Artist Biography
Lynne Avadenka is an American artist/printmaker known for her works that explore text and image, the physical and philosophical idea of the book, and the mystery and beauty of visual language. She is the director of Signal-Return press in Detroit. Awards include individual artist grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Michigan Arts and Culture Council. Collections include The British Library, London; The Detroit Institute of Arts; The Jewish Museum, New York; The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; The New York Public Library; The Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and over 50 Special Collection libraries.

Description of Process
The Invention series was created using a new, larger angle chase modeled after an older Challenge angle chase used in commercial printing to print text on an angle. Similar to the action of the children’s toy Spirograph, rotating the angle chase creates a hypnotically circular letterpress-printed image. The forms are created from metal and wood Hebrew types, along with type-high rule and metal ornaments. In these pieces the circular printing element is rotated 24 times; a single sheet of paper goes through the press 24 times. In the first Hebrew books published in the late 15th century, when there was no word for the act of printing, it was described as a “miracle of many pens”, composed without a scribe. A line at the end of one Hebrew book published in 1476 poetically describes the process of printing: “…in a moment ink flows over me [the letters], without guidelines, the ‘writing’ is even.” These phrases are included in this print series.