Artist books take many forms – from handmade and lusciously tactile to linear and informative, abstract and questioning to sculptural and monumental. The Book As Art, a juried annual exhibition, celebrates the book with a wildly varied collection of inventive and spectacular work that challenges expectations.
Brought to you by Decatur Arts Alliance, Georgia Center for the Book, the DeKalb Co. Public Library, and DeKalb Library Foundation.

The Book As Art, Volume 11
Myth & Magic
September 7 to October 30, 2023
Decatur Library, 215 Sycamore St., Decatur, GA
Inside the Fourth Floor Gallery
Gallery Hours: Thursday through Saturday 1-5pm
(or by appointment by emailing [email protected])
Humans possess a fundamental attraction to stories and storytelling. Folktales, fairy tales, and myths are foundational narratives that bridge the secular and the spiritual and merge the factual with the fantastical. Myths and magic transport us and bind us together in the world of imagination. This year’s annual The Book As Art exhibition explores these concepts visually through beautifully made volumes, sculptural and conceptual interpretations
The 2023 Exhibition
Explore the artist books that are a part of this year’s exhibition: The Book As Art v. 11: Myth & Magic.
Click on the images for more details of each artwork or download the pdf here.
Interested in purchasing a piece? Download the price list here.
*Unless otherwise noted, photography credit for each exhibited work belongs to the artist.


Open Window
Open Window
Artist Statement
I am trained as an architect and began printmaking about ten years ago. I work with multiple square plates, which allows me to rotate and combine them in a variety of ways thereby making individual monoprints that explore visual space and color. The resulting prints are fantastic alternatives to buildings I have designed or imagined. With ‘Open Window’ I incorporated my prints into a ‘flag book’, which added actual space to the images allowing the viewer’s eye to weave its way through the layers in the piece.
Photos by Dan Anderson
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Time
Time
Artist Statement
A lotus fold artist book featuring an original poem, “Time” comments on the expectations one may have on the other and the possible negative affects this can cause. The text paper is of Arches Text Wove which has been painted using the paste paper technique taught by Suzanne Moore. The illustrations have been created using Lego bricks in a relief printing method. The original poem has been printed in letterpress using 18pt Goudy metal type. The boards are covered in purple Harmattan goat leather and decorated in gold foil tooling. The eye hooks and metal ball and chain act as the closure for the book, but when strung behind the front cover when opened is meant to be used as a hanging “wire,” allowing the owner of the piece to treat it either as a book to be kept on the shelf or hung on the wall as a traditional piece of 2D art.
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Shmita
Shmita
Artist Statement
Shmita is the year of rest in the seven-year agricultural cycle of Jewish life. It is a time for the land to recover. The word Shmita is spelled from right to left in the large letters while the smaller words represent the spiritual aspects of this observance. Shechina means the feminine, nurturing attribute of God, Moed means holiday both for the land and the people, Yachad means together as in our relationship with God, Tov means good as in borrowing the land benefits humans. Adonai means God, symbolically, Heh (the large letter) signifies Creation. As the feminine attribute of God began this cycle, the masculine name of God ends this cycle. The Israeli landscape shifts from the fertile agricultural north of Israel to the desert region of the Negev in the south. It starts in spring with the lush fruitful landscape, slowly moving into fall and winter rains, only to begin the cycle with spring again. The techniques I used include letterpress, mokuhanga and standard woodblock print.
Photos by Jack Craig
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


18 Stones
18 Stones
Artist Statement
Reading a poetic passage in Zechariah began my research into the significance of boulders, rocks, stones and pebbles in Judaism. Stones symbolize holiness and sanctify place, they commemorate relationships and act as talisman, cairns, weapons and birthing aids. This book celebrates all stones through a narrative arc from the immeasurably large Rock of Israel (God), the Holiest Stone, to the smallest pebble we leave on the gravestone to commemorate the dead.
The eighteen passages I have chosen from various Judaic sources illustrate a spectrum of history and myth. In Judaic numerology, eighteen stands for chai or life. My intent is to symbolize the relevance of stones in our modern world as a living tie that still binds us to our ancient tradition.
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Hinc Ad Horam
Hinc Ad Horam
Artist Statement
Hinc Ad Horam, a book of metamorphoses, brings the world of plants and the world of humans together and speaks of the fleeting beauty of life.
I used inks and dyes I made of plants in my native Brittany. The paper is made in Korea by master Samsik Kim from the bark of mulberry trees. I wrote Ovid’s stories of metamorphoses with yellow ink on very fine hanji, then made paper thread from it (shifu) and wove it into small squares using a tiny loom. I transformed some dyed hanji into flower tessellations. All are nested in the Zhen Xian Bao structure. Pieces of eco-dyed silk are backed with hanji and form the larger box as well as the folded structure.
Thanassis Hatzopoulos’ poem Repetition is a Rule of Life narrates the cyclical transformations of life and is itself repeated through its French and English translations. It becomes an echo to the stories of Ovid, and inspired the title, Hinc Ad Horam, celebrating our world in which plants and humans co-exist and correspond.
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


(Dis)location
(Dis)location
Artist Statement
*Invitational
The artist book, (Dis)location, is a visual narrative communicating the artist’s emotional response to the COVID-19 pandemic through abstract shape and color. In the first few pages of the accordion-style book, geometric shapes in cool blues and greens are aligned and balanced on the page in a lyrical arrangement. As the storyline continues, a few fold-out pages reveal abstracted newspaper columns, and bright, jutting graphics of hot colors. The horizon line then begins to skitter and jump; and imagery becomes increasingly angled, fragmented, and spinning. The back of the book includes a visual interpretation of the news media and the now-familiar barrage of graphics of increasing virus, and infection. Rather than a chronicle of pandemic headlines, data, and dates, (Dis)location employs the universality of color and composition to evoke a world inexorably changed by isolation, sickness and loss.
Imagery was inspired by collages created by the artist during isolation in 2020 and 2021. News graphics were based on images published by Johns Hopkins magazine and The New York Times. (Dis)location was printed on the letterpress with linoleum blocks and polymer plates, with additional inkjet-printed collage elements.
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Liberation Rising
Liberation Rising
Artist Statement
imagined world. I am fascinated by statuary in the private and public space. These monuments have been erected to embody the mythos, ideals, and spiritual aspirations of the community. They are tributes to the sacrifice of local heroes, ancient gods, or religious icons and form the basis of my imagery. I digitally remove the statues from their stark plinths and merge them with an envisioned landscape, ensconced in blankets of flowers from manicured formal gardens, farmlands, or watery hideaways. From these composited images, I print them in the 19th century cyanotype process, which I enhance by drawing and coloring with pastels. In the origami book form, the mystery of the image is revealed as it unfolds.
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Endure
Endure
Artist Statement
Endure was created as a reaction to recent developments and attacks on women’s rights and human rights. At times it seems that the world is constantly fighting for every inch they make towards progress before being shoved back another foot. Endure was created from a place of feeling overwhelmed and consumed by the seeming lack of empathy around us. Born from one comforting idea, Endure embodies the strength of people and their communities to continue. To continue to fight, to exist, to love, to be. Inspired by cyclic themes both in life and in mythos Endure embodies the idea of persistence, that no matter the struggles we face ahead of us we will always endure, be it ourselves or our future generations ahead of us, we will move forward.
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


OLD
OLD
Artist Statement
OLD is a collaborative project by Jan Dove and Lucia Harrison. They created this volvelle and essay to spark conversations about the stories our culture tells itself about aging. The book asks what it means to be women artists growing older with humor, grace and a circular vision of time.
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Seminole Canyon
Seminole Canyon
Artist Statement
This book is created from journal, photos and drawings I kept during a yearlong roadtrip around the U. S. in 1990-91. This segment takes place in the winter cold of southwest Texas where I met Santa Claus who gave me corn to feed the deer and directed me to visit Seminole Canyon and stay for at least 2 days.
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Woodswoman
Woodswoman
Artist Statement
Woodswoman is a mythologized description of the earth. I created her for the woods of the Adirondack at Blue Mountain Center. I replaced Christian symbols that were part of the clothing of original mother object with Logos of organizations that fight for the rights of our planet.
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Dream Magic
Dream Magic
Artist Statement
“Dream Magic” explores how, in dreams, the dreamer sheds their daytime persona to enter a place of myth, magic & metaphor where the impossible is possible. In the book I play with placement of text and image to give the illusion of movement and to emphasize how dream space, time & logic follow different rules from a person’s daytime experiences.
Like a set of small jewels, the book unfolds from its closed state into four staggered shadowboxes that contain scenes of a dreamer immersed in dream images. The base of the book’s support structure doubles as a small accordion book which, by pulling the tab, unspools onto another dreamscape with three poems that speak to iconic dream imagery.
Photos by Kat Gower
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Walking (Ink) Meditation, Part XVI: Portal
Walking (Ink) Meditation, Part XVI: Portal
Artist Statement
Walking (Ink) Meditation, Part XVI: Portal is an accordion book consisting of a set of 4 etchings joined horizontally, with hand-coloring. The images invoke Neolithic sacred sites, including the communal tombs at Gavrinis and Avebury that combine standing stones with other structures, some stones incised with enigmatic lines and shapes, the purpose of which we can only speculate about, but seem to relate to the worship of the sun. At Avebury, the West Kennett Long Barrow is made up of multiple chambers and an entry court formed by massive stones and covered with a raised mound. The entrance is situated so that only at the Winter Solstice a shaft of sunlight reaches the farthest chamber, marking the turning of the year. The book invokes that moment of dawn shining through the forest into the tomb, but also ends with a trailing drawn line, signifying that we, so far removed in time, can never really know what purpose the structures served and what ceremonies occurred there.
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Ventanas de la Habana/Windows of Havana
Ventanas de la Habana/Windows of Havana
Artist Statement
Ventanas de la Habana is a collaboration between Carlos “Tato” Ayress Moreno and faculty and students from The University of Alabama MFA Book Arts Program in School of Library and information Studies within the College of Communication and Information Sciences. Artwork was conceived and carved in linoleum by Tato Ayress. The book structure was designed by Anna Embree, Sarah Bryant, and Kyle Holland, and letterpress-printed on French Paper in Tuscaloosa with assistance from MFA students Kasey Gabriel, Christina Lilly, Sarah Scarr, and Jillian Sico. Thanks to Juan Lopez-Bautista, who graciously translated this colophon into Spanish.
Photos by Sarah Bryant
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


DEDALO E ICARO
DEDALO E ICARO
Artist Statement
Daedalus designed wings to escape from the labyrinth of Crete with his son Icarus. But his imprudence caused him to fall into the sea.
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Trilogy
Trilogy
Artist Statement
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Case Study on Water
Case Study on Water
Artist Statement
Case Study on Water, a sculptural artists’ book comprised of “collected” items, observes my relationship with water. Having a mother who has frequently visited fortunetellers, I was always told that I lack water in my energy and that’s why sometimes things are not working out in my life. I always thought that was a ridiculous idea but at a certain point I started to wonder, “is it?”
“As bizzare as it sounds, maybe this year has been good to me because I moved from an apartment in the middle of a city to another apartment in the middle of another city, but with a tiny view of Lake Michigan. maybe, that’s why I ordered one coffee machine but received two, ran into the manager of the job I wanted, and met someone new who I feel strongly connected to in three years. In this study, I will examine the potentially unforseen force of this ordinary matter and evaluate its control over my life (and maybe even that of others).”, excerpt from Case Study on Water
Photos by Angelica Ong
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Mystic Tea
Mystic Tea
Artist Statement
Mystic Tea is an artist’s book where I set out to create a narrative that was fully supported by both the text and imagery. The “Magic“ of Mystic Tea is that it is an enchanted elixir to escape the sorrow and despair of the Covid pandemic, the War in Ukraine, and the looming disaster of climate change. Its contents provide a magical escape which transcends the “Here and Now’’ initiating a journey of unexpected events and characters which is both amusing and soothing. Although it displays well as an open Concertina Book it also works well as a book in hand that tells a story as the reader turns the pages from beginning to end.
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Owed to the Mountain
Owed to the Mountain
Artist Statement
Owed to The Mountain is a sculptural artist book that unfolds to reveal a paper replica of Mt. Hood. Each directional mountain view is illustrated in a different printmaking technique and storytelling by Elders from the Confederated Tribes at Warm Springs grows the relationship. Beneath the mountain rests a book that weaves multiple Native voices that share the value of reciprocity and cooperation. Interspersed by story are etchings of animals in various ecosystems documenting the changing seasons. Intended outcomes are to cultivate knowing a place deeply; share indigenous wisdom; build community; and turn our love for the mountain into action where we demand a new management plan from the Mt Hood National Forest Service that prioritizes climate resilience and puts an end to industrial timber production. As Robin Kimmerer states – “Stories are both history and prophecy – time is circular – stories are among our most potent tools for restoring the land and our relationship to her.”
Photos by Aaron Wessling
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.


Your Leader Could be a Tyrant, How to Tell
Your Leader Could be a Tyrant, How to Tell
Artist Statement
*Invitational
Inspired by the rise in ultra-nationalism and worldwide threat to democratic ideas and principles, Your Leader Could be a Tyrant, How to Tell incorporates silhouetted images of each tyrant with hand-stamped text about their peculiar habits, statistical information about their rule, and accompanying texts discussing common traits of dictators. Originally conceived as a companion to Your Co-Worker Could Be A Space Alien from 1985, this book mixes humor and horror to underscore our contemporary reality.
KaKeArt is the collaborative team of Ann Kalmbach and Tatana Kellner. KaKeArt produces ironic, politically charged works including postcards, artists’ books and public interventions. They have worked together since 1983 and published 20 artists’ books, numerous installations, and public interventions.
They have been awarded residencies at the Visual Studies Workshop, MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Ucross Foundation, Visual Studies Workshop, Bogliasco Foundation, The Hessische Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, Germany, University of Southern Maine, and The Sirius Arts Center in Ireland, among others. Additionally, they are the recipients of the New York Foundation for the Arts grants and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant. They have served as jurors and panelists for a variety of national and local arts organizations.
KaKeArt are co-founders of Women’s Studio Workshop (with 2 others). They exhibit regularly around the country and abroad.
TO PURCHASE WORK, contact the Decatur Arts Alliance at 404-371-9583 or email [email protected]. Download the price list here.
Organizing Committee
Angie Macon | Director, Decatur Arts Alliance
Joe Davich | Director, Georgia Center for the Book
Cynthis Lollis, Lockey McDonald | Registrar
Emily Mottola, Ally StoneWright
Jurors
Macy Chadwick
ABOUT
Macy Chadwick is a book artist, letterpress printer, and Director of In Cahoots Residency. She received an MFA in Book Arts and Printmaking from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia and assisted book artist Julie Chen at Flying Fish Press in Berkeley for three years. After fifteen years of teaching at the Academy of Art University, San Francisco Art Institute, and San Francisco Center for the Book, Macy moved to Petaluma, California, where she is the founder and director of In Cahoots Residency. The residency provides housing and studio space to both emerging and professional artists with a focus on artists books, letterpress, printmaking, writing, and collaboration. Macy continues to create books and limited edition prints in her letterpress studio and her work is in prominent collections in the U.S. and abroad, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Yale University Special Collections, and the Jack Ginsberg Collection in South Africa. Her work can be seen on macychadwick.com, and on Instagram @in_cahoots_press and @incahootsresidency.
INVITATIONAL ARTWORK
(Dis)location, 2022
Limited edition artist’s book. Letterpress printed (polymer plates and linoleum) with inkjet-printed collage elements on Zerkall Book paper. Two-sided accordion, enclosed in a custom box.
10” x 10” x .5” closed. 10” x 130” x 8” fully extended.
The artist book, (Dis)location, is a visual narrative communicating the artist’s emotional response to the COVID-19 pandemic through abstract shape and color. In the first few pages of the accordion-style book, geometric shapes in cool blues and greens are aligned and balanced on the page in a lyrical arrangement. As the storyline continues, a few fold-out pages reveal abstracted newspaper columns, and bright, jutting graphics of hot colors. The horizon line then begins to skitter and jump; and imagery becomes increasingly angled, fragmented, and spinning. The back of the book includes a visual interpretation of the news media and the now-familiar barrage of graphics of increasing virus, and infection. Rather than a chronicle of pandemic headlines, data, and dates, (Dis)location employs the universality of color and composition to evoke a world inexorably changed by isolation, sickness and loss.
Imagery was inspired by collages created by the artist during isolation in 2020 and 2021. News graphics were based on images published by Johns Hopkins magazine and The New York Times. (Dis)location was printed on the letterpress with linoleum blocks and polymer plates, with additional inkjet-printed collage elements.
Tatana Kellner
ABOUT
Tatana Kellner’s work is rooted in social issues. She has exhibited in numerous venues across USA, Canada and Europe, and she has had over 50 solo exhibitions. Recently, her work was selected for inclusion in Hunterdon Museum, Art Alive Gallery (Delhi, India), Ringling School of Art, the Everson Museum, University of Albany Museum, Dorsky Museum, CEPA Gallery, Kentler International Drawing Space, Collar Works, New York Public Library, among many others. Kellner is a co-founder and past artistic director of Women’s Studio Workshop. In 2021 she was inducted into the Hall of Champions, North American Hand Papermakers. Kellner is a recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the Pollock Krasner Foundation, The Creative Climate Award, the Puffin Foundation, Photographer’s Fund Award (CPW), New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, and many others. Kellner has been awarded fellowship residencies at The MacDowell, Yaddo, Banff Centre for the Arts, Light Work, Visual Studies Workshop, Saltonstall, I-Park, Millay Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Artpark, Blue Mountain Center, Jentel, Fundación Valparaiso, Bogliasco Foundation, Siena Art Institute, Ucross, Haystack and Ragdale Foundation. She was born in the Czech Republic and immigrated to the USA in 1969.
INVITATIONAL ARTWORK
Tatana Kellner and Ann E. Kalmbach, KaKeArt
Your Leader Could be a Tyrant, How to Tell, 2019
Silkscreen, digital, sewn board binding
11.5” x 8.75”
Inspired by the rise in ultra-nationalism and worldwide threat to democratic ideas and principles, Your Leader Could be a Tyrant, How to Tell incorporates silhouetted images of each tyrant with hand-stamped text about their peculiar habits, statistical information about their rule, and accompanying texts discussing common traits of dictators. Originally conceived as a companion to Your Co-Worker Could Be A Space Alien from 1985, this book mixes humor and horror to underscore our contemporary reality.
KaKeArt is the collaborative team of Ann Kalmbach and Tatana Kellner. KaKeArt produces ironic, politically charged works including postcards, artists’ books and public interventions. They have worked together since 1983 and published 20 artists’ books, numerous installations, and public interventions.
They have been awarded residencies at the Visual Studies Workshop, MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Ucross Foundation, Visual Studies Workshop, Bogliasco Foundation, The Hessische Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, Germany, University of Southern Maine, and The Sirius Arts Center in Ireland, among others. Additionally, they are the recipients of the New York Foundation for the Arts grants and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant. They have served as jurors and panelists for a variety of national and local arts organizations.
KaKeArt are co-founders of Women’s Studio Workshop (with 2 others). They exhibit regularly around the country and abroad.
Eileen Wallace
ABOUT
Eileen Wallace is a Senior Lecturer in Printmaking and Book Arts at the University of Georgia where she teaches courses in hand papermaking, book arts, and letterpress printing. She is a former resident artist at Penland School of Craft and has taught workshops at Penland, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and at other venues across the country. Eileen is a co-director emeritus of the Paper & Book Intensive (PBI) and has been a board member of Hand Papermaking Magazine. She curated the book Masters: Book Arts published by Lark Books.
INVITATIONAL ARTWORK
Deep Patience, 2021
Handmade paper, relief printmaking, typewriter
5” x 10” closed; 10” x 10” open
This slim volume is a reflection on patience and quiet; on waiting and impatience; and on listening to silence.