Abra Ancliffe’s new artist’s book Astronomia Nova Florilegia orbits the residual presence, labor, and botanical interests of one anonymous woodblock cutter who worked on Johannes Kepler’s Astronomia nova, published in 1609. Within Kepler’s revolutionary tome, multiple woodcut diagrams include 37 ensconced images of flower sprigs floating inside arcs of orbits, and leafy bundles nestled in the corners of heliocentric schema. The woodcutter personalized the blocks by carving flowers, complete with stems, leaves, and stamen. This lecture, like the artist’s book, will cover self-publishing, wildflowers of Prague, hidden and entangled readings, book structure as time travel, speculative genealogy, poetry, collage, and what it means to encounter emptiness.

Abra Ancliffe is a print- and book-maker who seeks out when laborers, craft, materials, text, and representation converge or diverge for unintended and unexpected readings on the printed page. Since 2009, she has run the Personal Libraries Library, a specially-curated lending library that recreates & reconsiders the personal libraries of notable artists, scientists, writers & thinkers. Ancliffe received her BA in English Literature from Lewis & Clark College, her BFA in Printmaking from Pacific Northwest College of Art and her MFA in Printmaking from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Ancliffe currently teaches in the Studio Art Department at Dartmouth College and resides up a very steep hill in Chelsea, Vermont.