1–4. Handmade enclosure with an embossed belly band and stamped front panel / 5. Bookplate illustrating the cat’s interference with “Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges / 6. Interference with The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino / 7. Interference with No One Will Ever Have the Same Knowledge Again.: Letters to Mt. Wilson Observatory 1915–1935 / 8. Interference with Sleep, Death’s Brother by Jesse Ball / 9. Interference with “Cat ‘n’ Mouse” by Stephen Millhauser / 10. Interference with “Cloud, Castle, Lake” by Vladimir Nabokov

Catenary Books


Personal work, 2026

A portfolio of six narratively connected bookplates developed during the 2025 William H. Helfand Fellowship at the Grolier Club Library. The project imagines a metaphysical bookshop called Catenary Books and follows its resident cat as he wanders through the shelves after hours. The title refers to a catenary: the natural curve formed by a line suspended between two points. Here, it describes the connective space between books, linking them into a larger imagined collection. Screenprinted in collaboration with Russ Spitkovsky at Guttenberg Arts in an edition of 60. Available through Paper Crown Press.
© 2024 Kristy Caldwell, except where noted. All rights reserved.