Handy-Works or, Another Story of Printing in Twelve Brief Pages (2022)
“Handy-Works or, Another Story of Printing in Twelve Brief Pages,” celebrates Jewish women’s involvement in the early printing of the Renaissance and Early Modern periods, alongside men as well as independently. I imagine these women in their print shops, like me, amidst Hebrew type, black ink, stacks of paper and a printing press – and each of us, in our time, marveling at this wonderful invention.
I selected 12 verses from Proverbs extolling women, and juxtaposed them against 12 sentences I wrote about a Jewish woman who suddenly is pushed into the art and commerce of printing. The Hebrew letters, printed from vintage wood type, read: “She works willingly with her hands,” one of the verses from Proverbs. The Images came from Moxon’s 1683 volume, “The Doctrine of Handy-Works/The Whole Art of Printing” and were printed from photopolymer plates. Patterns running along the bottom of the pages were printed from metal ornaments, evoking the elaborate Italian textiles created at the time of early printing.
In the permanent collections of:
Rare Books and Special Collections, The Library of Congress
Special Collections Research Center, University of Michigan
Michigan State University Library
Stanford University Library
