Small Press Explo: Carrier Pigeon
Carrier Pigeon, if you haven’t seen it is a recent entrant into the high production/small press art magazine market. The editors at Carrier Pigeon take a unique approach to producing a quality printed container for text and imagery, as you will see. In there own words:
Carrier Pigeon is a magazine of illustrated fiction and fine art. By giving full creative control to the artists, illustrators, designers and writers this magazine hopes to level the conventional perception of the singularity of each artistic discipline. Carrier Pigeon provides artists with a venue for telling stories in an undisturbed environment by offering the chance to show full bodies of work and unconditional artistic freedom in both direct subject matter and the interpretation of text. This publication will be printed quarterly.
One of the ways they achieve their goal of artistic singularity is by producing very high quality reproductions on very nice paper, often focusing on the print and drawing processes that don’t reproduce well on the internet, namely, lithography, etching, an anything else that relies on delicate rendering or subtle tonal effects. To this I say only, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Follow this photo-essay as it flips through two issues after the jump.
Rather than clutter up this photo-essay with didactic information, I’ll just list the contributors here. The illustrated Fiction includes the following contributors, Brian Thompson willustrations by Kristy Caldwell
Bugged
by Ben Schaeffer
Illustrations by Ray JonesRamses Sleeps for You
by Victor Giannini
Illustrations by Rie HasegawaRabbits
by Christopher Stanton
Illustrations by Eric CollinsA Feint of Light unto the Fortress
by Ryan Scamehorn
Illustrations by Yuriko KatoriHarry Coover
by Russ Spitkovsky
Illustrations by Justin SanzWith featured artwork by, Evan Summer, Frances Jetter, Yael Balaban, Christopher Darling, Bill Maxwell, Bruce Waldman.
The detail below is a little out of focus, but it gives you a sense of the detail visible in these great wood cuts.
Each issue features an limited edition print. This one is mine!
Issue 2 was no less beautiful and captivating. From the blurb:
The publication’s second issue is adorned on both front and back covers with an original hand-pulled and signed screen print created exclusively for the magazine by ten artists in ten editions of 100 magazines each. Artists Matt Barteluce, Christopher Darling, Kristy Caldwell,Stephen A. Fredericks, Rie Hasegawa, Ray Jones, Denise Kasof, Justin Sanz, Russ Spitkovsky and Bruce Waldman contributed original cover drawings for the complete edition of 1,000 magazines. In addition, the plastic containment bags are screen-printed with a design by Jason Punches, the designer of the issue. Complete sets of each of the magazine’s ten cover variations will be made available, as will a very limited edition of separately signed prints housed in custom portfolios.
Six illustrated fiction pieces and six individual “portfolios” of art again form the basis of Carrier Pigeon’s current content. Fiction contributions include: “Black Hole Pacifica,” written by Victor Giannini and illustrated by Eric Collins; “When the World Screamed,” written by Ben Schaeffer and illustrated by Bruce Waldman; “Swoop,” written by Christopher Stanton and illustrated by Kristy Caldwell; “Hyena,” written by Ryan Scamehorn and illustrated by Matt Barteluce; “No Supervision,” written by Russ Spitkovsky and illustrated by Ray Jones; and “Power, Hunger, Hubert and Sam,” written by Daniel Borreli and illustrated by Russ Spitkovsky. International talent comprising the individual portfolios include fine artistsMichael Kovener, Joo Chung, Jahee Yu,Denise Kasof, Rie Hasegawa and Avraham Eilat. Issue no. 2 designer Jason Punches is based in New York and currently works for his own company, Tag Collective.
In this case the cover itself is the handprinted element.
I should comment on the fiction, it’s good! It’s not the New Yorker but I take that as a positive thing, the work is fresh and more experimental than what you might find elsewhere.
In short, for the price of a weeks worth of large lattes you could own a great art container, now ask yourself which will really keep you happy longer?
Or better yet Subscribe now and get a whole year delivered to your door!
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Oh la la!