Throughout the monastic hours of inking, early morning moments of inspiration, and endless printing sessions the music of Steven R. Smith has been a virtual soundtrack to my work at Samaritan Press.
I came to Steven's work through the Jewelled Antler Collective, an early 2000s group of artists based in San Francisco. Jewelled Antler projects such as Thuja are a transcendent mosaic of electroacoustic sound manipulation and field recordings.
At some point in time I followed the thread to Steven's more hermetic material made under monikers such as Ulaan Khol and Hala Strana.These recordings span an immense amount of hypnagogic time via discordant guitar with layers of mysterious hand built resonance, piano, and drone. This is my most cherished form of music, the type which invokes shut eye visuals and dreamlike eidetic memories.
The two tracks Crow (part II) and Olive were graciously granted to me by Steven for interpretation some years ago. My drawings were intuitive and layered with meaning while bathed in the music during a period of isolating darkness and rumination. I hoped to convey the pull of the moon on the shadow self. The final night of inking was on the pink moon of April 7, 2020.
I created the drawings with India ink on wood panel. I then printed the cover, fold-over flap, and insert on the C&P platen press in three separate passes. The hand stamped details came next, and finally folding and assembly.
Sincere thanks to Steven for the trust and patience!
View/purchase all of the variations here
The pressing of 500 has been divided into a few editions. The vinyl was pressed at Pirates Press. All are on transparent red vinyl.
- Main edition of 400. Letterpressed cover, flap and insert.
- Variant edition of 50. Letterpressed chipboard jacket and insert. Numbers 1-25 include a tote bag and letterpressed button.
- Hand painted variant. I printed the insert image onto watercolor paper and hand painted with watercolor and acrylic inks. Mounted on an 8x8" wood panel and sprayed with acrylic glaze. The mounted piece is signed but not numbered (limited but open edition). *This version includes the main edition record.
