TURN is a handbound limited-edition of 100 artist books, featuring original relief prints and letterpressed poems addressing to the isolation, vulnerability, strength, and joy of the changing of life’s seasons.
The books includes thirteen letterpressed poems printed by Raychel Steinbach at Starshaped Press, and four linoleum prints printed at Expressions Studios. The book has an accompanying recording and cassette tape which features original music by Macie Stewart and Ben LaMar Gay.
The book and recording will be released on Friday May 23rd, 2025.
I will hold a book release on Tuesday May 20th in Chicago at the Hungry Brain. More info here. You can preorder the recording or cassette tape here, or if you plan to attend the book release you can purchase there to avoid shipping costs.
To inquire about purchasing the artist book please email me at amartinezarts [at] gmail.com If you participated in the 3Arts Campaign, I will reach out to you directly.
Immense gratitude for my amazing team - Raychel Steinbach, April Sheridan, and Wendy Spacek - for their work, guidance, expertise, and kind words of encouragement which was essential in bringing this book to life. And to 3Arts and the many individual donors (listed below) who contributed to this project.
You can see me speak a bit about the project in the video below and visit my 3Arts project page here.
TURN Update March 2024: It’s been a while and I firstly want to thank you for your patience and your trust in me and my work. You’ve all been in my mind for the length of this long book process and it’s helped keep me going. Thanks to all of you who have checked in periodically along the way.
As I said in my original campaign, this has been my first venture into producing an artist chapbook of this kind and let me tell you, I have felt the full range of emotion along the way… but I am very excited to report that I am approaching the final stages of production for TURN! I want to acknowledge the immense gratitude I have for my amazing team - Raychel Steinbach, April Sheridan, and Wendy Spacek - and their guidance, expertise, and kind words of encouragement. I’m truly lucky to have these three in my corner for TURN.
After many months of editing my final poems, deciding on the way I will present my visual work, the paper, the font, the binding, and all the other little considerations, we will begin printing the text for my book this coming week!
The production of this book has and will continue to be a big undertaking, so my Spring will be spent preparing paper, printing, gluing, folding, and binding, and all that but I am really excited to be in this part of the work. I've included a little in process photo collage for ya. There’s a lot more to be done!
Currently, Raychel has about half the book printed, aiming to fiinish that in April 2024. Now I will go into the studio to print the images, and finalize my cover design. I cannot wait to see my poems letterpressed on the page.