Age Before Beauty. by [Anagram Press/Springtide Press] Chandler O'Leary / Jessica Spring - 2016.

Tacoma, Washington:: Anagram Press / Springtide Press,, 2016.. Edition of 158. 110 x 18"; single-sheet broadside. Printed letterpress on archival 100% rag (cotton) paper on an antique Vandercook Universal One press. Handset wood type. Signed and numbered by the artists.  Significance of edition number relates to the recently-discovered "Fragment 58" of Sappho's poetry. Chandler O'Leary: " Like every woman in our pop-culture-driven world, Jessica and I are bombarded with imagery and messages that urge us to scrutinize and criticize our own appearance. Unsurprisingly, we are taught to find ourselves lacking in one way or many, and to compare ourselves with an impossible ideal. "We were a little surprised to find courage and consolation in Ancient Greece, where they were all about the impossible ideal. Yet if you sift through the lofty architectural theory, stylized scenes and tales of the immortals, you'll find a honey-tongued poet who speaks the plain truth: Sappho. "Our 23rd broadside, Age Before Beauty, reaches further back in time than we ever have before-to the 6th century BCE. … the illustration is styled after the designs and motifs of ancient Greek pottery, right down to the amphora handles. "Yet even though she lived and worked thousands of years ago, Sappho's words ring true as if they were written yesterday. We especially loved her self-reflection in the poem we chose, and the way she managed to view her aging body with kindness. It brought to mind, for me, an image of dual goddesses who are really two faces of the same woman-like the Maiden and Crone archetypes so common in other pre-Christian cultures. "Like the art of ancient Greece, the illustration is chock full of allegorical imagery. For instance, young Sappho carries Aphrodite's mirror, while Athena's wise owl looks over her aged self. Both figures play a seven-stringed lyre: Sappho was a lyrical poet, which means her poetry was designed to be performed to music. (Incidentally, some scholars also credit Sappho with the invention of the plectrum, a tool similar to a guitar pick that was used to pluck the lyre's strings.) Finally, the band of dancing deer at the base references Josephine Balmer's recent translation of Sappho's Old Age Poem.