Full Circle

Asheville, North Carolina: Flying Fish Press, 2006. First Limited Edition. Box. Like New. Julie Chen. A fabulous handmade artist's book, a feast of movable pieces and a dazzling piece of paper architecture, with its large pinwheel as the central element but also with four pull out drawers on the side, each with pop-ups, etc. All in the service of the theme of unstable beliefs and emotions -- the flip flopping we do on this or that with the passage of time. One of 100 copies made. No institutional copies listed on OCLC First Search, nor copies in commerce, on the date of this listing (early 2025). About 39 cm square, over 7 cm deep. Here is what its creator, Chen, wrote about the book at the time of its issuance: "Full Circle is a powerful exploration into the cycles of faith and belief from the first moments of obsession through the experience of deepest doubts, and ultimately passing through the place of peace where the mind and heart are (re)united before the endless cycle starts again. A large box-mounted wheel rotates continuously beneath a series of windows to reveal the many stages of the faith cycle with concurrent letterpress images of the human body. One window in the wheel also reveals a tray with compartments containing simple every-day objects that take on varied and potent meanings for each individual reader as they attempt to connect or reconcile the complex spiritual world in their imaginations with the material reality before them. Three drawers open from a slot in the outer tray, cradling pop-up diagrams which act as three checkpoints along the cycle. One of Chen’s most advanced book structures to date, the ingenious wheel is not only a marvel of book craft but also an opportunity for a level of self-exploration leading the reader toward the realization that meaning may be encountered within the process of seeking." Light wear, perhaps, but fairly described as Like New and certainly Fine by any standard. (Inventory #: 20113)