She began her study of book making with a course in letterpress typesetting and printing on a Vandercook proof press at Scripps College. In 1989 Davis moved to Chicago and became a member of Artists Book Works. She continued studying letterpress printing and bookbinding, producing her first editioned broadside, Slice of Time. In 1996 Davis won a grant to study bookbinding and related arts in the P
eople’s Republic of China. Along with an apprenticeship at the National Library of China, Davis, who speaks Mandarin, visited traditional printers and conservators on travels throughout the country. On returning to Portland, Davis produced more limited-edition works and began offering presentations and workshops on Chinese bookbinding. A long-planned project to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square student movement became a reality when the MacDowell Colony offered Davis a residency to complete Beijing Heart: A Tiananmen Story. After publishing Bahia Night in 2003, Davis took a hiatus to build a studio in Portland, completed in 2006. Selected books & broadsides:
China under the Covers, 2017
Chinese Dreams, edition of 25, 2014
Steel Standing: 10 Things to Love about an Iconic Bridge, edition of 15, 2012
Saucymorons, Volume I, edition of 25, 2012
L'Invitation au Voyage, by Charles Baudelaire, edition of 25, 2011
Two Lives, edition of 50, 2010
A Tango Diary, edition of 50, 2009
A Tango with Ataturk, edition of 10, 2008
Bahia Night, edition of 50, 2003
Beijing Heart: A Tiananmen Story, by Larry Hanbrook, edition of 100, 1999
portfolios, edition of 50, 1999
perpetual calendars, edition of 50, 1998
address books, edition of 50, 1997
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (collaboration), one of a kind, 1992
Slice of Time broadside, edition of 50, 1991
Wild Spaces: A Journal of Uncharted Thoughts, edition of 7, 1989
Fabrications (collaboration), edition of 45, 1989
Awards
MacDowell Colony residency, New Hampshire, 1999
Durfee Foundation fellowship, People’s Republic of China, 199
