Tender Ribbons

1 11/16" x 2"
48 pages

Three paragraphs from Gertrude Stein's TENDER BUTTONS, one each in each of the book's three parts. TENDER BUTTONS is the first of Stein's so called "hermetic" works, where she tried to cut words loose from their deceptive literal meanings and use them as sound, letting the inescapable meaning trail along behind like the ribbon of an escaped balloon.

In 1914, when the book was published, her writings seemed harsh and disjointed, but time has softened them, and her words now evoke a dreamy domestic world of freshly starched laundry and no-nonsense domestic science textbooks. I've designed the book in that spirit, but also tried to honor her interest in the tension between words and their meanings by printing the three selections in parallel as if they were printed on ribbon weaving in and out of the pages. There's also a darling portrait of Gertrude as a three-year-old, already looking fierce.

The book is quarter bound in paper printed with tiny stripes, and a spine of white kid leather taken from a ladies antique evening glove. Two light blue silk ribbons are knotted across the spine. There is a paper title pasted to the front, and decorative endpapers.

This product was added to our catalog  October 24, 2009