PETTIBON, RAYMOND. Invertebrates.

Small notebook, spiral bound at top, (6 3/4 x 4 inches; 165 x 100 mm), pictorial cover titled by hand, 20 pages of 80 lb. cover, each one hand-drawn in black and/or red ink, with several also in additional colors (last page recto only, i.e. 39 separate compositions) and accompanying hand-written text to all on recto and verso. Small smudge and ink bleed along lower margin on cover. Unique artists book that presents as a self-contained and complete project and not merely a working sketchbook for occasional musings or preliminary ruminations, with some of the text running a good dozen lines or so down the page accomplished in his spidery hand or in a larger and bolder manner. He begins "There are shadows of significance behind Pettibon's lines, to be sure" and ends with "To be made and imprint" and below in red ink "He presses so hard." There are, by turns, a sentiment weary to the professional fellow who guesses at "and how many things, to the critic, the case suggests" as well as to anyone who might "impute this singularity." He revisits this is in further self-references "but even Mr. Pettibon was not again to hit just that nail, he was welcome to drive in another beside it and supply the happy creations we have come to know with successors who should divide our admiration." [Np, nd, but circa 1989]