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KUED’s VERVE features Rare Books in “Artists’ Books”

20 Friday Jul 2018

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accordion, acrylic paint, Alicia Bailey, Alise Alousi, altered books, American Southwest, American West, Arches 90 lb., artists' books, Barry McCallion, Basingwerk, BFK, binding, birch, blankets, bookseller, Bradypress, bullet, Canson, Carolyn Hull, Carrier Pigeon, chapbook, Chinese, CMC, collage, collector, Connecticut, Daniel Kelm, deceit, desert, East Hampton, embossed paper, enamel, feathers, felt tip marker, Ferrum Wheel Press, galley proofs, gelatin, gesso, goatskin, gold tooling, Goudy, Goudy Bold, Granary Books, graph paper, Graphite, handmade paper, Harvard, hatchet, hoax, ink, inkjet, James Turrell, Japanese, Jen Bervin, Joelle Webber, John Van Dyke, KUED, l;oop, Lake City, laserfoil, laserprinted, leather, leporello, letterpress, maps, metal, Middletown, mixed media, Mohawk Via, Nebraska, New York, New York City, Omaha, Owen Wister, paper-mache, pens, photograph, pigment, pistol, poem, Portland, rare books, Ravenpress, Richard de Bas, Rick Moody, rifle, Robin Price, Roden Crater, Rutgers University, Saint Armand, Santa Monica, shovel, silk, stones, suede, sumi, Thomas Ingmire, Timothy C. Ely, trains, VERVE, voyeurism, Walt Whitman, watercolor, Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour, wax, white-out correction, Wide Awake Garage, wooden nickel

“Artists’ books are…a blown-up conference of multiple elements.”

KUED‘s online video series, VERVE, features artist’s books from the rare book collections in “Artists’ Books,” episode 5, season 6, “Its All About the Book.”

Here are some of the pieces chosen by the Rare Books staff for this episode:


ARKA
Timothy C. Ely
Portland, OR: T. Ely, 1995
N7433.4 E35 A7 1995

The book is drawn on BFK gray paper that was brush-sized with gelatin and CMC, then under painted with CMC and acrylic paint. Other materials include ink, Graphite, and watercolor. Each folio is sewn onto four raised cords that, on completion of the sewing, were laced into birch plywood boards. The end bands are silk worked over cores of leather. The spine of the book is goatskin. The board pastedowns are painted paper. The boards have a small amount of gold tooling suggestive of one part of the history and technology of the art of binding. Otherwise the cover boards are painted. The book is contained in a wooden box.



Hunting the Burn
Alicia Bailey
Lake City, CO: Ravenpress, 1998
N7433.4 B22 H86 1998

Two-sided leporello with self in-folded covers and removable spines. One side is Carolyn Hull’s poem “Hunting the Burn,” laserprinted on Basingwerk, overcoated with wax and pigment; the other side is a panoramic painting by Alicia Bailey, digitally reworked and printed with color inkjet on Arches 90 lb. cover and overcoated with wax. Four of the twelve panels have hand-cut rectangular openings with mixed media insertions. Covers are black Canson with hand applied enamel. Title piece is laserfoil on black paper. Spine pieces are black embossed paper laminated to black Canson. The box is paper-mache, gesso and pigmented wax. Box top has metal mesh and hemp-wrapped, wax-covered bullet attached. Inside box are stones and feathers. Edition of twenty copies, signed by Alicia Bailey and Carolyn Hull. Rare Books copy is no. 10.



Surplus Value Books: Catalog Number 13
Rick Moody
Santa Monica, CA: Danger! Books, 2002
N7433.4 M644 S6 2002

Deluxe edition presented as a collector’s box, containing two pens, one felt tip marker, one white-out correction pen, one pencil, one wooden nickel, one photograph with loop, seven photographs of “original artwork for placement only,” and other items. Text is composed in the form of galley proofs. Upon removing the galley holding the text, the reader is presented with a removable panel resembling a hospital release checklist. Holes cut into this panel reveal the objects contained below. The collectible objects in the box act as literal illustrations to the story. The narrator of the story is a bookseller, collector, mental patient. The story is told through the description of books for sale in the bookseller’s catalog. Values are assigned to each item in the catalog according to the bookseller’s inherent personal desire for each item. Themes of value, voyeurism, and deceit are presented as a pathology of collecting through the multiple layering of information and the revealing of objects of desire that are contained in the collector’s box. This work was first published in offset. Collector’s box constructed by Daniel Kelm at Wide Awake Garage. Rare Books copy is lettered “H.”



43, According to Robin Price with Annotated…
Robin Price
Middletown, CT: Robin Price, 2007
N7433.4 P753 A15 2007

From the colophon: “Paper maps from locations along the 43rd parallel are bound in an accordion that structurally supports the main text, which is printed on graph paper and also hinged together as an accordion (opening to 20 ft.)…The unusual double-layer accordion, housed in a printed cloth-covered clamshell box, is co-designed and co-produced by Daniel Kelm at Wide Awake Garage…” Edition of eighty-six plus twelve deluxe copies. Rare books copy is no. 23.



The Desert: Further Studies in Natural Appearances
Jen Bervin
New York City: Granary Books, 2008
N7433.4 B47 D47 2008

An altered book is a form of mixed media artwork that takes a book from its original form into a different form, altering its meaning. The artist may take an old or new book and cut, tear, glue, burn, fold, paint, add collage, create pop-ups, rubber-stamp, drill, bolt or be-ribbon the book to create a new work that is the expression of the artist. In this case, it is the text that is altered — by sewing over certain passages and leaving others exposed. The text from which Jen Bervin’s poem emerges is The Desert, written by John Van Dyke (1856-1932), a professor of Art History at Rutgers University. Van Dyke, the author of several books on art theory of the Art-For-Art’s-Sake school, claimed to have spent three years in the American Southwest desert with only his fox terrier for company and a pony for transportation. According to Van Dyke, he carried with him a rifle, a pistol, a hatchet, a shovel, blankets, tin pans and cups, dried food and a gallon of water. His romantic rhapsody of this trip, published in 1901, was a big hit, extremely influential and remains in print. In fact, Van Dyke saw most of the great desert over which he swooned looking out the windows of trains on his way from one first-class hotel to another. The Desert, version 1901, is the fact-faulted, fantastic hoax of a well-bred, well-educated Easterner, in much the same way that Harvard-educated New Englander Owen Wister’s novel The Virginian (1902) is a glorification of an American West culture that didn’t exist. Prose poem adaptation with overlay of zig zag stitches in pale blue thread. Composed and sewn at James Turrell’s Roden Crater on the Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour in October, 2006. Housed in a hinged archival case. Issued in a wrapper of white muslim cloth and white felt stitched together with blue thread.



Justice: What is Justice?
Thomas Ingmire
T. Ingmire, 2009
N7433.4 I48 J87 2008

Handmade paper mounted over board, Chinese Sumi ink, wide-edged pen (Automatic pen), Japanese brush.



Tangent
Alise Alousi
Omaha, NE: Bradypress, 2011
PS3551 L665 T36 2011



The Latest Things in Kites
Christopher Fritton
Ferrum Wheel Press, 2014
PS3606 R58 L37 2014

Artist’s statement: “A chapbook produced for Carrier Pigeon magazine as as tip-in, The Latest Things in Kites borrows language and its title from a chapter in the book, Fun for Boys. The chapbook is a single-sheet, four-page fold-over with rounded corners and a small embroidery thread tail. Handset in 14pt Goudy Bold and 10pt Goudy with antique copper cuts on Mohawk Via vellum. Hand letterpressed.” Edition of 1200 copies.



Whitman Crosshatch
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
East Hampton, NY: 2015
PS3222 A7 2015

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Ioyfvll newes out of the new-found vvorlde [order]

03 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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American, Americas, apothecaries, armadillos, Atlantic, Bonham Norton, Book Arts Program, bookseller, botanists, Bristol, British, calf, cancer, cassava, cigars, cocoa, common cold, cure, De Jonge Amerikaan, disease, docks, English, entrepreneur, Europe, ginger, gold, handmade, herbs, Indians, Inquisition, iron, John Frampton, Jonathan Sandberg, London, medicine, merchants, minerals, monks, Native American, nephrite jade, Netherlands, New World, Nicolás Bautista Monardes, nicotain, papermaking, papers, paradise, physician, plant, poison, print culture, quinine, rhubarb, sasparilla, sassafras, Seville, silver, smoking, soldiers, Spanish colonies, syphilis, tobacco, tobaco, trade, vernacular, woodblock, woodcuts


“This is the substance which I haue gathered of this hearb, so celebrated and called Tobaco for that surely it is an hearb of great affirmation for the excellent vertues that it hath…”

Ioyfvll newes out of the new-found vvorlde
Nicolás Bautista Monardes (ca. 1500-1588)
London: E. Allde, by the assigne of Bonham Norton, 1596
Third English edition

Translated by John Frampton (fl. 1577-1596) from several treatises first published in 1565 by Nicolás Monardes, the son of a bookseller, and a distinguished physician of Seville. Monardes, who never traveled to the Americas, wrote several treatises  on healing, medicine, and trade with the Spanish colonies on the Atlantic. He learned most of what he wrote about from spending time at the Seville docks, where he gathered information from sailors, soldiers, merchants, monks, royal officials, and even women.

Monardes described the cultivation and use of quinine, sassafras, cassava, rhubarb, ginger, and sasparilla. He wrote about cocoa, armadillos, minerals and metals (iron, silver, nephrite jade), and diseases like syphilis.

He wrote a lengthy description of an American plant introduced to Europe, calling it “tobaco” or “nicotain,” which he claimed was an antidote to poison. He wrote of more than twenty conditions, including the common cold and cancer, that could be cured with the use of tobacco.

“The Indians of our Occidental Indias, doo use the Tobaco for to take away the wearinesse, and for to make lightsomnesse in their Labour, which in their Daunces they bee so muche wearied, and they remaine so wearie, that they can scarcely stirre: & because that they may labour the next day, and returne to do that foolish exercise, they receiue at the mouth and nose, the smoke of the Tobaco, and they remaine as dead people: and being so, they be eased in such sorte, that when they be awakened of their sleepe, they remaine without weariness, and may return to their labour as much as before, and so they doe alwaies, when they have need of it: for with that sleepe, they do receiue their strength and be much the lustier.”

John Frampton, a Bristol merchant, had been imprisoned by the Inquisition. He translated several Spanish texts about the New World while in confinement. The British looked upon the New World as long-lost paradise with its vegetative bounty and ancient wisdom regarding human ailments, beneficial not just for its precious metals but for its plants. Being published in the vernacular, first in Spanish, then in English, meant that common readers, along with botanists and apothecaries, bought the publications. Frampton, ever the entrepreneur, re-titled the work “joyful news,” counting on brisk sales of the book and the trade in plants from the Americas. The “trade” print culture disseminated new data targeted toward popular practicality but also imagination, circulating news of an “other” ready reality just waiting ’round the bend. Such was the miracle of discovery, such was the miracle of plants, such was the miracle of print.

Illustrated with twelve woodcuts depicting herbs and plants. Rare Books copy bound in 19th century calf, ruled in gold.


De Jonge Amerikaan
Netherlands, ca. 1800
NE1154 J66 1800z

Woodblock depicting a Native American in a feather headdress and loincloth smoking a long clay pipe in a coastal setting with two ships behind him. Around this scene are a crown, trident, winged-staff, cigars, snuff jar, tobacco leaves and baled tobacco. It is likely that this woodblock was printed on paper used for tobacco wrappers, a practice that began as early as 1660 in Holland, one of the world’s great shipping centers.

Below are three prints made by Jonathan Sandberg using the woodblock, demonstrating different papers, including a paper handmade by students in last spring’s papermaking class offered by the Book Arts Program.



On July 1, 2018 The University of Utah went tobacco free and said farewell to its last cigarette.

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Book of the Week — Los Espanoles pintados por si mismos por varios autores

27 Monday Nov 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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bookseller, critics, cultural identity, engravers, essayists, French, Gaspar y Roig, Ignacio Boix, journalists, literary, Madrid, nationalist, personality, publishing, romaticism, Spanish, woodcuts, writers


El Ama del Cura

“Dear reader, it will not have escaped your insightful sensitivity that you are the friend to whom I have written from the beginning.” — Jose Maria Tenorio, loosely translated by Luise Poulton

Los Espanoles pintados por si mismos por varios autores
Madrid: Gaspar y Roig, 1851
DP48 E76 1851

This compilation of pieces, written by the most notable Spanish writers of the time, was published by bookseller Ignacio Boix, a central figure in the Madrid publishing world. The collection was first printed in two volumes between 1843 and 1844, and reprinted in 1851 in a single volume for the Illustrated Library of publishers Gaspar and Roig. Writers included journalists, essayists, critics, and a few anonymous characters, such as “The Solitary,” and “Curious Speaker.” The increasing diversity in the Spanish literary voice during this period of nationalist romanticism is highlighted in this collection, which focuses on Spanish personality and cultural identity. The collection is illustrated with woodcuts, a technique at which Spanish engravers became particularly adept during this period. The whole project was based on the French publication, Les français peint par eux-mêmes (The French painted by themselves), printed in 1849-42.


El Escribano


La Gitana


La Cigarrera

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Book of the Week — Dictionnaire des Proverbes Francais

03 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

≈ 1 Comment

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bookseller, college, dictionnaire, Dubucourt Philibert-Louis, fashion, Flèche, literature, Louis Marie Lante Gavarni, magazine, marbled paper, Old Regime, Paris, Parisian, philosophy, Pierre de La Mésangère, professor, revolution, Sellèque, Treuttel & Wurz, Vernet

PN6451-L3-1823-spread232
“L’esprit qu’on veut avoir gâte celuis qu’on a.”

DICTIONNAIRE DES PROVERBES FRANCAIS
Pierre de La Mésangère (1761-1831)
Paris: Treuttel & Wurz: 1823
Third edition
PN6451 L3 1823

Published anonymously in its first and second editions, Pierre de La Mésangère’s Dictionnaire is still in print today. Professor of literature and philosophy at the college of Flèche, Mésangère lost his job during the Revolution and made a living by writing. In 1797, he went into partnership with Sellèque, another unemployed college professor turned bookseller. Together, they began a successful fashion magazine. Journal des dames et des modes was published from 1799 until Mésangère’s death. The magazine, reflecting the elegance of the Old Regime, became a staple of Parisian fashion. Well-known artists of the time, such as Debucourt Philibert-Louis, C. and H. Vernet, and Louis Marie Lante Gavarni contributed to the magazine. Mésangère collected the prints from the magazine and published them separately. The prints continued to be published through the early twentieth century.

We think this marbled paper covering the boards of our Proverbes is very stylish.

PN6451-L3-1823-cover

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“The Books Opened My Eyes to New Possibilities:” A Visit From Utah State University Students

31 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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accordion format, al-Mutanabbi Street, Anagram Press, Baghdad, Berkeley, book arts, Book Arts Guild, Book Arts Program Studio, bookseller, Cal Ling, calico, Chandler O'Leary, Christina Kemp, collage, Connecticut, consitiution, copper, Denisse Gackstetter, Diano Bertolo, Fingin Furi, Flying Fish Press, Gampi Smooth, Giovanni Forlino, glass negatives, Granary Books, handmade paper, Heather Weston, Hermetic Press, High Falls, Iraq, Japanese, Jessica Spring, Jim Machacek, John Yau, Julie Chen, Katsushika Hokusai, Kincami, Kristen Reyes, Kyoto, letterpress, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathon Rhea, Logan, London, Marriott Library, Matt Jones, Mauree Cummins, Max Gimblett, Mount Fuji, Mt. Rainier, New York, non-adhesive binding, Philip Galo, Philippine Banana Bark, photographs, photography, rare books, Revolutionary War, Rumi, Sarah Christianson, schizophrenia, Sibyl Rubottom, spiral bound, Springtide Press, Steve Clay, strait jacket, stratovolcano, Sunomi, Susan Mills, Tacobet, Tacoma, Tacoma Artists Initiative Program, Tacoma Arts Commission, Tahoma, Tairei, Tamashiki, Tao Te Ching, triptych, typography, United States, University of Puget Sound Collins Memorial Library, Utah State University, Washington, watercolor, Weir Farm, Wilton, woodblock prints, wrapper, Yuzen

P1060569

“It was nice being able to get lost in someone’s work and to look at books in a way that I never have before. Being able to actually hold and handle the books teaches us many things. ”

Early in the cold, wet month of February, students from Utah State University made the perilous journey from Logan to the Marriott Library to visit Rare Books. Professor Denisse Gackstetter brought her Introduction to Book Arts class for a tour of the Book Arts Program Studio, after which the students spent two hours looking at forty of our books.

Prof. Gackstetter asked her student’s to respond to their visit. Here is some of what they saw and what they had to say about it.

PS3575-A9-B66-2012-spread
THE BOOK OF THE ANONYMOUS
John Yau (b. 1950) and Max Gimblett (b. 1935)
New York: Granary Books, 2012
PS3575 A9 B66 2012

John Yau wrote this poem in 2009 in response to several translations of the “Tao Te Ching” given to him by Max Gimblett. In response to Yau’s manuscript, Gimblett created a series of more than one hundred drawings and collages incorporating rare and unusual handmade papers from around the world. This publication contains the twenty-four part poem and twelve of the illustrations. An original ink drawing by Gimblett in black ink on silver is on the cover of each copy. Produced by Diane Bertolo, Steve Clay [founder and owner of Granary Press] and Susan Mills. Typography is by Steve Clay, the binding by Susan Mills. Philip Galo letterpress printed the text and images on double leaves at the Hermetic Press. The collages incorporate gold-leaf, photography, photocopy and drawing. The collages were made at Max Gimblett’s studio with assistance from Matt Jones, Giovanni Forlino and Kristen Reyes. The papers used include Kincami black, Cal Ling autumn, Tamashiki orange, Kingin Furi tan, Sunomi silver, Sunomi kraft, Yuzen cream, Kyoto M25 white, Tairei #1 white, Philippine Banana Bark alabaster and Gampi Smooth 43. Bound in black board covers, open spine with exposed stitching, a non-adhesive binding. Folded and coupled, the pages are gathered together and sewn to cloth-backed boards. Housed in handmade silver cloth-covered clamshell box with spine label. Edition of thirty-three copies, signed by the poet and the artist.

“The Book of the Anonymous by John Yau made the greatest impression upon me. I remember specifically pondering how the images or lack thereof contributed to the concept. I was intrigued by the questions Yau asked the reader, and I was inspired to read more into them by the beautiful pages and illustrations. The form made me want to understand the content.”

“The paper has lots of fiber and shimmer in it. One of the pages has string in the paper. The contrast in texture is very dramatic.”

“I can’t remember the imagery or the poem in that book because the handmade papers are so beautiful I could not stop looking at them. The pages were assembled in an interesting way where the two sheets of paper would sort of pocket-fold into each other. This gave the pages a very thick and substantial feel when turning them.”


N7433.4-W467-B56-2000-WrapN7433.4-W467-B56-2000-spread
BINDING ANALYSIS: DOUBLE BIND
Heather Weston
London: Heather Weston, 2000
N7433.4 W467 B56 2000

Author and artist Heather Weston holds a degree in Book Arts and works in the mental health profession. She uses the book form to explore both emotional experience and psychological structure. In this context she explores the inextricable link between form and content. Here, book structure says something about the experience of schizophrenia that text alone could not. The book is double spiral bound at right and left edges with the pages splitting down the center. Four separate narratives – one pictorial, two textual, and one structural – unravel concurrently. A calico wrapper, with a padded but rigid back panel gives the floppy book the firm containment of a strait jacket.

“I thoroughly enjoyed Binding Analysis: Double Bind by Heather Weston. Weston uses French doors to present an analysis of a schizophrenia patient through the recordings of a medical care provider. I only became aware of the patient’s recorded words, on the backside of the structure, midway through the book. The form informed me about the concept.”


N7433.4-C853-G46-2003-cover
GHOST DIARY
Maureen Cummins
High Falls, NY: M. Cummins, 2003
N7433.4 C853 G46 2003

From the colophon: “…[B]ased on a handwritten letter discovered by the artist in the archive of Weir Farm in Wilton, Connecticut, during a residency in the spring of 2001. The letter was written in 1807 by a former Revolutionary War officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathon Rhea, to his children on the anniversary of his wife’s death. The [5] images that accompany the text are original vintage glass negatives that date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” Glass panels hinged in accordion format. Issued in collapsible black box with a tie string. Edition of twenty-five copies. University of Utah copy is lettered and signed by the artist.

“It uses a simple accordion structure, but utilizes it in an inventive way. The panels are see-through which coincides with its subject matter. A wonderful example of form and content informing each other.”


N7433.4-O45-L63-2010
LOCAL CONDITIONS: ONE HUNDRED VIEWS OF MT.…
Chandler O’Leary
Tacoma, WA: Anagram Press, 2012?

From the colophon: “Illustrated, designed, printed and bound by Chandler O’Leary, through freak snowstorms, record heat, and a thousand gentle rains in Tacoma, Washington. Each of the book’s 120 image flats is illustrated and compiled from sketches, photographs and data collected in person, on location, from September 2008 to October 2010. All text and images were letterpress printed in Hokusai’s indigo ink, down the street at Springtide Press. Images and topographic map patterns are hand-drawn and water-colored. For making it possible to turn this crazy idea into an even crazier reality, many heartfelt thanks to [the Tailor*], Jessica Spring, [Zooey*], Sarah Christianson, the Tacoma Arts Commission, the University of Puget Sound Collins Memorial Library, and the Book Arts Guild. Thanks also to the weather, for always, despite a notorious reputation, seeming to hold just long enough for me to grab the camera and jump in the car. Produced with the support of a Tacoma Artists Initiative Program grant from the City of Tacoma Arts Commission…Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1759-1849) is perhaps best known for his seminal works, Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji. The two series of woodblock prints, published from 1829 to circa 1847, depict the sacred peak within the context of landscapes and scenes of daily life. At the heart of the series is Hokusai’s own obsession with immortality, and his fascination with Fuji’s eternal presence. Therein lies the rub: Fuji is anything but eternal. Beyond the usual, abstract geologic transience of eroding rock and drifting continents, Fuji is an active stratovolcano. Its days – and those of the lives and lands at its base – are numbered. Here in Washington state, just forty miles southeast of my home, lies Fuji’s taller, more volatile, American twin. Variously named Tacobet, Tahoma, and Ti’Swaq’, amont others, by the region’s indigenous peoples, or simply “The Mountain” by contemporary locals – its most arbitrary…”

“What left the greatest impression on me was the box with different scenic areas layered upon one another. It made me want to go home and create one of my own. The intricate images mixed with the soft pastels are gorgeous. I think it is interesting that the viewer is able to arrange the book how they please. The book is really their own story to tell.”

“This book intrigued me. It is so different from a normal book, and so unconventional, it inspired me to think more outside the box.”

“I like the three-dimensional aspect.”

“This book has three drawers to pull out and a ton of different different pieces of scenery. I love how I could mix and match the different scenes. There were so many possibilities to create. I liked the facts that I learned about Mt. Rainier, as well. I could have read and played with this book for hours.”


N7433.4-C44-M46-2012-coverN7433.4-C44-M46-2012-open
MEMENTO
Julie Chen
Berkeley, CA: Flying Fish Press, 2012
N7433.4 C44 M46 2012

From the colophon: “The text that appears on the woven token in triptych was taken from the preambles to the constitutions of the United States and Iraq. The image that surrounds the token is of a bookseller’s stall on Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad prior to the bombing in 2007, and is used by permission of the Al-Mutanabbi Street coalition.” Letterpress printed. Designed by Julie Chen. Copper locket fabricated by Christina Kemp, based on a design by Julie Chen. Edition of fifty copies. University of Utah copy is no. 43, signed by the artist.

“Blew my mind.”


N7433.4-R73-N49-2000-Open
NEW RULE: A POEM BY RUMI
Sibyl Rubottom and Jim Machacek
San Diego, CA: Bay Park Press, 2000
N7433.4 R73 N49 2000

A flecked, navy wrapper is folded in three, housing the primary sheet which is, in turn, folded into three, unequal sections. Letterpress from Bodoni and Times Roman on Fabriano Rosaspina Bianco and Fox River Confetti wrapper. Images created using polymer plates, monotypes, linocut, and screen printing. Edition of forty-five copies. University of Utah copy is no. 19.

“Looking at New Rule helped my own making for my next project. It is a good example of a poem in a book, without lots of pages, but with a creative structure. I like how it hides the colophon inside the back cover by folding inward.”


N7433.4-C414-C66-2013-spread
CONVERSION: (A CONVERSATION TOLD IN SYMBOLS)
Macy Chadwick
Portland, OR: In Cahoots Press, 2013
N7433.4 C414 C66 2013

A sequential, narrative story with abstract imagery and no text, a conversation using only symbols. From the artist’s website: “…a two-person conversation using a vocabulary of stencils and hand-drawn symbols shown in a key. What is said and what is thought, works spoken in a jumble without stopping, a rational response and an activated imagination are all carefully plotted and diagrammed. Two different communication styles clash, merge, and ultimately influence each other as one person finally speaks her mind.” Mulberry paper, Micron pens, book cloth, pochoir. Edition of five copies.

“This book was assembled very simply, hand drawn on a single sheet of mulberry paper and folded into a book with a thin book cloth cover. What really pulled me into this one was the concept behind it. The artist took the words out of a conversation and replaced them with symbols to show the structure of a conversation. It made me see that as an artist we don’t have to ‘write the story’ our viewers see, we can create a scaffolding of an idea that gets filled in with what the viewer has already experienced. It was very powerful. The book is a great vessel for this concept because it is such a personal experience turning the pages, touching the conversation with my own fingers. I learned a lot from that small book and from this whole experience.”

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Photographs of books by Scott Beadles.
Photographs of readers by Dennise Gackstetter. Thanks, Dennise!

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