ABOUT

WHAT IS SALAMI DREAMIN’?
Salami Dreamin’, a limited-edition artist’s book by Michelle Maguire, features eye-popping, hand-printed images of her blunt, funny, completely unimpressed Italian American Great-Aunt Doll, with colorful Aunt Doll anecdotes by Aaron Beck. Maguire and Beck are married and live in Columbus, Ohio.

WHO IS AUNT DOLL?
Aunt Doll, age 85, has lived in Canton, Ohio, her entire life. She cusses, loves cured meats, knows more about the NFL than you do, plays strip mall slot machines with her vegetarian hairdresser of 42 years, isn’t trying to be funny but is, worships the sun from her concrete-slab patio, and frets about nothing except her beloved Italian bread packing on the pounds. Aunt Doll makes the most if it. The gist of her story: enjoy every chicken wing while you holler at the Cleveland Browns on your gigantic analog TV, because we aren’t here forever.

BOOK SPECS
• 11.75 x 14.25” / 68 pages / 14 prints
• Printed on Arches 88 mould-made paper using lithography and silkscreen printing techniques by Michael Weigman, Jen Slezak and Logan Schmitt of Floodwall Press; and Stonehenge rag cotton paper using letterpress printing from polymer plates by Michelle Maguire at The Ohio State University, Logan Elm Press
• Each copy includes a tipped-in short sheet at the back of the book, which was litho-, silkscreen-, and letterpress-printed on Moriki paper, plus a bonus silkscreen-on-newsprint pamphlet
• Limited to 50 numbered and signed copies signature-sewn bound into bonded leather over boards by Brenda Goodwin, Michelle Maguire, and Heather Wetzel at The Ohio State University Libraries Department of Preservation & Reformatting Conservation Lab

AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK:

    From late morning through early afternoon on any given summer day, Aunt Doll is on her back patio in a cushioned glider. The letters SPF mean about as much to Doll as the Russian alphabet. If her skin is showing, it’s getting bronzer by the minute. All she needs is a blazing-hot afternoon, a terry cloth romper, her 32-ounce sipper of Crystal Light, and a Danielle [“Duh-NELL”] Steele novel. 
    “Shit, I’ll see ya. I ain’t goin’ anywhere today, babe. The sun’s out, and my ass is stayin’ right here. This is it.” The birds roosting on the telephone lines chirp out in the still, humid air of the treeless yard. A weedeater whirls away somewhere down the street. “You know one of these days I’m gonna shove that camera up your ass, Michelle. Hand me the newspaper, babe.”

COLLECTIONS
Salami Dreamin' is included in the permanent collections of Yale University (Haas Arts Library); School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Joan Flasch Collection); Ringling College of Art and Design (Goldstein Library); Rochester Institute of Technology (Wallace Library); University of California, Irvine (Special Collections); University of Utah (Marriott Library); The Ohio State University (Fine Arts Library); Ohio University (Alden Library); and the NYC Center for Book Arts.

For further info, process documentation, and behind-the-scenes action, please visit my website. : - ) ) )

See Salami Dreamin' in the wild -- Instagram #salamidreamin

ALL SALES FINAL.