Samantha Link

First Go Wayward
letterpress-printed on Stonehenge and bound in handmade cotton paper
6.5 x 5.75 in.

I practice art as a way to bridge the physical and philosophical. I am drawn to the expressive ability of letterpress and book arts to make productive use of certain ironies about the acts of writing and reading — gestures of connection that are performed alone, works focused on private meanings and contexts yet premised on a public economy of language and distribution.

This chapbook represents an endeavor to integrate experiences from a journey I took on the threshold of adulthood with the life circumstances it has led me to, by way of “vertically integrating” myself in the production process. I selected short poems written during a time of deep questioning about purpose and possibility to manually typeset and print, reformatting the content in light of new aims and limitations. The text block has rough edges left after my tearing them to size, and it is bound in paper sheets I formed by hand. The book itself does not bear a title or colophon; these are part of the box enclosure, allowing for the piece to perhaps someday be reframed or take on a new identity.

© Samantha Link