Notes

This important artist's book was thought to have been lost in 1988, but has recently been rediscovered in Johannesburg. Consisting of a poem, 'Skoelapperheuwel, Skoelappervrou’, especially written for the publication, the book is illustrated by acclaimed artist Judith Mason. The poem is in Stockenström's inimitable style (which has been described by theorists and critics as 'ironic realism'), and is about the origins of the creative process as experienced and verbalized by a single parent raising her two children. Mason's visceral, yet lyrical illustrations take on the shape of original pencil drawings, re-worked photolithographic images, lithographs, and collages of lithographs. The poem was translated from the Afrikaans by Malcolm Hacksley and Casper Schmidt in 1989, and the translation appears as a loose insert. The book was printed on a lithographic etching press on 250gm Rives BFK paper by Bruce Atwood of the former Broederstoom Press. The text was set in Visigoth, a typeface especially designed for the book by Cynthia Hollandsworth of Alpha Omega Typography in New York. Judith Mason, in the revised colophon, made it clear that '(after) being printed, but before being bound, all Artist's Proofs and the entire edition of Skoelapperheuwel, Skoelappervrou was lost. Twenty-two years later thirty copies were found in Johannesburg, and a donor paid for their binding by Peter Carstens in Johannesburg. The printed illustrations seemed, in retrospect, a little meagre for the book, and I undertook to illustrate each of the 30 books with an additional set of drawings, each unique to the book in which they appear. Each book contains a reference to a particular South African butterfly species, with its Latin and common name provided. As each book is in a sense unique, it was decided to number the edition from 1 to 30, with no Artist's Proofs. Should any further copies of the original edition be found they will be destroyed. These 30 copies in "altered" form are all that are being published, and this handwritten colophon updates to 2010 that which was originally printed by The Broederstroom Press'.