The Island of Rota

NY: Library Council of the Museum of Modern Art, 2010. One of 135 copies. Signed by Sacks, Morell, and designer Ted Muehling. Hardcover. Fine. Folio. (56)pp. Sacks's disquisitions on the plant life of the Micronesian island is excerpted from his book, The Island of the Colorblind, in which he discussed with considerable attention the island population's genetic predisposition for extreme colorblindness. Morell's cliche-verres - images made by hand in ink and plant matter on glass, then digitally printed as photographs - are suitably black-and-white and sepia, enhancing the patterns and textures of ferns and other flora in a highly tactile take on 19th-century nature printing. The specimens of primordial ferns and cycads at Morell's disposal were supplied by the New York Botanical Garden. Morell manipulated each plate and its materials, then used a scanner to generate a timed exposure capture. A metalwork cut-out fern is laid in, as is an extra print in separate chemise. Included at the opening leaves is a maps of the south Pacific. Morell also designed flyleaves with constellated laser-cuts, suggesting constellations, sands, or crowded archipelagos. Bound in gray textured paper over boards with spine title in blind. Fine in box.