CATALOG NO. B97-2019-2020
Transmutation Transfiguration
Transmutation Transfiguration book closed
Specifications - Edition of 10
Book - 8.75” x 8.5 x .875” closed, 12 letterpress printed pages from polymer plates with alcohol-based stains on Mohawk text weight paper, marbled endpapers.
Illustrations - 11 original etchings from zinc plates on Twinrocker hand-made paper
Covers are bound with paper over binders board.
Front cover - onlays of thin steel and copper with metal pigment coatings and patina as well as silver leaf and gold leaf.
Rear cover - onlay of embossed aluminium foil from an engraved polycarbonate plate.
Custom case - 9.5" x 8.75" x 1.5" closed, with three flaps and magnet closure, bound with book cloth over binders board with Tyvek hinges.
Thomas Parker Williams – Concept, design, illustrations, text, printing, binding
Collections
Permanent collection -
Georgetown University Library
Transmutation Transfiguration is a book about two forms of transformation:
alchemy, a physical process, and written scripture, a codification of religious beliefs.
Alchemists believed that a method could be found to transmute base metals into gold.
After centuries of trying, they never discovered such a method. The beliefs of some early
societies were transformed from pantheistic to a concept of a single god figure, whose stories
were collected in written form and used to codify new faiths. This book looks at the failure of
alchemy and also how early faiths were corrupted and then used by dominant groups to subjugate and
harm those who differed.
The front cover is a pentagram with five triangles. The pentagram symbolized both good and evil
and had many interpretations. For example, the single point up indicated the five wounds of
Christ; both points up had an occult meaning. The triangles represent the base metals of alchemy.
From top left in a clockwise rotation they are: silver, lead, tin, iron and copper with the sixth
metal, mercury, represented by the silver dust surrounding the pentagram. Gold, the primary
objective of alchemy, is at the center. The rear cover represents the four elements identified
in antiquity: air, fire, earth and water.
It is my hope that in time humanity will move toward an equitable society for all inhabitants and
fully abandon destructive beliefs, just as alchemy was abandoned by modern chemistry.
Transmutation Transfiguration case closed
Transmutation Transfiguration book with case open
Transmutation Transfiguration front and rear cover
Transmutation Transfiguration book open
Title page
Set No. 1
Set No. 2
Set No. 3
Set No. 4
Set No. 5
Set No. 6
Set No. 7
Set No. 8
Set No. 9
Set No. 10
Set No. 11
