Travelers - forty years of books to go
In celebration of Peter and Donna Thomas
Curated by Luise Poulton, 2018
Exhibition poster designed by Scott Beadles, 2018
Digital Exhibition produced by Lyuba Basin, 2020
Travelers - forty years of books to go
IN CELEBRATION OF PETER AND DONNA THOMAS
Peter and Donna Thomas are book artists from Santa Cruz, CA. Since 1977 they have worked both collaboratively and individually; letterpress printing, hand-lettering and illustrating texts, making paper, and hand binding both fine press and artists’ books. Inspired by the archetypal quest for beauty and perfection, and informed by the potential of word, image, shape and texture to create an illuminating or transformative experience, their initial aim was to create limited edition fine press books made of the finest materials and produced to the highest standards of quality, in both full size and miniature format. This aesthetic continued to guide them through the 1990s as they worked in new formats made possible by personal computer technology, exploring non-traditional book structures and shaped book objects as both limited editions and one-of-a-kind books. From 2010-2015 they have traveled the USA as the “Wandering Book Artists” giving talks, workshops and demonstrations to both academic and community-based audiences.
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?
-- Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road
THE THREE CEDARS : A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES
Peter R. Thomas and Donna Millar Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Good Book Press, 1978
N7433.4 T52 T467 1978b
Peter’s handmade paper made on site at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. Cloth was spun, dyed and woven by Donna Millar Thomas.
This copy donated to Rare Books by Peter and Donna Thomas. It is copy no. 8.
THE FIRE OF THE DRAGON YUDUR
Peter R. and Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: The Good Book Press, 1981
N7433.4 T52 F57
Handprinted and handbound by Donna and Peter Thomas, using their own handmade paper. Type face is Anglo.
Edition of seventy-five copies. Rare Books copy is no. 65.
BIKUPAN : THE STORY OF A TRIP TO VISIT A HAND ...
Peter R. and Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter and Donna Thomas, 1992
TS1095 S85 T56 1992
Printed using a Vandercook press with Centaur and Arrighi types on paper handmade by Peter Thomas in 1983, using white and black rags with blue pigment. The sample papers were all made at the Lessebo hand paper mill, the first in 1990 and the rest were made sometime in the middle of the twentieth century, exactly when is unknown. Hand bound by Peter and Donna Thomas.
Edition of one hundred and nineteen copies. Rare Books copy is no. 14.
A PAPERMAKING SAFARI TO AFRICA
Peter R. and Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz: Peter and Donna Thomas, 1995
TS1094 T55 1995
Letterpress printed on Peter’s paper (made from cotton rag and Msasa fiber. Text by Peter Thomas. Illustrations by Donna Thomas. Handbound by both. Paper sample from South Africa was made by John Roome. Paper sample from Zimbabwe was made by Walter Ruprecht.
Edition of one hundred copies. Rare Books copy is no. 51.
THE VIEW FROM MT. DANA
John Muir (1838-1914)
Santa Cruz, CA: P & D Thomas, 1997
PS2447 M5 V53 1997
Edition of 97 copies, numbered. Rare Books copy is no. 33.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UKULELE
Donna and Peter Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Donna and Peter Thomas, 1997
N7433.4 T517 B75 1997
Printed on double leaves.
Edition of fifty copies, numbered. Rare Books copy is no. 12.
FOUR VIEWS OF KEALAKEKUA BAY
Peter and Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter & Donna Thomas, 1998
N7433.4 T52 F68 1998
From the prospectus: “Presents four different views, three literary and one pictorial, to illustrate the spot where Cook and his crew first discovered the charms of Hawaii. [It includes] excerpts from the writing of Captain James Cook, Mark Twain, and the well-known song by Johnny Noble. Miniature paper scroll mounted in wooden and pasteboard rolling frame.”
Edition of seventy-five copies.
I'm just a little Hawaiian
A homesick island boy
I want to go back to my fish and poi
SONG OF CREATION
John Muir (1838-1914)
Santa Cruz, CA: Donna and Peter Thomas, 1999
PS2447 M5 S66 1999
Text printed on an accordion folded leaf at the foot of a panorama of mountains, rivers, and waterfalls. It is backed by a reverse accordion folded leaf of plain gray-green paper with cutouts both supporting and revealing the principle scene. The entire structure, when laid open, resembles mountain peaks alternating with valleys, themselves surrounded by distant mountain peaks in silhouette. Handmade paper by Peter Thomas. Artwork and binding by Donna Thomas.
Edition of five hundred numbered copies. Rare Books copy is no. 24.
Who knows, who ever told, from whence this vast creation rose?
No gods had then been born – who then can e’er the truth disclose?
Whence sprang this world, and whether framed by hand divine or no-
Its lord in heaven alone can tell, if even he can show.
— Anon. (The Rig Veda)
Translated by John Muir, in ‘Original Sankrit Texts’, volume 5.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UKULELE
Peter R. and Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: P. & D. Thomas, 1999
N7433.4 T52 B75 1999
Printed on an accordion folded leaf, the first and last folds of which are mounted on mahogany covers. Illustrated and handbound by Donna & Peter Thomas.
PARADISE : NATURE, STARDUST, MUSIC & ROMANCE
Peter and Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: P & D Thomas, 1999
N7433.4 T52 P37 1999
Five flags affixed to dowels arranged sequentially in a wooden frame attached to spine of cover.
Edition of forty-two copies.
“For not only in my eyes is Paradise.” -- Dante
THE JOHN MUIR TRAIL
Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz: Peter and Donna Thomas, 2000
F868 S5 T484 2000
Accordion-bound reproductions of Donna Thomas’s paintings made along the John Muir Trail.
Edition of forty copies, numbered. Rare Books copy is no. 33.
HALF DOME : A CLIMBING HISTORY
Peter Thomas
Santa Cruz: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2000
F868 Y6 T56 2000
Linocut illustrations by Donna Thomas.
Edition of one hundred and fifty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 23.
HOME ON THE RANGE : A COWBOY SONG
Santa Cruz, CA: P. & D. Thomas, 2001
N7433.4 T517 H66 2001
Printed watercolors by Donna Thomas on one side of an accordion folded handmade sheet, handmade by Peter Thomas, the first and last folded leaves mounted on two boards. Bound by Donna in leather wraparound case made to look like a saddlebag with fringe and a leather tie closure.
Edition of thirty copies, numbered. Rare Books copy is no. 19.
MINERAL KING-KERN LOOP, SUMMER 2001
Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter and Donna Thomas, 2001
N7433.4 T517 M56 2001
Painted, color copied, handbound by Donna Thomas on handmade paper by Peter Thomas.
Edition of forty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 25.
A YOSEMITE ABC
Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2001
N7433.4 T517 Y6 2001
Printed watercolors by Donna Thomas on one side of an accordion folded sheet of paper, handmade by Peter Thomas, glued to spine to form pages. Bound by Donna in light brown leather with gilt lettering on the front cover. Issued in illustrated slipcase.
OPEN HOUSE
Peter R. and Donna Thomas
San Antonio, TX: Peter and Donna Thomas, 2001
N7433.4 T52 O6 2001
Letterpress printed on handmade paper by Peter and Donna Thomas and their students at the Southwest School of Art and Craft, San Antonio, Texas, March 2001.
Edition of thirty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 20.
THE WIZARD OF OZ IN PICTURES
Peter R. and Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter and Donna Thomas for the International Wizard of Oz Club, 2001
N7433.4 T52 W59 2001
Edition of twenty-six lettered and seventy-five numbered copies. Rare Books copy is A/P.
“If we walk far enough,” says Dorothy, “we shall sometime come to someplace.”
WEST TO EAST : SIERRA JOURNEY
Heather McPherson and David Worton
Santa Cruz, CA: Donna Thomas, 2002
N7433.4 M4295 W47 2002
Painted, calligraphed, copied and bound by Donna Thomas on handmade paper by Peter Thomas.
Edition of fifteen copies. Rare Books copy is no. 14.
LANDSCAPES OF THE JOHN MUIR TRAIL
Donna and Peter Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2002
N7433.4 T517 L36 2002
Donna Thomas and Katy Mclaughlin hiked the John Muir Trail together in 2002. Donna painted a landscape each day. Using these images and handmade paper by Peter Thomas, she made this book, hand-coloring the illustrations.
Edition of one hundred and fifty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 52.
WILDFLOWERS OF THE JOHN MUIR TRAIL
Donna Thomas and Peter Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2002
N7433.4 T52 W54 2002
Donna Thomas and Katy McLaughlin hiked the John Muir Trail in the summer of 2002. They identified these flowers together and Donna painted them on the spot. Donna made this book using these images and Peter’s handmade paper. A single sheet is folded accordion-style to form forty leaves. The illustrations are hand-colored.
Edition of one hundred and fifty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 59.
COVERING GROUND
Donna and Peter Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2003
N7433.4 T517 C68 2003
Katy McLaughlin, Donna Thomas and other contributed to the text of this book, edited by Donna Thomas. Letterpress printed by Peter Thomas, who also made the paper. The Book was handwritten and handbound by Donna Thomas, with woodworking help on the wooden covers by John Millar.
Edition of twenty-five copies. Rare Books copy is no. 10.
IN THE MIDDLE
Murfreesboro, TN: Visiting Artist Seminar, Middle Tennessee State University, 2004
N7433.3 I5 2004
Cedar block with paper and dowels rolled into cut out holes on one side. Wrapped in book cover with regular paper bound in the front. A collaborative project with Peter and Donna Thomas and students of the Visiting Artist Seminar.
Edition of twenty-four copies. Rare Books copy is no. 19.
THE TRAIN COMES TO WICHITA
Peter and Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: P. & D. Thomas, 2004
N7433.4 T52 T73 2004
Designed and produced for an exhibit at the Wichita Art Museum. The train is model of typical steam locomotive used during the period of Westward expansion. The text, on five scrolls, is rolled onto a crank shaft inside the model train. The text juxtaposes early train lore, Wichita’s early history, and two songs: “The Old Chisholm Trail” and “The Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe.”
WAKE UP
Boulder, CO: Naropa University, Summer Writing Program, 2004
N7433.3 W34 2004
Portfolio printed by students in the Summer Writing Program under the direction of Peter and Donna Thomas.
Edition of thirty copies.
THE HISTORY OF PAPERMAKING IN THE PHILIPPINES
Peter and Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter and Donna Thomas, 2005
TS1095 P6 T46 2005
Letterpress printed on Peter’s handmade paper. Handbound by Peter and Donna Thomas. The cloth used on the binding is called “T’nalak.” It is woven from abaca fiber by the Tlboli people in South Cotabato. The patterns in the cloth are created before the cloth is woven by employing a complex method of ikat, a wax resist tie-dye. Edition of seventy-five copies. Rare Books copy is no. 7, signed by the authors.
GIPSY CARAVAN
Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932)
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2007
PR4726 G56 2007
Text from The Wind in the Willows. Book designed in the form of a caravan wagon with accordion-style pages.
“Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement!
The whole world before you, and a horizon that's always changing!”
THE GRAND CANYON
Peter and Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2007
F788 T49 2007
Brown paper covered boards are varnished to look like wood with paper label on front board, covering accordion-style structure. The paper is “duplex,” or two-sided: the sheet is off-white, shaded with umber pigment, and the back has a layer of darker paper pulp with petroglyph-like imagery onlayed over the surface. It was printed with a red brown rainbow roll, so the ink is subtly shaded from the top of the page to the bottom, an attempt to visually allude to the colors of the Grand Canyon. Both the front and the back of the accordion page are printed with imagery that depicts the elevation of the Grand Canyon. This image is a duplication of one of the original technical drawings from John Wesley Powell’s Exploring the Colorado, 1875.
Edition of fifty copies, for Donna’s 50th birthday.
“The Grand Canyon is a land of song. Mountains of music swell in the rivers, hills of music billow in the creeks, and meadows of music murmur in the rills that ripple over the rocks. Altogether it is a symphony of multitudinous melodies. All this is the music of waters. The adamant foundations of the earth have been wrought into a sublime harp, upon which the clouds of the heavens play with mighty tempests or with gentle showers.”
IN THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, APRIL 1868
John Muir (1838-1914)
Santa Cruz, CA: P & D Thomas, 2008
F868 S173 M85 2008
Printed on one side of an accordion-folded handmade sheet. Line drawing illustration runs along the bottom of the accordion pages. First and last pages mounted on cloth-covered boards without spine. Edition of fifty-one copies, made by Peter for Donna’s 51st birthday. Rare Books copy is no. 10.
“[The] valley of the San Joaquin is the floweriest piece of world I ever walked,
one vast, level even flower-bed, a sheet of flowers, a smooth sea.”
TRAIN DEPOTS
Peter R. and Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter and Donna Thomas, 2008
TF302 U54 T46 2008
Text by Peter Thomas. Illustrations by Donna Thomas. Printed on paper made by Peter Thomas and handbound by both Peter and Donna. Edition of eighty-five copies, of which 1 & 2 are printed on vellum and 3-7 are hand colored. Rare Books copy is no. 10.
A GIPSY CARAVAN
Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932)
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2009
PR4726 G56 2009
Text from The Wind in the Willows. Leather spine and cloth cover with illustration of a caravan wagon on inlaid ceramic disc and accordion-style pages.
Edition of one hundred and fifty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 12.
“Take the adventure, heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes!
‘Tis but a banging of the door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are out of your old life and into the new!”
THE ARCHES
Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Donna and Peter Thomas, 2010
N7433.4 T517 A8 2010
One-of-a kind book painted and bound by Donna Thomas using Peter Thomas’ handmade paper.
DON'T FENCE ME IN
Peter R. Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2010
N7433.4 T52 D6 2010
Text is first line of Cole Porter’s archetypal cowboy song. Printed on one side of an accordion folded handmade sheet. First and last pages mounted on cloth-covered boards without spine. Embossed, illustrated leather label mounted on front cover.
Edition of fifty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 15.
Let me be by myself in the evenin’ breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever, but I ask you please
Don't fence me in
Just turn me loose
Let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the Western skies
Let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise
I want to ride to the ridge where the West commences
And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
And I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences
Don't fence me in”
THE SOUTH-WEST : THE WANDERING BOOK ARTISTS
Peter R. Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2010
N7433.4 T52 S58 2010
Illustrations from watercolors painted by Donna Thomas on one sheet of paper.
Edition of fifty copies. Rare Books copies are nos. 15 and 50.
TREES FROM SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD : LEAVES OF GRASS
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2010
PS3204 T56 2010
Watercolor illustrations of trees painted on site in the Sierra Nevada by Donna, color copied and mounted as photographs in an old album, in an accordion-fold. Paper handmade by Peter Thomas.
Edition of thirty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 25.
THE RENAISSANCE PLEASURE FAIRE BROADSIDES
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter and Donna Thomas, 2011
Z232 T56 R5 2011
The broadsides in this collection were made between 1974 and 1989, when the Thomas’s worked at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, an event that recreated an English country market fair. The broadsides are letterpress printed on Peter’s handmade paper using metal type. Illustrated with Donna’s linoleum cuts and watercolor rubrication. The collection was bound the same year by Peter and Donna Thomas.
Edition of twenty-five copies.
THE WANDERING BOOK ARTISTS' COLLABORATIVE BROADSIDES
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2011
N7433.3 W36 2011
Paper used for the portfolio pages is commercially made Glama from the Schoellershammer papermill in Germany. The title page was printed on a Vandercook Universal 1 press, using metal Playbill type, on paper Peter made at the Old Ways Workshop. Pamphlet printed using polymer plates with digital Century Schoolbook and Playbill type, on Peter’s cotton rag handmade paper.
Edition of fifty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 46.
SHENANDOAH
Peter and Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2011
N7433.4 T52 S43 2011
Accordion fold book with first line of the song “Shenandoah” printed on one side of the folded leaf of paper handmade by Peter Thomas.
O Shenandoah, I long to hear you
Away, you rolling river
O Shenandoah, I long to hear you
Away, I'm bound away
‘Cross the wide Missouri
Missouri, she's a mighty river
Away, you rolling river
The Indians camp along her borders
Away, I'm bound away
‘Cross the wide Missouri
The white man loved an Indian maiden
Away, you rolling river
With notions his canoe was laden
Away, I'm bound away
‘Cross the wide Missouri
O Shenandoah, I love your daughter
Away, you rolling river
For her I've crossed the rolling water
Away, I'm bound away
‘Cross the wide Missouri
CRUCES
Peter and Donna Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter and Donna Thomas, 2013
N7433.4 T52 C78 2013
Matchbook format that opens out into the shape of a cross, illustrated with abstract linoleum-block prints. A rectangle of handmade century-plant paper with a hand-lettered quote from Georgia O’Keefe is cross-stitched to the center of the cross. The cover is printed on flax paper. Created in Las Cruces, New Mexico with the assistance of Gatis Cirulis and Katya Reka.
Edition of twenty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 3, signed by the artists.
HETCH HETCHY FLORA
Donna and Peter Thomas
Santa Cruz, CA: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2013
N7433.4 T517 H47 2013
Nine watercolor paintings of wildflowers, one water color painting of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir from O’Shaughnessy Dam, one watercolor painted map, five ornamental pages of handwritten and rubricated text. Donna’s original artwork was reproduced by digital printing processes onto Peter’s handmade paper. Those pages were sewn onto larger sheets of loft dried granite-like paper Peter made for the book. The book is bound between blue Moroccan leather boards. Both front and back covers have wooden replicas of a plant press used in the early twentieth century by botanist Willis Jepson. Issued in blue cloth clamshell box.
Edition of thirty-five copies.