SOUND FROM THE THINKING STRINGS (Signed by the artist and the contributors)

A visual, literary, archaeological and historical interpretation of the final years of /Xam life

Three original colour etchings and Seventeen original monochrome etchings by Pippa Skotnes

Translations from the Bleek and Lloyd collection of interviews with //Kabbo, /Han=Kasso and Dia!Kwain by Stephen Watson

Essays by John Parkington and Nigel Penn, foreword by Stephen Jay Gould.

164 pages.

Limited to 50 copies numbered 1 – 50 signed on the colophon page by the artists and contributors.

This is copy no. 32. It is the artist’s working copy and is the sewn body only which is contained is a specially made fold-down case by Peter Carstens who bound all the volumes in the edition.

Mounted on the upper cover are two cut-out figures in metal by Pippa Skotnes.

Loosely inserted in a pocket at the front are several of Stephen Watson’s typed and heavily annotated translations of the interviews and many sketches by Pippa Skotnes in preparation for the etched plates.

All the etchings are printed from the original copper plates, on Zerkall Buetten paper by the artist with the assistance of Fritha Langerman, Pascal Bompard and Christine Dixie. The embossings were hand-cut from copper plates by the artist. The text is set in 16 and 14 point Plantin by Hirt and Carter and screen printed by hand at Omega Art.

13 June 1991‘Sound from the thinking strings’ is a visual, literary, archaeological and historical interpretation of the final years of |xam life. Published by Axeage Private Press and edited by Pippa Skotnes, it includes translations by Stephen Watson, essays by John Parkington and Nigel Penn, original etchings by Pippa Skotnes and a foreword by Stephen Jay Gould.

Sound from the thinking strings was the inaugural publication of Axeage Private Press and was launched with an exhibition at the Iziko South African Museum that included various related objects, manuscripts, photographs and the records of the Breakwater Prison. The edition is limited to 50 copies, some of which are included in the collections of the Iziko South African National Gallery, public libraries and several European and American collections, including Yale’s Centre for the Book and the Smithsonian’s African art collection. The book was widely reviewed and was the recipient of the University of Cape Town Book Award in 1992.

The publication was later also exhibited as part of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award and travelled with the exhibition to all the major centres of the country. It was also the subject of a major court case which was widely publicised in the press in which the National Library sued Pippa Skotnes for free copies of the book under the Legal Deposit Act, maintaining that a book could not be an artwork. http://www.cca.uct.ac.za/projects/sound-from-the-thinking-strings-edited-by-pippa-skotnes/