Elevation 50 ft
9” x 12”
letterpress and intaglio monoprint on paper
edition of 50
2025

Click the square thumbnail to see the entire photo of the print.

About the artwork:

One of my ongoing projects with Bright Cloud Press is to print limited edition poetry broadsides, where I design an print an image alongside the work of a poet, which I handset and print on an antique Chandler & Price platen press.

“Elevation 50 ft” is a poem written by Colorado writer, Bethany Lorden. In thinking of an image to go with Lorden’s poem, I imagined the delicate columbine towering over the text with the nostalgic power and weightiness of a mountain.

The poem is letterpress printed in hand set 14 pt Cochin Light antique metal type. The image of the columbine flower was hand printed using an intaglio monoprint process that involves wiping hand-mixed ink into the grooves up the plate and polishing the surface, so the printed image is made from the ink that remained in the grooves of the image. Each time the intaglio plate is inked and polished, the plate accumulates more subtle marks, adding to the background texture of the print as the edition is printed. The print is on white 250 gsm Reeves BFK cotton paper and is signed and numbered on the back.

In designing an image to go with Bethany’s poem,

Prints 1 - 42 of the limited edition of 50 are available for collection.