbers separating them into two parts. The top three numbers have a thin line between them and the ones below.
The latin name for the foxglove flower is Digitalis purpurea - which might be read as purple digits hence this bastardisation of the latin creates a visual poem aided by the two colours. VG+.

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15 Sep

Posted at 00:07h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
6.4 x 7.7cm, 4pp (single folded sheet) with a painting by Gary Hincks of a sky full of white trails on the front. Inside Finlay has a two line poem

Season of mists and milling Messerschmitts,
Close bosom-friend of the repeating gun.

The smoke trails are not solid but dotted lines - much as a trail of bullets can be seen in comic depictions of machine gun fire. VG+.

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09 Sep

Posted at 23:24h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
9.9 x 8.6cm, 4pp card with two concrete poems on the inner folds on the left is an English translation of Guillaume Apollinaire's calligramme Miroir (Imagine angels not as reflections are in this mirror I am enclosed alive and real as you) the words are broken up and in a circle to indicate a mirror and Apollonaire's name is in the middle.
On the right a version of the same work is found but with important changes (Imagine mariners and not as reflections are in this mirror I am enclosed afloat and real as you). The circle in the second work becomes an ocean with the change to mariners instead of angels and the name afloat in the centre is that of the poet/conceptual/land artist Ian Stephen, a friend of Finlay's. VG+.

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09 Sep

Posted at 20:57h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
17.3 x 7cm, 4pp card containing nine "new proverbs" including:

No post
no Possibility.

and

Red, white and blue<BR?isn't blue, white and red.

and

Evening harvests noon.

VG+.

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26 Aug

Posted at 11:44h in Poems in folders

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn, 1994

11.7 x 10.8cm, 4pp outer printed blue folder content of a 11.7 x 10.8cm, 4pp printed purple insert with a text poem by Finaly. The full title of the work is "AN EARLY PICASSO IN J.L. DAVID" below which is a text from revolutionary sources about how female citizens should dress for one of the major public festivals encouraged by the National Convention. The description is suggested by Finlay to be equivalent of a Picasso painting but 200 years beforehand.

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13 Aug

Posted at 13:55h in Artist's Postcards

N.p. (Pittenweem): Cairn Gallery, 1994
14.8 x 10.5cm, 4pp (single sheet folded twice). An artist's card with a prose poem by Finlay:
A pond in the shape of a sailor's collar.

In the middle of the pond
floats a model warship, a
key protruding from one
of its funnels.

The handle of the key suggests a small summer cloud.
BR> A visual poem created out of words - linking the toy boat to the elements around it.
Scarce. VG+ condition.
BR>...

09 Aug

Posted at 16:42h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
10.5 x 14.2cm, 2pp card designed by Michael Harvey under Finlay's instruction. A brick wall has the words

Holland
WINDMILLS
WATERWAYS
BICYCLES
BRICKS

The cliches of Holland are conjoined with Dutch brick which is (clear from its name) a regional brick which was used to create a different architectural look (and also for ballast in British boats), Dutch bond is also a style of laying bricks in which " the vertical joints of the stretchers in any course are in line with the centres of the first stretchers above and below." as here. VG+.

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09 Aug

Posted at 11:13h in Object + Paper Multiples

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
5cm, dia. printed plastic with metal safety pin clasp. A lapel badge with the title text on it in blue on white. Issued in the year of the European elections the slogan alludes to Saint-Just's "Fewer laws, more examples" but with a twist - the "allegations" referred to seem to relate to the libel of Finlay by Catherine Millet and others who accused Finlay of being anti-Semitic (which was absurd and deliberately based on untruths and lies) and the lack of examples being the lack of evidence. Limitation not known. VG+>

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05 Aug

Posted at 11:56h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: WIld Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1994?) 5.5 x 11.5cm, 4pp artist's card with a drawing by Gary Hinks on the front of Loch Eck - the site of the sinking of the model Aeronaut Schwerer Kreuzer Prinz Eugen. With the model boat having sunk (on 23.6.94) the water shows no sign of the ship. The poem inside the card reads:

not waving
but drowning
not
shrinking
but sinking

a partial reworking of the famous Stevie mith. VG+. ...

27 Jul

Posted at 20:20h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
11 x 14.2cm, 1pp card. A drawing of a lemon by Michael Harvey using architectural methods - as if on a blue print giving plans and body plans. Finlay often uses fruit to represent boats and the various parts of the fruit here are labelled as "aft" or fore". VG+.

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26 Jul

Posted at 18:51h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1994) 63 x 51 cm, blue on white offset lithograph displaying a boat in blue. The drawing by Gary Hincks and after a detail from a painting by WIlliam Gillies.
Yet another example of Finlay's intense interest in maritime affairs and the title reflects other works where the poet compares boats to lemons - even blue lemons.
As I write these words I can walk outside my back garden and see William Gillies's former house in Temple, Midlothian.

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