Catherine Alice Michaelis
May Day Press
Artist Books from May Day Press
Both edition and one-of-a-kind works can be purchased from Vamp & Tramp Booksellers.
Front label for Becoming, 2021. Scroll book. Cloth, vintage linens, nature and linoleum prints, stitching, appliqué and some natural dyeing.
Becoming, 2021. Becoming was created during my 2021 Bloedel Creative Residency and narrates the transformative experience I had while there. Every day for three weeks, I walked and ran the paths like any other animal. Over time, I developed a deep connection and communication with the other animals, the flora, weather, and earth like never before. I dropped into my animal body, shedding gender and other cultural labels and limitations. The experience changed me forever.
While in the Bloedel studio space I made prints from nature that unconsciously mirrored my outdoor experience. Later, I embellished the prints with stitching, appliqué, and a few linoleum cuts. I then sewed it into a scroll on blue fabric I also printed from wood.
The prints were created by printing directly from wood rounds and slabs onto fabric, some of which I dyed from pantry items while at the residency. Although the wood rounds and slabs must be planed and sanded, I did not carve or shape the wood rounds or slabs in any way. Becoming documents my time at Bloedel, and at five feet long, is my largest artist book to date.
Looking Out/Looking In, 2021. Wood rounds and slabs printed on vintage linens and embellished with embroidery and linocuts. This title explores the notion of nature, and how we define it. Why do we see nature as beginning outside the home? How is a house not an animal den? Meditating on these thoughts - I am looking inward as I look outward and considering the infinity of our universe and the infinite consciousness that connects all that is.
I work with stitching and domestic linens to subvert both the notion of women’s’ work and the constraining roles of femininity as channeled through embroidery for centuries.
Fatal Fairy, 2017. Western papers hand-dyed directly from plants by the artist are interleaved with Japanese papers printed with hand-set metal and wood types and photopolymer plates from hand drawn talismans, all letterpress printed in over forty-two print runs with eighteen colors. Bound with a side-sewn stitch. Each copy contains unique botanical contact printed papers.
Written by the artist, Fatal Fairy traces and connects seven pairings of words to their linguistic roots. The pairs are fatal/fairy, Beltane/black, democracy/demon, alchemy/font, Hades/envy, glamour/grammar, and talisman/entelechy. Edition 40.
Trial by Fire detail.
Trial by Fire, 2019. Vintage kitchen linens were first printed with a linoleum carved electric stove element. Hand sewn with text, and then sewn into potholders. Original text is embroidered around the red coils. They are personal stories about peri-menopause, memory, hormones of the young and old, curiosity about cigarette lighters, etc. There are also historical references to witch burnings. (Signs of a witch are synonymous with menopause.) The pot used to house the handmade potholders was ruined on the stove due to the artist’s forgetfulness. This pot contains eight potholders. Unique.
Trial by Fire detail
Trial by Fire detail
Katharine Hepburn: I put on pants 50 years ago and declared a sort of middle road. I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. I’ve just done what I damn well wanted to and I’ve made enough money to support myself and I ain’t afraid of being alone.” — The New York Times, May 1981.
Stitching Spinsters, 2019. Once upon a time, any woman unmarried by the age of 25 — which would include myself — was considered a spinster. This quote of Katharine Hepburn’s is the first in a series of stitched quotes by spinsters.
Each quote is hand stitched on a ribbon or other sewing notion and wrapped around a vintage wooden thread spool. At the end of the ribbon is a needle that tucks under to lock the ribbon in place. Each in the series is unique.
Charlotte Bronte: To you I am neither man nor woman. I come before you as an author only. It is the sole standard by which you have a right to judge me — the sole ground on which I accept your judgement. – Bronte to her critics.
Bell Hooks: The one person who will never leave us, whom we will never lose, is our self. Learning to love our female selves is where our search for love must begin. — Communion: The Female Search for Love.
Root, Leaf, & Flower is an experiment in color & gesture direct from the garden. Featuring 13 - 18 botanical contact printed pages (aka eco-printing), it was designed, printed, and bound by Catherine Alice. The stab binding was designed specifically for this edition. The type is hand-set & printed with help from Josh Moody. May Day Press is located by the South Salish Sea, near Olympia, Washington. Varied edition, 2017.
To the Nightland, 2017.
To the Nightland was an ekphrastic exercise beginning with this bead-embroidered heart created by Melissa Frykman-Thieme. Inspired by the praying milagro figure, I wrote and hand-stitched the poetic text about the death of my baby brother onto silk with additional bead-embroidery and decorative stitching. The lace curtain is both page and veil symbolizing the other side of death, my inability to remember his death, and the overall mystery of his accident. Unique.
Sola — A Mythological Story About A Real Girl, 2016. Created by commission for the Just One Look exhibit at the University of Washington from a Salish myth as told by Paul Cheoketen Wagner.
This is a story about abandonment and healing. A lonely young girl hides in a self-created shell until she experiences the loving
and unlimited nature of consciousness through
observation, identification, and direct
experience.
Pressure printed images and hand set type. Edition size 9.
Soil Dwellers Botanical printed papers, each sheet unique, by Catherine Alice Michaelis and Bill Moody, fold around poetry, a musical score, and insect images by Emily Van Kley, Melanie Valera, Emilie Bess, and Catherine Alice Michaelis. Letterpress printed with hand set type and linoleum cuts at May Day Press, 2015. Edition: 45.
Erotica Botanica Leaves unfold, a butterfly escapes! Floating petals nestle amidst passionate expressions written from the perspective of flowers and their pollinators. Hand set type and pressure printed in nine colors. May Day Press 2010.
“lured/by your moon scented face/I circle/ your pistil, a wick/my heart on fire”
Solar Return Created in collaboration with Bill Moody. This project began on the Spring Equinox of 2014 and finished on the Spring Equinox of 2015. Spring, Summer, Late Summer, Autumn, & Winter are the five seasonal chapters these botanically contact-printed papers were sorted into. Each heading lists many of the plants gathered and used for mark making during that season. Thirty-six papers are folded to count the three-hundred-sixty degrees of the circle, 12 copies were bound with golden yellow thread and coptic stitching, and each copy is housed in a bright green box. Hand set type letterpress printed at May Day Press 2015. Edition:12.
A Revealing History of Women's Underwear, 2007. Pressure printed images, photopolymer printed text, with hand set titles and ornaments. Edition: 50.
Party Dress 2004. Remembering my mother as she got ready for a party and playing in her closet. This varied edition features Japanese papers for dresses and handmade paper for the letterpress printed text. The colophon label, "Made for Mom," plays off the "Made by Mom" labels my mother once sewed into my clothes. Edition: 25.
Plant Dyes from the Kitchen. From my 2006 subscription series. This edition was dyed in the kitchen with spices, tea, etc. on Japanese paper, and letterpress printed while a guest at Springtide Press.
Below is a gallery of work out of print.
Book: A Cherokee Primer, was my first May Day Press publication. Printed in 1993, it honors my Grandmother Alice, Sequoyah, and my Cherokee heritage.
Beyond Blue, 2016. Embroidered text spooled on a seal's knuckle bone, beaded salmon leather box lined with indigo dyed cotton. Agate and embroidered map on indigo dyed cotton included.
Mother's Measure, 2015. Two embroidered poems, one extracted from the other, about my mother and sewing.
Lost In Japan, 1999. A collection of micro-memoir pieces, poem, and phonebook, letterpress printed and folded into a scrapbook between sewn-in vintage Japanese papers along with maps, Japanese language book pages, a gingko leaf, and prints from coins and a gingko leaf.
Stack the Deck, 1999. Created by twenty-two women printers each of us printing 3 assigned cards from a player's deck of cards. Boxed in an edition of 100. Designed by Catherine Alice Michaelis and published by May Day Press.
Volcano Blue, 1998. Created on commission by Seafirst Gallery to celebrate the centennial of Mr. Rainier National Park. Made in collaboration with Ann Spiers and Kim Newall.