Inconclusive Manual for Unanswerable Questions.

[Sebastopol, California]:: Krahn & Press,, 2022.. Edition of 20 + 4 hors de comerce. 5 x 7", 84 pages. Letterpress (text) & Indigo Electroink (images) on Mohawk Superfine papers. Bound in gray bookcloth with title on front cover. Housed in 7.5 x 11 x 4.75" lidded storage box. Title inserted in metal label holder attached to box. Hand sculpture laid in box. Numbered. Signed by both artists. Sara Press: "What if there was a standard-issue handbook that resolved grief, discord, paradox and ancestral trauma? As young artists, we dreamed of a world where there were no rules, but in this time of internal & external chaos, we wish there were more definitive answers.  "During a particularly difficult year, we traded sketchbooks back and forth, completing each other's empty hands with objects that communicated our struggles and sought solutions.  "We know nothing is simple, but we indulged ourselves with the fantasy that things could be. We knew our drawings, born from questions, would contain all the answers if seen in the right combinations. So we indexed them with the moral authority of any other handbook grasping at truths, and solved all the world's problems." "Inconclusive Manual for Unanswerable Questions" contains 36 images of a hand holding an object. The artists divided these solutions into 21 problems/issues - from "To Deal with Intolerable Grief" and "maintaining Order in Your Household" to "How to Raise a Child" and "How to Let Go". The table of Contents identifies each issue and the drawings they feel may help with a truth or solution. This being a 'manual' one can read from front to back or pick an item from the list and go directly to that figure for a thoughtful answer. Each book comes with a life-sized gypsum cement hand that cradles it for display in different ways.