Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
6.2 x 6.3cm, 4pp card printed black on grey. Two poems both inspired by Bishop Andrewes from his "Devotions" collection of prayers. The firs shows the word as the sea (as often found in Christian iconography) and the second the land as the sea. Both list objects and animals found in (firstly) Christian preaching and secondly during a walk. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
16 x 14.4cm, 4pp card printed black on white with a linocut by Jo Hincks of a stern of a ship and its wake.. A text below by Finlay notes:
a solitary laner
swelling and vanishing
opened at the stern
Comparing the wake with a country lane winding behind (or in front ) of you. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
19.5 x 18.8cm, 1pp card printed black and brown on cream. A line art drawing of the patched sails of a boat with the number FY 27 by Andrew Whittle is conjoined with a quote from Peter Anson's Mariners of Brittany.
"The trousers and jumpers of the men vary in hue from the brightest orange vermilion to the palest rose pink, and are decorated with every imaginable sort of patch."
A patch is defined by Finlay as Patch, n, a whole part.
As noted in other works Finlay saw the act of patching as denoting care and giving worth to things. This image is also found in the unique large sculptural work FY27 in this collection. . VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
19 x 16.5cm, 1pp card printed black and brown on white. A drawing of A one masted boat by Nina Ivancic is denoted by Finlay as:
FOLK BOAT
billyboy
Billyboy boats are "bluff-bowed one-masted trading vessels, native to the NE of England." and there is a warning "not to be confused with the famous Folkboat ('people's yacht')". VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
16.6 x 11.9cm, 2pp card printed in full colour with an image of the Finlay public work at The Haagse Stream and Court Pool inn den Haag. The entrance of the stream into the larger pool has ET IN ARCADIO EGO in stone above it - given the history of the watercourse which was at one time heavily polluted due to passing through a city dump, then the work reflects the meaning of the original Poussin painting. This card was sent to Janet Boulton by Finlay and has a note in blue ink on it: "Thank you for the lovely momento. To treasure alone with the table sculpture. What a relevant surprise. Love Ian." We hold an exhibition catalogue for this work which is catalogued in the relevant section and discusses it in more details. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.2 x 10.5cm, 4pp card with a drawing of a plane with two cockpits that share wings - probably a North American F-82 Twin Mustang - and the text FINIS AMORIS UT DUO UNUM FIANT which translates into Love ends as two are made one. The legend originally was found in the frontispiece of The Pillar and Ground of the Truth (1914) by Pavel Florensky, a Russian thologian, where two cupids seem conjoined in an etching of a statue. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9 x 14cm, 2pp card printed black on bright yellow is the text:
Inside every toilet roll a ship's funnel is waiting to be let out
which indicates Finlay's love of modelling. An earlier card shows three such funnels made to look like funnels in a photograph.. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
12.7 x 4cm, 4pp card (top hinged) printed black on bright yellow with a poem:
SHORT POEM ON SANDPAPERING
evenly
eventually
The spacing in the typography indicates time passing - and the colour presumably the common beige of the sandpaper. The similarity of the two words seems to suggest one evolves out of the other - which reflects how sandpapering will initially make something even but time is needed for it to work well. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
3.2 x 5.1cm, 8pp, single sheet, concertina folded card printed black on light brown. There are three panels which read:
lamp-stook
jug-stook
table-stubble
A stook is a group of sheaves of grain stood on end in a field. The three visual poems seen at twilight (reflecting colour of the paper stock employed here) are the mistaken images from a distance of a lamp and a jug and when the light gets bad, a simple irritation on the flat earth. Evening, the title of the card, can mean two things - the time of day and the evening out of an image towards less detail and more flatness.
VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.5 x 10cm, 4pp, black on white artist's card with a drawing by Kathleen Lindsley of a stone in a ploughed field next to a wall. Inside there is a poem:
A STONE
A stone turned up by the plough
was carried from the shadow to
lie at the field's edge
where it was found and taken as
ballast to the black hold of a boat.
The fate of the stone to go from blackness to blackness is glum to say the least. Nature is cruel even to the inanimate. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
12.4 x 8.9cm, 4pp, black on white artist's card with two drawings by Stephen Duncalf of firstly an hat and gloves and cane (a cliche from black and white movies of a "man about town") and then a cockpit of a warplane with two wheels lying against the open glass - as if it has crashed which is labelled "Plane about town".
Possibly one of the least interesting of cards published by the Press. With original unprinted envelope. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
8.9 x 10.2cm, 4pp, black on grey artist's card with text from Finlay about a broken plastic model of a Spitfire that has been put away in a cupboard. Finlay muses that as long as the model is not in the bin-bag but in the cupboard then "there is Hope".
Finlay then references Luke 9:62: "Jesus replied,'No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.'" which encourages the reader to look ahead, be optimistic and not look back to past issues.
A homely which would not be out of place on the daily Radio 4 (UK) morning news section called " Thought for the Day" where religious and humanist ideas are broadcast. Hence the car title. VG+.
