£9.00
An Irish Potato Patch, 2016
Letterpress on card
Published by Coracle Press, Ballybeg Grange, Clonmel, Tiperary, Ireland
2 in stock
Description
Coracle Press: An Irish Potato patch, is a quirky list of 11 old potato varieties. Coracle got the list from the 2008 Potato Report from Irish Seed Savers, Scarrif, County Clare. It is printed on thick card with letterpress, so it is satisfyingly indented, making it a proper object. Good to put on your wall. Or you can prop it up on the mantle-piece.
This would make a great pair with ‘8 old Irish potatoes’ – a concertina book with information about 8 old varieties. It includes a little history. It is the sort of publication to open out and stand on the mantle-piece or book-shelf.
About Coracle Press
Coracle Press is a small and completely individual publishing press which has been operating for over 35 years. Writer and artist Erica Van Horn and poet, artist and editor Simon Cutts, direct it now from a small farm between the hills of South Tipperary, Ireland. They have been there since 1996. However, they began in London in the nineteen seventies, as publisher, gallery, and a space for books. Their last London book shop project project was ‘workfortheeyetodo’ in the mid-nineteen nineties. They also had a Norfolk connection, between 1989-2012, printing many of their works from a printer, Crome and Akers, based in King’s Lynn.
From their remote spot in Ireland, they continue as printer-publisher, editor of spaces. They describe their practice as ’employing many of the devices and formats of hypothetical publishing inherent in the small press’. Their books have both critical and playful dimensions. But they are also steeped in poetry – they call it a residue of poetry – concerned with the mechanisms of the book as a manifestation of the poem itself. They are also mindful of their many collaborations with other artists and writers, which evade any clear category.
Being open to new ideas and approaches marks all their projects. Limiting their scope or over-categorising their content or defining their range does not interest them. The books themselves are not so concerned with craft tradition, limited-ness of edition, hand-made paper or elaboration of binding. While each one has its unique character and appearance, what they want to achieve is the plain and simple case-bound book, the sewn paperback. They are working constantly at extending the category of ephemera. Making quirky visions, askance views, eccentric perceptions widely available is what they are all about.