Poems by François Cheng;
aquatint etchings by Michele
Burgess on Gampi paper. Text
in Perpetua and Song, modified
by Gerald Lange. Bound in
vellum printed with an etching
and housed in a chitzu of Moriki
paper. Edition of 30. 2003. Seven
deluxe copies include the book
and a portfolio of all seven
uncut prints. (One deluxe copy
remaining.) $3,500.

This project was initiated by Derrick Cartwright to coincide with a retrospective exhibition of Michele
Burgess’s artist’s books at the Museé d’Art Américain in Giverny, France. Conversations between Chinese French poet François Cheng and the artist led to ruminations about gesture in the landscape from both an Eastern and Western point of view.

The artist selected seven poems about stones and in response created large geological etchings in two and three colors. The etchings were then folded into signatures of four-page spreads on which each poem is printed in the original French, followed by the English and Chinese translations. The shadows of the images shimmer underneath the words.