A bonsai-shaped mind & postures of the heart. Engravings Richard Wagener

Petaluma: Mixolydian Editions & Nawakum Press, 2024. Edition limited to 82 copies, this one of the 20 special Engraver's Edition (this, copy no. V), signed by both the artist and the author in a full leather goastskin binding with pictorial onlay, 8 end-grain boxwood engravings by Wagener on Japanese gampi paper, with other illustrations in the text, and with an extra suite of 5 bonsai tree prints (9¾" x 10½") and one unique print which is not included in the book; contained in a folding box of red and black Japanese book cloth. Original 8-page [prospectus laid in. The edition is a collaboration between Richard Wagener, award-winning master wood engraver and fine press publisher from Petaluma, California, David Pascoe of the award-winning Nawakum Press in Gig Harbor, Washington, and Marc Peter Keane, artist, Japanese garden designer and author of fiction and non-fiction from Kyoto, Japan. The first section of the book consists of a series of five short essays on bonsai from the internationally known author and artist, Marc Peter Keane, living in Kyoto, Japan. These essays address bonsai culture, the awe-inspiring yet humble nature of the art form, and the foresight required to work within its realm. For the author bonsai is a living art; it is the art of shepherding; it is the art of inheritance ... In the second section of the book is an intricately crafted short story in nine parts ... The story takes place over a five-hundred-year period ... Three owners of the bonsai, and their circumstances while shedherding the tree, are portrayed.