Low Countries
Low Countries was made on a trip to Holland and Belgium in Spring 2009.
Early Explorations
Early Explorations, 6″ x 5.5″, 24 pages Mixed media. Vintage photographs of Egypt collaged on aged paper. Paper cover, pamphlet stitched with bead in spine.
Valley of the Kings
7.5″ x 5.25″ x 1.25, 84 pages, Mixed media. Unique book, made while in Egypt with collage materials gathered there including brass plate on book cover and woven bag. Hand sewn using Daniel Kelm’s wire binding.
Ancient Mysteries
6” x 6” x 1.5” Mixed media. Pyramid shaped concertina using a structure designed by Karen Hanmer. Leather slipcase embellished with metal pieces.
Fragile
For “An Inventory of Al Mutanabbi Street” More than 250 book artists are making books related to “An Inventory of Al Mutanabbi Street”, a series of exhbitions coordinated by Beau Beausoleil and Sara Bodman. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic center of Baghdad bookselling and the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community, was devastated by a car bomb on March 5th, 2007. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 wounded. Fragile, is a volume wrapped in paper on which the words “Fragile, Handle with care” have been stenciled then crossed out. The message, “Damaged beyond repair, Discard”, remains. The packaged book, tied tightly with twine and not meant to be opened, focuses on the irreparable loss.
Visions
7” x 5”, 15 pages, Edition size 15. Printed on the HP Indigo 5500 on Mohawk Superfine 80# cover by Acme Bookbinding. Lucinda Handwriting font text. Case binding of Asahi fabric over boards with gold spine. Title and author gold-foil stamped using Mistral font on gold oriental paper. Endsheets of mustard gold Lokta paper. Housed in gold organza bag with gold drawstring ties. Using Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Kahn or A Vision in a Dream, A Fragment”, composed in 1797 after an opium induced dream, this book incorporates images from three related bodies of work. The vision shown is of a savage place, with holy and enchanted caverns, walls, towers and a sacred river where “The shadow of the dome of pleasure floated midway on the waves”. These haunting images of submerged architectural passageways, lit from within, reflect the branches of trees and illuminate floating leaves and flowers. A beautiful destruction. Of the book Priscilla Juvelis says, “The book is often dark – but shot with streaks of light, mysterious and romantic enough for even Kubla Kahn. “It can be ordered from Priscilla Juvelis Books for $500.
Missing Pieces
6.5 x 7.5 inches closed, 6.5 x 29 inches open, 4 pp. Unique concertina book. A collection of original watercolors which had been cut into puzzle pieces, were found in an envelope in an antique shop. Although there were missing pieces, when assembled there were four individual images which had been painted onto index cards. Collaged onto Lama Li paper mounted on Arches cover black with a black grograin ribbon as a base, the back and front cover are book cloth over board.
7 Stages of Woman
9.75 x 5.875 x 2.25 inches, 7pages. Unique artist’s book, made from Katie MacGregor’s lime green handmade paper over multiple layers of mat board in which dimensional objects, including brass stencils for numbers 1 through 7 unexposed glass negatives, padlocks and keys are embedded. A vintage green silk dome lidded box lined with ivory silk, vintage linen napkin hemmed to size of book and tied with tea-dyed trim enabling book to be removed from box. Of the book Priscilla Juvelis says, “The book itself is a stunning collage of found objects, so arranged as to articulate real beauty. Whether the images are embedded below glass, on glass, recessed without glass the reader / viewer is confronted with the inevitable passing of time as their lives progress and the secrets kept in the past or future.”
How Do I Love Thee
80″ round sunburst concertina separated with pearls into, 24, 2 3/8″ high pages. Pigment printed on Katie MacGregor’s handmade paper and housed in a vintage silk covered metal box 7″ in diameter by 2 3/8″ deep. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote Sonnets from the Portuguese, a collection of 44 love sonnets, chronicling the period leading up to her 1846 marriage to poet Robert Browning. One of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era, Elizabeth was an invalid and found it difficult to believe that Browning, who called her “my little Portuguese”, was truly in love with her. These sonnets explore that concern. Sonnet number 43, which begins “How do I love thee?”, is perhaps the most famous and is the subject of this book / box.
Album
6 x 8 inches, 118pp. Unique altered book. This original autograph album with the owner’s name, “Alma Blydenburge”, stamped in gold on the front within a decorative gilt rule, was rebound using the original covers with a black cloth spine and new sewing. The book is housed in a black cloth over boards box made by Mary McCarthy. Opening in front with recesses for white kid gloves, an embroidered linen handkerchief and a cross-stitched pink ribbon book mark, the front panels close with a black ribbon tie secured with pewter rondel. The artist’s statement reveals that Alma Blydenburge was born in 1811 in Smithtown, Suffolk, New York. She was 21 when she began keeping the album in 1832. At about the same time she married Richard Smith. She died in 1883 at age 52. There are five pages with original watercolors of flowers or plants and one calligraphic page. On most pages the elegant, feminine penmanship found in the album have illustrations of Charles Dana Gibson’s characterizations of the American feminine ideal transferred onto the original album pages with alcohol gel. Priscilla Juvelis descrbes it as “A charming look at a past that seems light years away from today.”