Field Guide to North America and to Other Regions.

Venice, CA.: Lapis Press., 1993. Contents loose within a red and black plaid blanket and housed in a hinged plywood box as issued. Title hand-painted onto front cover of box. Single leaf-shape marquetry inserts to both lid and rear board of box (the original plan, which never materialised, was to insert a compass in each cover so that the books would only open when pointing north).. Complete as issued with 34 unique pieces including colour and black-and-white photographs, collages with photographs and found objects, manuscripts, original drawings, a monoprint, an acrylic on canvas, watercolours, images stitched onto felt, etc. Original edition of the rarest of Wegman portfolios, limited to just 20 copies. Numbered and signed by Wegman on a certificate, which together with a printed inventory of the box’s contents, is inserted in an envelope pasted to the inside of the box’s lid. Each copy of the Field Guide to North America is unique, made up of watercolours, collages, paintings, drawings and photographs. Robert Shapazian, editor and overseer of the project at the Lapis Press, wanted Wegman to create the book using all of his media, except video. The collection of loose pages is boxed and wrapped in a sheet of red and black plaid blanket wool, reminiscent of a lumberjack’s shirt. Although some photographs are repeated in the edition, the texts, collages and drawings are unique to each copy. Conceived and executed mostly over the summers at Wegman's lodge in Rangely, Maine, it is a witty melange of summer camp project, Victorian nature album and political manifesto. Together with colour and black-and-white photographs of two of Wegman’s signature Weimaraner dogs Fay and Bettina, plastic leaves from Taiwan and sheets of coloured felt mingle among the drawings, hand-painted photographs and watercolours. Wegman, who divides his time between Manhattan and the Maine woods, borrowed from how-to nature craft books, primers and encyclopedias for this parody of a field guide, complete with its pictographic ‘Table of Contents’ painted on a slice of birch bark. Wegman writes, in coloured ink on the ‘Congratulations’ sheet, as an introduction to the portfolio: “This boeke is intended for use as a field guide to North America and maye also be usde in other wayes fore other puerposes. However we cannot be helde responsible for misguidede fielde werke in any of these regiones”.