Avalanche Safety Book I by Set in Motion Press
Rocky Mountains and Chamonix Alps, 1934 - 1937
Another amazing production from Casey Gardner. The presentation is beautifully printed and includes foldouts and sewn in pamphlets as well as a separate pamphlet and card in a page pocket. The story written by Gardner is accompanied by elevation and topographical information, a replica post card and journal. A wonderful story about nature and people.Set in Motion Press: "Set in the precarious time of the 1920s, living on the brink of human-triggered catastrophe, two young people explore their relationship with nature amid hidden and prevalent instabilities."
Casey Gardner: "For over a decade I have worked on this book intermittently. Avalanches have become an apt metaphor for our time and environmental challenges. What began as one book, will be three. All characters are fictional, except Andre Roch, an intrepid and light-hearted Alpine and Himalayan mountaineer. Throughout his long life he was an insightful and influential avalanche safety expert.
"The paper, made from cotton and fax, is Moulin du Gué. A Gué is the shallow section of a river safe for crossing.
"All of the crystalline flakes in these pages fell in the early 20th century and were captured by the photographic microscope of W.A. Bentley."
Snowflake representations: "Each is a crystalline map formed by its unique path through the atmosphere. Delicate intricacies of nature scientifically explained, yet infinitely enchanting. The continual metamorphosis of flakes influences the stability of the steep terrain."
Avalanche representations: "Hidden layers and triggers release widespread devastation. Every snowy slope is an interrelationship of variables making its stability difficult to predict. Stability depends on the cohesion between one particle to another and one layer to another. If the force of gravity outweighs cohesion, a slide is inevitable."
Processes, Dimensions, and Edition Information
By Casey Gardner Berkeley, California: Set in Motion Press, 2020. Edition of 39.
7 x 14" closed. Accordion-bound folios with pamphlet-stitched interior booklets. Letterpress printed with photopolymer plates and carved linoleum. Digitally printed inserts. Papers: Moulin due Gué, Zerkall Book, German Etching, and Curious Metallic. Typefaces: Cheltenham, Kabel, Gill Sans, Futura and Bodoni. Drawings by the artist. Animal wildlife is vintage line art. The "Atlas Biographic" folio features images from the Library of Congress: "1877 Geological and Geographical Atlas of Colorado" surveyed by F. V. Hayden and photograph of a 19th century silver mine on Aspen Mountain. Bound in Iris bookcloth at corners with letterpress printed papers over boards. Numbered.