Ephemera is a book created for the CalArts graduating MFA writing class in 2015. The design and printing of the book celebrate the possibilities of small press publishing through hand silk-screened covers and riso-graphed pages in cobalt and crimson ink.
The paradox of the book is that the works inside it are not all finished pieces, however the very act of creating this anthology would suggested that in some sense they are. Perhaps in their union here they exist in another kind of way.
The texts in Ephemera are unconventional and experimental. For the design, we referenced old books, but then through typesetting and illustrations we made everything feel a little off, uncanny even. As if a phantom had wandered through the pages moving things askew; Margins are slightly uneven, ellipses fall down the page, shadows creep in through the gutter. We worked off of these themes of hauntedness and memory, interpreting them through details and little repetitions (literary glitches) that infiltrate so many of the works. We created a system so that occasionally the ends of paragraphs would awkwardly hang over the edge of the margin. Glancing over the page, your eye catches them (the tail-ends of thoughts that stick in your mind) and reads them like a ghost narrative.
The illustrations of nothingness, have no concrete meaning, they depict only relationship and emotion, it is through their association with the text that new meaning is found.
- Kat Catmur
- Colomba Cruz
