Bicycle wheel, paper, laminate, wood
28″ x 28″ x 12″
1994

In this multimedia piece, Spoke ‘n’ Words, the artist fuses the fond childhood memory of exploring his hometown on a bicycle with the adult experience of a cross-country bicycle trip. As a boy, the artist and his friends would use a clothespin to affix a baseball card to the bicycle frame such that a slap-slap-slap would be created with each momentary contact of the passing spokes in the spinning wheel — one of the signature sounds of summer. As an adult, the artist kept a journal of a two-wheeled trip from Utah to New Jersey that spanned five weeks and more than 2,000 miles. The handwritten text from that journal is now superimposed on the cards, which contain maps of the very cities and geography he passed through, and the cards are attached to an old bicycle wheel. Boy to man, neighborhood to the world. Spoke ‘n’ Words reminds us that the travels of life can take many forms as well as many directions.

– Brian Adams, Redwood City, California

Artist’s book
5.5″ x 3.75″ x 1.5″
2022

Tracing Outlines compiles a multitude of layered shapes to reconstruct landscapes, stemming from aerial views of the places I have lived over the years as an adult. Created using cut sheet magnets and mono-printing techniques to print, the shapes themselves intertwine and overlay throughout the book, to become landscapes in their own right. The layered shapes illustrate the melding of the concept of place over ones’ lifespan, through many homes, cities, travels, and countries. Water is a touchstone for me and a place for reflection. To create the piece I’ve used aerial maps of water-edged cities I’ve called home to create the physical magnet forms/shapes which are the mountain edges in the book. The cities included are Encinitas, Santa Barbara, Mission Bay (San Diego), London, Chicago (North & South sides), San Francisco, Oakland, and Denver

– Rhiannon Alpers, Denver, CO

Rice paper, ink, polyester rug hooking mesh, thread
28″ x 34″ x 10″
2019

My work responds to social, political, and cultural issues as viewed through my personal lens. Treating books as a creative form is a natural expression for me because of my love of paper, words, ink, images and narrative.

The first book I made was in the mid-70s and it opened a world of possibilities, leading to a lifelong exploration of layered storytelling. The books can be traditional or experimental, from handheld bound books to large sculptural works. They juxtapose words, images, and form.

This sculptural book Greed is a response to Paul Manafort’s ostrich skin jacket as a reflection and expression of greed and outlandish consumption and the selfish attitude of not-in-my-back-yard. Poetry by Ginny Hoyle. The book is a part of the exhibition “Worn World.”

– Judy Anderson, Denver, CO

Artist’s book, double flag book
10″ x 5.25″ x 5″
2020

I find it very exciting that a simple fold changes a two-dimensional plane into a three-dimensional form. Artist’s books give me a wonderful avenue to convey this energy. Fire Storms was created after the devastating fires in California in 2020. This book opens up to portray the chaos and turmoil on all sides. The paste paper design conveys this inferno.

– Charlene Asato, Mountain View, HI

Book art
12″ x 9″ x .75″
2022

As a Korean-American born in Brooklyn but raised in South Korea and both west and east coasts of America, I live between two cultures, feeling forever outsider in either place. Feeling displaced and never feeling grounded anywhere, I seek to find my own roots. I look for unity between the human body and nature, merging qualities of both plants and humans. The body becomes an extension of nature and nature becomes an extension of the body. Lately I’ve been drawn to the cactus, admiring its ability to thrive in intense conditions, as I have survived the pandemic as a single mother. It has a hard protective exterior but inside, it has a unique ability to store water. Native American cultures believe that the cactus represents warmth, protection, and motherly love. This accordion flag book transforms the cacti into marching feet. They remind me to stay strong, endure and remember that the essence of my strength and beauty is within.

– Andre Bassuet, North Kingstown, RI

One of a kind artist’s book
17.75″ x 15″ x 1″
2019

Inspired by famous paintings and etchings, work in progress is a series of monotypes collected in an artist’s book, an introspective pursuit of what shapes a person and makes a life meaningful. It is a very personal work and an invitation to conversation for the many people and works it references.

– Servane Briand, palo alto, CA

Letterpress, textile collage, foil stamping
9.5″ x 3.5″ x 1.75″
2021

Fairmont Color Card is an exploration of the roles that textile, color, and fashion have played in the origin story of landfill culture. Fairmont Color Card employs brochure structures and production techniques historically used for color cards and sample books, including thread winding, foil blocking, and die cutting. Text for the project was culled from 20th century color cards and combined with excerpts from The Waste Makers, written by Vance Packard in 1960. Research was conducted at Yale University Birren Collection of Books on Color in 2019. Materials, including clothing, bedding, and paper offcuts, were sourced from my domestic space. Fairmont Color Card seeks to challenge the meaning of sample books and place them in a context of planned obsolescence. Produced in an edition of twenty copies, the fabric collages included in this project are all identical save for one, the card titled “the significance of these private worlds,” which is unique to each copy.

– Sarah Bryant, Tuscaloosa, AL

Letterpress printed from oak and polymer
11″ x 3.25″ x 1″
2022

Half Premonitions of the Moon is an instrument, modular score, and set of performance instructions housed in a custom-built enclosure. This project was a collaboration with Holland Hopson, a sound and media artist, composer, and improviser. The customizable score is assembled from a set of 36 cards. This allows individuals or groups to use chance operations to create a unique version of the piece for each performance. The instrument itself is a custom-designed, laser cut bullroarer played by swinging it in circles on the end of a string. Bullroarers are some of the oldest and most widespread instruments in human cultures. They can be found across the globe from Australasia to Africa and the Americas. They are often used to evoke natural phenomena, such as wind and rain during ritual events. This musical work favors patience, stasis, and quiet focus over drama, development, and sudden contrasts.

– Sarah Bryant, Tuscaloosa, AL

Letterpress and Riso printed on Zerkall Book and IBO
11.5″ x 10″ x .3″
2022

Multiple Discovery occurs when innovations are made independently and simultaneously in different locations. In this project, a collective of five artists uses Multiple Discovery as a metaphor for our own remote, collaborative practice. Working with a common horizon line and color palette, we each developed imagery for this artist’s book in separate studios. Printed sheets were then exchanged in batches of ten. Individually, we wrote and printed text gathered from a shared collection of source material, then collated and folded our sheets into a unique set of ten copies. The resulting edition of fifty is made up of five variations. contrasts.

– Sarah Bryant, Tuscaloosa, AL

Print media and collage on paper on wood shelving
58 Inches x 75 Inches x 4 Inches
2022

The Book of Eternal Returns is an unbound, ongoing collection of handprinted images that arise from a set of questions that have preoccupied me for as long as I can remember. Among them: What is the relationship between the marks we leave on the world and the marks the world leaves on us? How do we acknowledge and honor those marks as atomistic images that float and reverberate through time and being?

Importantly (in terms of these marks), the book includes a number of visual and textual attributions: On Kawara, Felix Gonzalez Torres, Cy Twombly, Jack Whitten, Nick Ut, Marie Howe, Han Jost Frey, William Kentridge, Annie Dillard, and Wallace Stegner (so far). The images range from hand drawn to photographic, diagrammatic to poetic. I suspect The Book will always remain incomplete, fragmentary — a rolling record of ruminations. Currently, there are over 60 individual pages typically conceived and displayed as spreads, mounted to bookboard.

– Lisa Bulawsky, St. Louis, MO

Spiral-bound book, acetate cover
8″ x 4″ x 1″
2022

In 1998, a division of Random House Publishing selected the 100 best books of the 20th century. For those who don’t have time to read every word of every book, I offer an abridged version of each one. First and last sentences only… This piece, printed in 2022, is the fifth copy of my 1998 100 Best Books, Abridged.

– Caryl Burtner, Richmond, VA

Book
5″ x 7″ x 1″
2011

Much of my work addresses personal and collective memory, and nothing is more nostalgic to me than Crayola crayons. This book examines how far generic crayons stray from the gold standard of Crayola.

– Caryl Burtner, Richmond, VA

Artist’s book
10.75″ x 8.75″ x 1.5″
2022

During the long months of pandemic isolation, I began documenting the many birds that came to my backyard feeders and noted their unique behaviors. With a telephoto lens, I was able to record detailed and intimate images of my avian visitors. As often happens, the passion I felt for the birds grew into the idea for an artist’s book. Dreams of Flight, the nesting season is an interconnected story of three different species of birds that nested in my suburban yard during the spring nesting seasons of 2020–21. The book was created entirely at home. Printed in the colors of the birds on the Vandercook Universal III power press in the living room studio using Deepdene and 20th Century type with assorted wood type from the Pie in the Sky Press collection. The original images were captured through the window over the press with a Nikkor 200-500mm f5.6 lens mounted on a Nikon D850 camera and printed with photo polymer plates made by Boxcar Press.

– Rebecca Chamlee, Simi Valley, CA

Collage
10″ x 8″ x 0″
2016

A fanciful tribute to superstition, The Exorcism of Page Thirteen series documents my ongoing fascination with the number 13. To ensure good luck and prevent uninvited circumstances, I cut the page number + surrounding text from every book in my library, cutting away its small dark presence at the page’s bottom. When the squares are collaged into grids, poetry emerges. Currently there are 50+ works in the series.

– Caryl Burtner, Richmond, VA

Book arts, screen print, cut paper
4.25″ x 3″ x 0.25″
2021

Her Home, Your House is a single sheet folded book with cut paper inserts and screen printed images. Her Home, Your House is inspired by the idea of the planet as the earth goddesses’ home. The book looks at the goddesses’ interactions with the earth, nature, as a caretaker, and the human race’s comparative relationship to that planet.

– Ashley DeVan, Powder Springs, GA

Book arts, screen print
9″ x 6″ x 0.25″
2021

To Grow is a pamphlet stitch bound book with screen printed images. To Grow is inspired by creation stories, drawing on themes of eternal, self-feeding cycles. Here I chose to center women as the main characters of our story, in which they practice communal activities to forward the cycle of growth. This book is an exploration of women building, growing, and nurturing one another to further themselves and their community. The imagery in my artwork is largely inspired by mythology, folklore, traditional stories, and the female role within them. My artwork draws on the atmosphere created when women come together as a community, be it physically or metaphorically. I seek to explore the unspoken feeling, like an elemental force of nature, that connects women to one another. Myth and story are the vessel through which I communicate these ideas.

– Ashley DeVan, Powder Springs, GA

Altered book sculpture
10″ x 7″ x 1.25″
2020

My piece, Electricity & Electronics, is one of my “biblio excavations.” In these works I start with a vintage book, usually an outdated reference or textbook. I work page by page from the back of the book, backing specifically chosen illustrations with cardstock, then remove the excess text and imagery. The end result is a collage of imagery which was ever present in the book and I assist in revealing. Once I’m finished I seal the textblock shut so that only the cover opens. This allows for easy display as well as the added convenience of shelving the book with the rest of a readable library for storage. I enjoy retaining the utilitarian nature of the book, highlighting its continued physical existence as a book and not just a visual work on a wall.

– Ben DiNino, Minneapolis, MN

Artist’s book, pigment print on paper
4″ x 7.5″ x 9.5″
2020

An artist’s book in a black box, Flight Data consists of one accordion fold book with original text by the artist and four Jacob’s Ladders. Each Jacob’s Ladder visually comments on the content of the accordion fold book. Each is a little book with the first and last pages written. They invite the viewer to fill in the middle part, responding to the central theme or to the images if desired. The important thing about the Jacob’s Ladders is that they are toys reminding us adults not to take ourselves too seriously

– Jan Dove, Port Angeles, WA

Artist’s Book with aquatint images by jessica Dunne
12.5″ x 12″ x 2″
2009

CRAFT: Shaping a Surfboard is an exploration of what it means to spend days working with your hands. The handwork required to make a surfboard, an etching, or an artist book is the inspiration that enabled me to fuse my love of the craft of making prints with a lifetime spent in the world of surfers. Dave Parmenter is a renowned surfboard shaper, writer, and former professional surfer. He writes personally—and often furiously—about shaping boards, surfing, and contemporary surf culture. In his dedication to his craft, I found something akin to my feelings about my own work. His article in The Surfer’s Journal about shaping a surfboard, with all the considerations that make it function in dangerous situations, is excerpted in this book.

My partner, Mark Renneker, is a devoted big-wave surfer. I have lived for years with as many as forty-five surfboards of varying lengths and silhouettes. I am no surfer but it wasn’t the sport of surfing that caught my attention as much as the craft of shaping a surfboard.

The craftsmen involved in the task, their tools, and the terminology all fascinated me: the shaper, the glasser, a downrail. The craftsman holding out against technology and mechanized efficiency is a driving force in the author’s monologue. And the prints evoke the working environment of the surfboard shaper. People involved in fine crafts have more in common than not. Since the industrial revolution began, craftsmen have been skulking around, sensing, and maybe enjoying, impending obsolescence.

– Jessica Dunne, San Francisco, CA

Book
23.5 centimeter x 11.0 centimeter x 15.5 centimeter
2022

As a daughter of an author, I grew up with an appreciation for books. In an age of tablets and smartphones, more and more books are taken to landfills. I wanted to find a way to give these discarded books a longer shelf life. That is when I discovered the art of book folding. By using different techniques, I transform the book pages, creating images, words, and logos into hand-crafted custom art, all the while, telling a story. The tools needed are a ruler, pencil, and a small pair of scissors. It also takes patience, accuracy, precision, and time to execute the intricacy of this art form. It is a great way to upcycle and give new life to used books

– Lauren Dykes, Tampa, FL