| Title | A sun that rises |
| Artist / Creator | Bettina Pauly |
| Artist's Nationality | United States |
| Place of Publication | San Francisco, CA |
| Publication Date | 2013 |
| Subject | Al mutanabbi |
| Process / Technique | Etching, letterpress printing |
| Structure / Binding | Accordion book in a half clam-shell box with window cut out |
| Medium / Materials | Hand dyed silk ribbon, machine stitching |
| Paper Stock | BFK paper, soft Unryu paper |
| Number of Pages | 8 pages |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 6 x 5.75 x .25 inches. Extends out to 44.5 inches |
| Edition Size | Edition of 10 |
| Signed & Numbered | Yes |
The text I used for A sun that rises is taken from the documentary A Candle for Shabandar Cafe, filmed and directed by Emad Ali, Baghdad Film School, in 2007. Abdul Satar (Abu Ali) is shown in the documentary standing in front of the Shabandar Cafe while holding vigil for all the people who died in the car bombing. He is talking about destruction throughout the centuries, continuing cruel violence and ends with the words "there is still a sun that rises and there is hope despite all the destruction." This after the bombing had taken toll on his family, his business, his livelihood. With the choice of colors—the etching pulled in a grey/black, the letterpress printed text in a dark red/brown, the stitching a dark red, the silk ribbon a vibrant red, the box covered in a smoky black—I am trying to give this piece the feeling of destruction, smoke, flames, blood, the scars left behind. The vibrant color of the ribbon is the color of the sunrise seen through air thick with smoke. Created for the Al Mutanabbi Street Book Arts Coalition Project.
Artist Bio
Bettina Pauly was trained as a professional chef, then worked as a head-server throughout Europe before she received a B.A. in Hotel-Economy in Germany. After coming to the U.S. and working in hospitality here, she went back to school and studied at the AAU in the Fine Arts program printmaking, book-arts and letterpress. Bettina is living in San Francisco as a book-artist. She loves books and boxes both as physical objects and as containers of meaning. She is interested in a variety of folded, sewn and woven structures in which she can incorporate her printing.