A mysteriousl package arrived in our office the other day. After carefully unwrapping the paper, the most beautiful portfolio of images was unveiled. Botanique, is a project conceived, designed, and fabricated by Moab Master and master photographer Harold Davis and well-known book designer Phyllis Davis.
Botanique is such a gorgeous collection of images, meticulously printed on a variety of Moab papers, that it's hard to describe in words. So, we'll use both pictures and words.
Acclaimed as “origami in a box”, Botanique is a hand-made, limited edition artist book that astutely blends old craft and cutting edge new technologies to create an exquisite limited edition art book and art object that is completely unique. Holding a print of a delicate floral image printed on Moenkopi Unryu felt as though I was holding the actual flower. The portfolio shipped with white cotton gloves, which reinforced the book's museum-quality.
Originally (and successfully) funded and crowd-sourced via a Kickstarter project, Botanique contains twenty-one luscious floral prints that emerge delicately and seductively from the hand-assembled presentation box.
Botanique has been hand printed on an Epson 9900 StylusPro printer using archival Ultrachrome inks. Within the book there are twenty-one prints on archival substrates including archival vellum, Moenkopi Unryu Washi, Moenkopi Kozo Washi, Moab Slickrock Matallic Pearl ,and Colorado Fiber Gloss photographic paper. Each book is hand-cut, and hand-assembled in the artist’s studio. Bonus features include three foldout prints in over-sized panoramic format.
The books have sold so well, that there are only two remaining. Each book is hand-signed and numbered by the artist, and presented in an archival box measuring approximately 9.25″ X 12.5″ X 1″ deep.