Heavenly Monkey :: small press, cool books.

In addition to her ongoing limited edition and design binding work, Claudia has indulged her passion for paper in recent years, issuing a series of books mining her own collections. This page offers images and descriptions of the book she has issued.

Due to the very small editions and the strong interest among private and institutional collectors in Claudia's work, her books have been going out of print very soon after publication. Copies can sometimes be found with the booksellers listed on our Friends page. Contact Heavenly Monkey for details on Claudia's upcoming projects and options for reserving copies.

AN EDIBLE ALPHABET
Claudia's most recent project (created during the summer of 2010), similar in spirit to Bookbinding Ephemera and Chasing Paper, An Edible Alphabet combines her love for letterforms, fanciful page compositions, and binding structures that convey intimacy when held. Each page reproduces from stencils a letter in three alphabets, surrounded by the names of foods starting with that letter. These words are taken from Claudia's large collection of early 20th-century rubber stamps, used in restaurants to create the daily menu. Some words are also written in her own elegant cursive. The paper used in a wafer-thin vintage laid, French folded and sewn long-stitch on to a vellum structure with three slips, and laced into an outer case made from pieces of 18th- and 19th-century parchment documents. The edition is 30 copies, priced at $500.

PASTE PAPERS
Claudia's first book, Paste Papers (10.5 by 6.5. approx. 40 pp), was a collection of her own designs, issued in an edition of 30 copies in 1999. The title page consists of a paste paper with title stamped in gilt, and inserted in slits surrounded by red paper cut-outs. More than 80 examples of paste papers tipped-in, with one folding. Housed in a paste-paper covered clamshell box with a spine label matching the book. The book, issued at US$1,000, is out of print.

BOOKBINDING EPHEMERA
The second volume in her series was Bookbinding Ephemera (9 x 9 inches), an ingenious dos-a-dos accordion structure book that assembles all of the materials at a binder's disposal: threads, papers, cloths, and skins. Each assemblage is laid out in a different pattern on the page spread (a page showing spine labels from various projects is shown at right). The verso of the ephemera side collects a wide range of papers - marbled, paste and other - from her collection. The edition of 30 is issued in paper covered boards, with a matching box. Priced at US$500, a few copies remain available.

CHASING PAPER
The third volume in the series was the first issued by Heavenly Monkey Editions, in the Spring of 2007. Chasing Paper displays over 300 samples from Claudia's decades of collecting. These samples range from antique European decorated sheets, to printed and ceremonial papers from the Orient, to commercial labels and packaging. Like her other books, the samples are arranged in artful and varied patterns and fold-outs throughout the book. This also is Claudia's first book to include printed text - a title page, short introductory essay and colophon, all set in Gill Sans and Perpetua, and printed at Heavenly Monkey. The edition was 30 numbered and 5 AP copies, issued at US$1,250. The edition included five deluxe copies, issued with a second volume of additional samples. This book went out of print shortly after its release at the 2007 Codex Book Fair.

COUNTING
Similar in spirit and form to Bookbinding Ephemera and Chasing Paper, COUNTING presents a series of spreads, each combining a 60-mm le Corbusier stencil for a number in the sequence one through ten; postage stamps corresponding to the number; and a tipped-on leather skiver hand-tooled in gilt. The title page and descriptive colophon will be printed on dampened green Guarro laid paper. The book debuted at the 2009 Codex Book Fair, priced at US$500, and went out of print within a month.

Return to Claudia's main page.

HEAVENLY MONKEY