Inspired by the historical avant-garde publishing ventures of Anais Nin, Virginia and Leonard Woolf, and Harry and Caresse Crosby, in 1990, Jane Handel founded SpiderWoman Press. A passionate bibliophile as well as a writer and artist, Handel conceived the press to be a means of joining elements of traditional fine press printing techniques with original art work in a series of limited-edition books and broadsides that would be literary as well as aesthetically beautiful and sensual objects.

Handel’s first SpiderWoman Press publication was the autobiographical novella, Swimming on Dry Land: the Memories of an Ascetic Libertine. Designed by her and with illustrations by Eva Garcia, it was limited to 200 copies. Printed by offset lithography on Mohawk Superfine Text, the cover was foil-stamped in red on black Fabriano Murillo paper and has a spider design hand-stamped in red sealing wax; the end papers are purple or red Moriki rice paper. Both artist and author signed each copy.

Subsequent publications are:
Eve, a collaborative broadside designed and printed by Val Simonetti of Hand-in-Glove Press with a poem by Jane Handel. Eve is printed by letterpress with gold and black ink on red Moriki rice paper in an edition of 100 copies. Simonetti and Handel signed each copy.

Fragment is a collaborative bookwork with Nina Schneider’s JuxtaPRESSition. It is an accordion-style book with a removable spine containing four poems by Handel and four gelatin silver prints by Schneider. Limited to an edition of 50, Fragment was designed and letterpress printed by Handel and Schneider on Fabriano paper; each book is signed by both.

Silver Dagger was letterpress printed on Rives heavyweight buff paper with Canson black endsheets, and a Folio Grey cover; it features gelatin silver prints by Barbara Shinn on the cover and in the centerfold; the text and design are by Jane Handel. The edition was limited to 50 copies, and both artist and author signed each of them.

Self/Cell is a collaboration between poet, Olivia E. Sears and artist, Aline Lillie Mayer. This book examines the notion of the self in the era of biotechnology and genome mapping: are we no more than the sum of our genetic parts? It has a foreword by Susan Griffin, and was printed in an edition of 1,000 using the offset lithography process. It is to be released in April, 2005.

Prices are contingent on how many remain in the edition. Please inquire as to availability.

Public collections that include some of the above items are: New York Public Library, Brown University, University of Indiana, University of Tulsa, and Maryland Institute of Art College.