College Book Art Association 2nd Biannual Conference

If you are a student of the book and paper arts, a practicing book and paper artist, an instructor in the book and paper arts, or a librarian/curator of book arts collections, the College Book Art Association (CBAA) is an organization that you will want to be a part of.  Since its founding in 2008, this growing organization has had two annual meetings at the University of Arizona in Phoenix and the Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland and two large conferences at the University of Iowa and Indiana University.  Another large conference is slated for next January in the San Francisco Bay Area and in 2013, the annual meeting will be held at Yale.

CBAA’s mission is to support and promote academic book arts education by fostering the development of its practice, teaching, scholarship, and criticism. Conferences such as the recent one held at Indiana University January 13 – 16 attest to the growing interest in the book arts in a variety of academic institutions.

At this year’s conference there were 48 sessions to choose from, numerous behind the scenes tours of rare book and museum collections as well as campus studios. Hands-on workshops in intaglio, letterpress, collograph and paper dyeing were also included.

A juried members’ exhibition of artists’ books was held in the University gallery, highlighting the broad spectrum of contemporary work in the book and paper arts.

 

 

Here is just a sampling of some of the session topics:  Book Studies and the Liberal Arts; Embodying Bookness: Reading as Material Act; Ways of Knowing: Book Arts Across the Curriculum; Codex as Canvas: the Artist Altered Book; The Library in Art['s Crosshairs]; Scrapbooks of John Ruskin: Stranger than Fiction; Dé-Coll/Age: Bulletin Aktueller Ideen; Work from Home: Gaylord Shanilec’s Pastoral Wunderkammern; Vander-Mation: Letterpress Printing, Calligraphy and Animation; Cross-Media Iterations of a Single Text; Rice Boy Sleeps: Artists’ Books Meet the Web; Collaboration as Impetus; Book Installation Book; The Dot and the Line; The Persistence of Hand-Making: Sustaining the Book within the Academic Arena; Asa Beneviste and the Trigram Press; Margin Arts: Haiku and Artists’ Books in the West; Poetry Made Visible: Tom Phillips and Dante Alighieri; Librarians and Pedagogy; Contemporary Bookmaking in the Middle East/North Africa; From Palm Leaf to Book; Views of Los Angeles: Ed Ruscha’s Book Works; Updating the Artists’ Publication- 1960 to 2010; The Book in Public. For abstracts of these and more, see the CBAA website under conferences.

One of the many highlights of the conference was keynote speaker Ann Hamilton.  Showing still and moving images of her work, Ms. Hamilton gave us a generous taste of the depth and integrity of her public art projects, many of which involve language, the voice, and reading.  Memorable quotes from her presentation:  ”Reading stills the mind…it is sensory without leaving a mark on you”  ”My voice is in my hand”   “Making is an act of finding”  She talked at length about her project at the Venice Biennale, installations at the Seattle Public Library, the felted floor tiles in the Brown University Humanities Center, the kinetic installation at the Guggenheim in New York and the most recent cork floor installation at the Ohio State Library.  Her walking meditation boat in Laos is a piece that goes on and has another life of its own.  The double helix tower in Geyserville, CA has also been used for numerous performances since it was built.    And her Stylus installation at the Pulitzer Foundation in St. Louis invites anyone to participate.  During her presentation she called in to the project and the audience sent a real-time spoken message which instantly became part of the piece.

posted by Laurie Whitehill Chong

International Mail Art Exhibition in Honor and Memory of Judith A. Hoffberg

The last issue of UMBRELLA

June 27th, 2010 through August 22, 2010 at the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena.

This exhibit honors the memory of Judith Hoffberg, a founding member of the Art Libraries Society/North America, a great promoter of mail art, Fluxus art, artists books and artists in general.  Judith Hoffberg created, edited and published the newsletter UMBRELLA, which each month provided information about the book arts and artists, Fluxus art, mail art and reviews of new artists’ books.  Judith traveled the world, interviewing artists for UMBRELLA, often bringing to light new and emerging artists as well as new insight into established artists.  Sadly, Judith Hoffberg passed away in January of 2009.   In honor of Judith Hoffberg, over 500 artists worldwide submitted works of art for this exhibition and over 700 art works were received.  If you can’t make it to the exhibition in person, follow this link to see images:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/armoryarts/sets/72157624462791167/show/

The works in the exhibition, with a few exceptions, will become part of the Judith Hoffberg Archive, Special Collections, University of California Santa Barbara.

To see copies of UMBRELLA, visit the periodicals section of the Fleet Library at RISD or read them online at http://www.umbrellaeditions.com/index.php.

Artists’ Books Content Design voicE Form

Throughout history artists have long been agents of change, throwing light in new ways on challenging issues of our society, both past and present.  With determination and invention, artists call attention to issues of war and conflict, gender, race, politics, and the environment.  With transparency and honesty they reveal personal issues of family, love and relationships, illness, tragedy, death and loss.  They remind us of the wonder of nature and with playfulness and humor show us how to laugh at ourselves.

Artists find the book form a compelling medium for making works of art in order to give voice to their ideas, narratives or concepts. The physical attributes of books, with their portability, intimacy, interactivity, and time-based sequential elements result in a unique and dynamic involvement between artist and audience.  The structural form of an artist book often goes beyond merely providing a platform for text and image.  More likely it serves as a metaphor for the content, mirroring the subject and meaning through materials, design and form.  The reader’s experience of the artist’s book is both visual and tactile through a hands-on engagement that cannot be experienced with works of art that are displayed on a wall or pedestal.  Organized around selected themes, the books in this exhibit are a glimpse into the many and varied ways that artists speak through paper and print.

An exhibition catalog is available which describes each of the 50 books on display, showing how artists have integrated materials, images, text, and format to convey the underlying story or content.  For information about the exhibition catalog, contact the Special Collections Librarian ( lwhitehi@risd.edu) .   See a review of this exhibit by Arts Editor Bill Van Siclen of the Providence Journal.

One of the themes in this exhibition is September 11, 2001.  The following is an excerpt from the exhibition catalog, featuring an artist book by Jeannie Meejin-Yoon.

The events of September 11^th touched us all whether we were there in Manhattan, had loved ones or friends who perished, or experienced it through the media as we sat glued to our TV screens.  In many ways our country has been changed forever.  Some artists in the years following felt the need to express their fears, confusion, distress, and respect for those lost in this tragedy and turned to the book form as their medium of expression.

12.  Absence / Jeannie Meejin Yoon
New York, NY: Printed Matter; Whitney Museum of American Art, c2003

When closed the pages of this book form a solid block of white, with the single word “ABSENCE” in cut-out on the cover.  The first ten pages reveal a single tiny hole in each otherwise blank page.  The next 110 pages have the same identical two squares in cut-out, again with no text or other reference.  The last page has a grid of cut-out shapes, evoking buildings and streets.  On the inside cover, the subject is revealed, “In Memory September 11, 2001”.  Each page, as it is turned, pulls the next page along bringing to mind the falling of the towers.  The holes represent the TV antenna on one of the towers and the number of pages represents the number of floors in each building.

As you look back into the stacked squares, you see the empty space where the towers once stood.  Yoon, an architect living in Manhattan, created this stark “architectural” memorial which at first puzzles the reader and then hits home with poignant reverence.

RISD Artists’ Books on exhibit at Salve Regina Gallery

Currently on exhibit at the Salve Regina University Gallery is a selection of artists’ books from the RISD Library collection.   These include books by Carol Barton; Julie Chen & Nance O’Banion; Johanna Drucker; Eve Faulkes; Rand Heubsch; Paul Johnson; Russell Jones; Angela Lorenz; Judith Mohns & Francois Deschamps; Lois Morrison; Rosemary Simpkins; Jill Timm; Claire Van Vliet; Deborah Wieder & RISD faculty Anne West.  Pop-up structures and accordion variations as well as other innovative book structures and printmaking techniques provide a glimpse of the rich and varied resources from our collection.  If you get a chance to visit Newport, be sure to see this exhibit.

Rhode Island School of Design Artist Book Exhibit

March 18 – April 11, 2010

Gallery Hours:

Monday – Thursday:  11 am – 4 pm

Sunday:  2 – 4 pm

The gallery is located in the Antone Academic Center on the corner of Lawrence and Leroy Avenues in Newport, RI.    lwc

Valentine Exchange

During Wintersession 1999, graduate student Heather Watkins (MFA GD ’00) taught a Hot Printing class for non-majors.  As a class project, she initiated the Valentine Exchange, where students in the class and other invited participants  were given an assignment to make valentines measuring 4 inches by 4 inches in a limited edition, ie. one for each participant and an extra one for the RISD Library’s set.  Letterpress printing or any other kind of printing methods could be employed and materials of any sort were encouraged.  The first year one of the Valentines was a slab of raw meat, though this element is not included in the Library’s set.

At the end of the class, which took place around the time of Valentine’s Day, a party was held and all the editioned Valentines were exchanged so that each participant had a complete set.  A special box or container was made during the party to enclose the Valentines.

The first year was such a success that Heather organized another Valentine Exchange the following year in 2000.

What was started at RISD has become a kind of tradition that Heather has spread across the country to Oregon where she now lives and teaches.   For several years she has graciously sent us sets of Valentines made post-RISD.   You may come and view these fascinating conceptual Valentines in Special Collections, any hours we are open.

There are many facets of love and equally as many ways of expressing it.  How will you show your love this Valentine’s Day?

New addition to Artists’ Books

COUNTING: A BOOK OF LISTS

Janine Wong/CenterStreet Studio, 2008

RISD Artists’ Books W646Co

Accordion fold book with cloth bound cover folder and slipcase.  Letterpress printed with wood and metal type over digital archival pigment print underlay. Pages mounted on Arches Cover paper, with pressure print images on verso.

What if someone were to look through your paper recycle bin, picking out discarded envelopes, notes, lists, letters, sketches, calendar pages, or other unwanted scraps you tossed out?  What kind of story would they be able to piece together about you? In our not-so-distant past, before the aid of “Blackberries” and other mobile devices that now help organize our daily lives, we kept lists and wrote notes to ourselves to remind us of the myriad details needing our attention.  Even now, we still sketch or scribble on scrap paper to capture our thoughts, plans or elusive dreams.  And when we uncover a forgotten hand written “to-do” list tucked in a coat pocket or in between the pages of a book, we are reminded of past concerns and events, tokens of a life lived.

Janine Wong’s artist book, “Counting: A Book of Lists”, captures these very details, highlighting the depth and fullness of her life as wife, mother, artist, educator, and administrator.  Each accordion page has a digital print of a “found list”.  Lists are numbered and categorized with a few additional details, printed letterpress on top of the digital print.  On the backs of these pages is a series of monochromatic pressure prints made from scraps of notebook paper, rolodex cards and empty envelopes; a kind of “debris field” in soft silhouette.

A sample entry on page 5, under the category “roles”, depicts a calendar page torn out of an organizer with lists of people to call, tax receipts to track, daycare to research, alumni dinner to plan, summer institute to organize, haircut, lectures to attend, and a new cover project to work on.  As we read each list, a portrait of the artist emerges.  We begin to recognize her handwriting, with its subtle variations that track the speed with which the list was made.  Where the handwriting is more uniform, we can imagine her meditating on this list, mulling over its contents.  Where the handwriting is scribbled, we can sense the immediacy of tracking a thought, possibly while sitting at a lecture, or just before running out the door.  The large blocky word lists written by childish hands bring to mind how quickly our children grow and how important these little scraps of their childhood become over time.

“Counting: A Book of Lists”, elegantly combines the best of techniques from both the handcrafted past and the electronic present, with its letterpress printing, hand bound covers, and digital images.  Turning the pages is a bit like coming across an archaeological find or a time capsule, not unlike Joan Lyons’ artist book, “Twenty-Five Years Ago” (Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1998  RISD Artists’ Books L97Tw) where the artist’s dusty old wallet is discovered in an air duct during renovations of her children’s former elementary school.  Appointment cards, shopping receipts and other ordinary snippets of her life indicate the changing roles of women and the tentative beginnings of the Visual Studies Workshop.  In this digital era, it is books like these that cause us to consider what will be left for people to discover about our lives, hundreds of years from now.  Will our digital photo albums, our text messages, or our emails survive?   How will our descendants remember us?  Will they be able to paint a portrait of us or piece together our lives from scraps of paper?  Will there be any electronic bytes left that are still readable?

Janine Wong has eloquently condensed these bits and pieces of her life without sentimentality and without turning the book into a kind of “family album”.  Because of the book’s simplicity and straightforward approach, it speaks to many of the concerns, issues, and responsibilities, both professional and personal, which women in this fast-paced world today face.           LWC

Tom Phillips at Brown University, October 5, 2009

For those of you who were fortunate to be able to attend the TOM PHILLIPS lecture at Brown the other night, you may be interested to know that we have four editions of his artist book A HUMUMENT in Special Collections.  The first edition was published in 1980, the “first revised edition” in 1987, the third edition in 1997, and the fourth edition in 2005.

This British artist, known not only for his artist books but also for his paintings, portraits, posters, illustrated books, sculpture, poetry and music, gave a wonderful presentation of his work and how it developed.  As a child, growing up in London during World War II, he and his brother used to push a handcart through the streets looking for salvage material.  A copy of Dante’s INFERNO, illustrated by Gustave Doré, found its way into their hands and made a great impression on his young mind.  Another significant source of inspiration came in the form of care packages, sent to his family by relatives in the US.  Precious parcels of food were lined with old comics, cast-offs from American cousins.  One comic in particular stood out, the cover of a September 1939 issue of DETECTIVE COMICS with a powerful image of Batman looming behind a castle, shrouded in mist.  This was the first image he copied as a young boy and you can see in his adult work, traces of it being repeated in many forms, including his contemporary illustrated version of Dante’s INFERNO.

Phillips’ first edition of A HUMUMENT, started with an old Victorian novel he found in a book shop in the 1960’s called A HUMAN DOCUMENT, by W. H. Mallock.  He took this book and altered it by working directly onto the pages, transforming the text by a process of “elimination”, inspired by the methods of Mallarmé.  On each page, major parts of the story are covered over with paintings, drawings, and collaged elements.  The remaining words form poetic phrases, many terse and pithy, humorous and provocative.  Since this first edition, he has used 15 other British copies of A HUMAN DOCUMENT, to create three more published editions and numerous other single works.  Each new edition has approximately 50 new pages, totally different from the previous editions.  He continues to scour the text for new subjects/words that evoke an emotional response and can be transformed into a new poetic composition.  He makes poems from words and pictures from poems.  He speaks of his rules for this process as the “dogged silliness” of the artist because often those “rules” are creatively broken.

Some of the original collaged pages are part of the RUTH AND MARVIN SACKNER ARCHIVE OF CONCRETE AND VISUAL POETRY in Miami, FL.  When I visited their home which houses this collection in the 1990’s, the entire wall just inside the vestibule was covered with these remarkable pages.

Other tidbits of interest from Tom’s lecture:

Every year he makes a drawing of a periwinkle each day for about a week, while the periwinkle is in bloom.

The American editions of A HUMAN DOCUMENT are not usable for his collages because many quaint English phrases are omitted for US readers who “might not understand” them.

He is now starting to collage pages from old American comics into A HUMUMENT.

The original DETECTIVE COMICS sold for 10 cents back in the 1930’s.  A copy of his favorite issue from September 1939 now sells for $44,000.00.  His brother sold their copy in the 1940’s for 6 pence.

Some of his figures for Dante’s INFERNO have also come from the work of William Blake.

Mottos to live by, found on the walls of his studio:

“No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”  Samuel Beckett

“I can’t go on.  I’ll go on.”  Samuel Beckett

Music has always played a big role in his work, and he was much influenced by John Cage, Morton Feldman, Brian Eno, and Terry Riley.  Tom created an opera called “Irma” and is currently working with a composer Tarik O’Regan on an opera called “Voices”.  In Phillips’ work, often the words are arranged like a score.  One page of A HUMUMENT reads, “The sound in my life enlarges my prison.”

Musician Morton Feldman once distinguished between a “notion” and an “idea”.  A notion is superficial and temporary.  An idea is something that grows and lasts a lifetime.

His advice to students: “Be where you are.  Muster all the forces you’ve got.”              LWC

A Recent Artist Book Conference

THE HYBRID BOOK: intersection + intermedia was a three day conference and book fair organized and hosted by the Book Arts/Printmaking MFA Program at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, June 4-6.  The Conference focused on the multi-disciplinary aspect of artists’ books as a kind of  “hybrid” art form involving old and new technologies, collaborative processes, performance and interactive digital media.

Conference topics included: Book Arts in Academia; The Future of Letterpress; Modes of Production: Collaborative Processes; Offset Applications: Then and Now; Intersection + Intermedia; Text and the Hybrid Book; Book Art in the Social Sphere; and The Reciprocity of Books and Digital Media.

Highlights of the conference included interviews with internationally known artists Hedi Kyle and Gunnar Kaldewey and a live performance of  “God Bless This Circuitry”, a collaborative book work created by author Tate Shaw and musician Andrew Sallee.

Over 70 book artists exhibited their work at the Hybrid Book Fair.  In addition two gallery exhibitions were held, one featuring the book art of three artists Hedi Kyle, Gunnar A. Kaldewey, and Irma Boom and another the artists’ books of alumni from the Book Art/Printmaking MFA Program at The University of the Arts.  Exhibition catalogs for these will be available soon in the library.

The event was well attended by book artists, scholars, educators, students, librarians, and book dealers from the U.S. and beyond.  For more information about the conference, go to the official Hybrid Book website.  For an overview of the conference and detailed reviews of several outstanding artists’ books exhibited there, check out Elisabeth Long’s book arts blog, The Sign of the Owl.  Also take a look at a couple of interactive digital “books” at these sites: My Turning Point , Confess, and War.        LWC

Artists’ Books and Bookbinding Techniques

Did you know that the library has many useful resources about Artists’ Books and bookbinding techniques?  Most of these books in our main collection are browsable and circulate.  If you are interested in books that give information about the subject of artists’ books, specific book presses and artists, historical and contemporary exhibitions, and collections look in the RISD MAIN and RISD OVERSIZE call number ranges for N 7433′s.   For books that give specific details on bookbinding techniques, look in the Z 271′s.   We also have non-circulating copies of several of these books in the Reference area.  Look in RISD REF  N 7433′s and  Z 271′s.

If you would like to have a SUBJECT GUIDE to resources in the Fleet Library on ARTISTS’ BOOKS & BOOKBINDING TECHNIQUES, email us (see contact information in ABOUT) and we will send you the guide as a PDF attachment or, you may find this list in LIBGUIDES on the library’s new website.      LWC