With Wood Engravings by Leonard Baskin
The Gehenna Press, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1958



French-style fine binding with laced-in boards. Bound in mauve buffalo skin with back-pared onlays layered with handmade papers in periwinkle, light blue, ochre, strawberry sherbet, dark orchid, bright blue, vibrant orange-red and cream plus navy blue and chartreuse green buffalo skin. Onlays are embellished with embroidery in cotton floss and colored pencil. Leather wrapped endbands in peach calfskin with wraps of mint blue thread. Text sewn on a stub of pale orange and mint blue handmade paper. Edge to edge paper doublure in medium orchid handmade Katie MacGregor paper. Doublure tooled with various decorative tools in various matte and metallic colors. Matching mauve buffalo skin hinge with base of bright blue handmade paper. Hinges painted with light blue acrylic paint. Handmade abaca/cotton paper flyleaves and endpapers in eggplant purple, mint blue, peach and orchid.

Binding is housed in a clamshell box covered in light grey buffalo with inlays of various handmade papers and buffalo skin matching colors from the binding. Leather spine embroidered in golden olive cotton floss. Trays covered in mint blue and peach abaca/cotton paper and lined in light amethyst Novasuede.

20.7cm x 21.2cm x 1.6cm – Completed in 2023



The engravings designed by Leonard Baskin interpret the seven deadly sins as the dark and gritty vices originally imagined within religious teachings. With my design, I wanted to flip the script and imagine displaying the sins as a signal of gratification. The color palette is not shy of color and charm. Each circle is designed to mimic a merit badge and includes an animal that is often used to represent that particular sin. The largest badge is the prideful peacock placed in the center of the design. Pride being the most egregious sin can easily lead one to all other sins, which is represented by the two-tone stitched lines connecting all the badges together.

As you work your way from the outside to the text on the inside, my goal was to create a stark contrast with the theme and to provoke a new way of interpreting the seven deadly sins through a contemporary lens.