Sal Taylor Kydd
Artist and poet Sal Taylor Kydd announces the release of Yesterday, a limited edition artist book produced in conjunction with Datz Press, that explores the feelings of isolation and dislocation brought on by the pandemic and her journey to find solace in nature.
“This work was made in Maine during the summer of 2020,” the artist explains. “Back then, we felt relatively free from much of the toll that Covid was taking on the rest of the country and the world. The ability to spend time outside in nature gave us the illusion of safety, of normalcy almost, but there was a sense of living on borrowed time.”
Sal Taylor Kydd
Sal Taylor Kydd
Sal Taylor Kydd
from the garden,
my hands dirty,
my nails, soiled,
and I wept.
For I’d been lost,
in the brambles,
in the sweet now of doing,
and had forgotten
for a moment,
that the world
was breaking...
Yesterday is a book of photographs made during the summer of 2020. Although much of the country was in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic, on this remote island off the coast of Maine, we still felt free from much of the toll that Covid was taking. That summer represented a pause in time, a moment where life could feel normal, when we were still holding on to a world of yesterdays.
“By then we all knew of people that had died or fallen ill, and we were managing the stress of futures shifting and plans that had been derailed, fearing what would come with the inevitable change of the seasons,” Kydd said. “That summer represented a pause in time, a moment where life felt almost normal, when we were still holding onto a world of yesterdays.”
Sal Taylor Kydd
Sal Taylor Kydd
Sal Taylor Kydd
Sal Taylor Kydd
The images in Yesterday will also be presented as limited edition prints in a process known as photopolymer gravure. In this process the image is exposed onto a polymer plate and then hand-pulled through an etching press, enabling Kydd to produce prints with an aesthetic quality that speaks to the echo of memory. The gravures are a departure for Kydd, who usually works in platinum-palladium and alternative processes.
“I really respond to the physicality of working with the press. Rather than being in my basement making prints, I get to be in my studio. Pulling prints feels very dynamic and rewarding,” said Kydd. “The image becomes part of the paper, as opposed to laying on top of it; there’s a tactility and materiality that comes through this process that I enjoy and that really speaks to the work.”
Yesterday / Sal Taylor Kydd
Yesterday, which combines Kydd’s photography with her poetry, is the artist’s sixth publication. Her most recent book, Landfall, was awarded honorable mention from the prestigious Julia Margaret Cameron Awards program.
A collectors edition featuring a folio of photo polymer gravures will be available in 2022. An accompanying solo exhibition at Page Gallery in Camden, Maine, runs October 21 – November 27, 2021.
Yesterday / Sal Taylor Kydd
Hardcover, smyth-sewn, transparent printed cover wrap
8 x 11 inches, 56 pages, 2021
Limited edition of 200
Including a limited edition signed archive pigment print
Visit the publication page >
