In Oracle Bones from Red Butte Press, a writer and an artist wander the Utah wilderness to mystically discern the future. Then it comes true.
Oracle bones—particularly the scapula of an ox or the underside (the plastron) of a tortoise’s shell—were used in ancient China, mainly during the Shang dynasty, for divination. When Utah-based author Terry Tempest Williams first saw oracle bones in China, “I remember how I felt… that they’ve been taken from a body that knew something. The markings on them portended a future.”
Williams was speaking at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City at a panel discussion with Wisconsin-based printmaker and book artist Gaylord Schanilec. They were joined by the J. Willard Marriott Library production team from the University of Utah’s Red Butte Press, to celebrate the March release of the collaborators’ new fine-press book, Oracle Bones. The book includes Williams’s poem of the same name and woodcut prints by Schanilec.
Williams and Schanilec have long admired each other’s work from afar. Their collaboration began in fall 2015, when Williams invited Schanilec to walk near her home in the southern Utah desert. “I couldn’t think of a place more foreign to me,” Schanilec said during the panel discussion. “Our background was Desert Solitaire.” During Schanilec’s visit, the collaborators talked with Desert Solitaire author Edward Abbey’s widow, as well as Diné spiritual leader Jonah Yellowman. Gradually “this idea of mysticism in the desert came along,” Schanilec said.
Williams was amazed by the power of their meeting “and the walk we took in the desert.” Schanilec “noticed every detail: a stone, a piece of bark, the way the water was moving. On that day I thought ‘this is a man who understands the essence of things’ and it shaped [my] words.” After collecting pieces of juniper and sandstone, Schanilec built and proofed printing blocks from these artifacts. Then Williams wrote her poem.
I don’t think I would write this now because it’s too true… [The poem] came out of a sense of the future. I was writing toward the future and little did we know in 2024 that we would be living that.
“There are bones in the desert / listening / what / what is not being said / oracle bones / left / no one can read,” Williams’s poem begins, resonant with themes of attentiveness to histories, past and future.
Red Butte Press designed and crafted the book with the author and artist. The team handmade the book’s cover paper from cotton, abaca, and locally sourced yucca. They added sage leaves to sheets used for the paper spines, which they dyed with prickly pear and Mormon tea. The production team hinged and sewed the sheets with a pamphlet stitch. They produced deluxe and standard editions of Oracle Bones, both signed by the writer and artist. Each deluxe copy is housed in a clamshell box, which also encloses a vial of red sand Williams collected.
Wafting images and abundantly spaced text create anticipation and expansiveness in the book. “The book is spare and it needs to be,” said designer Amy Thompson during the discussion. “But the negative space isn’t empty. It reminds me of [a] word Terry used: retreat. It’s about the distance and space and solitude we feel when we’re alone in the desert.” Many of the pages are also translucent, allowing for a layering of images and words. “The translucency also provides a veiling and unveiling of the text,” added Marnie Powers-Torrey, master printer and production manager. “It’s a great way to bring images and text together without disturbing open space.”
For Williams, her poem portended a future that’s already arrived. “I don’t think I would write this now because it’s too true,” she said during the discussion. “I’m thinking about something deeper than hope because I don’t find a lot. [The poem] came out of a sense of the future. I was writing toward the future and little did we know in 2024 that we would be living that.”
