The Art and Exhibits Committee, University Libraries, at the University of South Dakota, present the 2015 Bound and Unbound III international juried altered book exhibition.
Artist Sandy Brooke, associate professor of art at the College of Liberal Arts, Oregon State University Cascades in Bend, Oregon juried the exhibition.
Artists from Canada, Romania, Spain and the United States are represented in this exhibition. Sixty-three artists qualified the call representing 115 pieces. The exhibition comprises 37 artists representing 46 works.
We sincerely thank you for entering our third altered book exhibition and our second international juried exhibition. Our hope is to continue on in this tradition, offering an international juried altered book biennial venue. We welcome your consideration to enter our future calls.
On behalf of the Arts and Exhibits Committee,
Sarah A. Hanson and Danielle De Jager-Loftus
**Bound and Unbound III: Altered Book Exhibition” is photographed and cataloged, and has been placed in the Digital Library of South Dakota. The exhibition is open to the public during library operating hours.
Download the exhibit Postcard; front and back:
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Artist Bio: Alexis Arnold is a San Francisco-based artist and educator. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including the Aspen Art Museum, The New York Hall of Science, Bergdorf Goodman, Whatcom Museum, Southern Exposure, The Workshop Residence, the San Francisco Center for the Book, and through the San Francisco Arts Commission. Alexis’ work is included in collections in the libraries of SFMOMA, the University of Pittsburgh, and Virginia Commonwealth University, and has received review in The Paris Review, Colossal, Hi-Fructose, Art Practical, BuzzFeed, designboom, The Creators Project by Vice, Fast Company, Laughing Squid, The Wall Street Journal, mental_floss, and Beautiful/Decay. She has an MFA in sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute, as well as a BA in art from Kenyon College. |
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Artist Statement:
I make sculptures, installations, and mixed media 2-D art that focus on time, transformation, and perception. My material, formal, and process-based practice explores the structures and phenomena of the natural world from micro to macro levels. I transform materials over time in order to suggest time on both geologic and human scales. I aim to recontextualize the commonplace, disguise the recognizable, and highlight the aesthetic traits or built-in histories of the materials, found objects, and subjects in my work. My Crystallized Book Series addresses the materiality of the book versus its text or content. The crystals remove the text and solidify the books into aesthetic, non- functional objects. The books, frozen with heavy crystal growth, have become artifacts or geologic specimens imbued with the history of time, use, and memory. The crystals and book shapes spark a sense of wonder akin to a great piece of literature, like some of the titles I use, but certainly not all, such as the obsolete software manual, DNS for Microsoft Servers 2003. The series was prompted by repeatedly finding boxes of discarded books, by the onset of e-books, and by the shuttering of bookstores. While the series began in 2011 as a reaction to the vulnerability of printed media, it seems that printed media is enjoying a bit of a renaissance of late.
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Artist Bio: Born in Chicago, Illinois, Ellen Cantor graduated from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and UCLA Interior and Architectural Design Program. After a career in Interior Design, she shifted her focus into fine art photography in 2000. She has studied photography at Santa Fe Workshops, with Freeman Patterson and Andre Gallant in Canada and at the Los Angeles Center for Fine Art Photography with Aline Smithson. Since 2002, Ellen has exhibited in more than 100 shows in Los Angeles, throughout the United States, Europe and Asia including UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA; Palos Verdes Art Center, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA; LAAA/Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA; Hebrew Union College-JIR, Los Angeles, CA; Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE; Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA; Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL; Galerie Nadine Feront, Brussels, Belgium; Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO; Los Angeles Center of Photography, Los Angeles, CA; Texas Photographic Society, Johnson City, TX; Yeosu International Art Festival and International Biennale in Yeosu, Korea and most recently the Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk among others. She is a founding member of The Peacock Group, a fine art photography collective in the South Bay. Cantor is also a member of the Los Angeles Art Association (LAAA}, Gallery 825 and the Jewish Artists Initiative. The LAAA is a prestigious non-profit arts organization that supports, nurtures and develops artists based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on these ezines: Lenscratch.com, f-stopmagazine.com and fractionmagazine.com and Silvershotz. |
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Website:
www.ellencantorphotography.com
Artist Statement:
PRIOR PLEASURES
“Every man’s memory is his private literature.” Aldous Huxley
In an age when technology is slowly replacing the tactile experience of reading a book, my work recalls and celebrates the joy of losing oneself within the pages of a favorite childhood tale.
My current project, entitled Prior Pleasures, is deeply influenced by my love of literature. This series explores memory and preservation of the past while ensuring the creation of a visual legacy for the next generation. The books photographed for this series are the ones I have carried with me since childhood. My mother read them to me and, in turn, I read them to my children, carrying on a tradition of the written and spoken word.
Prior Pleasures is created using a multiple exposure technique (without Photoshop.) I photograph the end pages, illustrations, and text. This process allows me to show the excitement of a book fluttering open and coming to life for readers of all generations.
Rediscovering these books led me to realize the power and value of the hands-on experience of reading. As I documented each volume, I was transported to a time and place that allowed for imagination and fantasy. With this series, I examine what it is that we remember and how we honor objects that inspired our early creative thinking. Ultimately, Prior Pleasures is meant to remind us that books can excite and enrich our lives.
Artist Bio:
Guylaine Couture lives in Montreal, speaks French, teaches graphic design and shares her discoveries on her blog. She participated in exhibitions in Canada, the United States, in England and Australia.
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Artist Statement:
Guylaine started making artist books after a short bindery workshop some years ago. She has this obsession with creativity and paper for a long time. As a graphic designer, Guylaine is upset by the enormous quantities of paper and words used and abused to push a commercial message. The re-use of printed documents, pieces of photos, and chosen words is a perpetual game for her. Using collage, drawing and manual printing, she tries to give a new direction, a second life to this material. Each book attempts to create a fusion between the contents and the container while questioning the manipulation of the object by the reader. Browse slowly one of its artists' books is an experience, a conversation, a relationship with her and her concerns.
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Artist Statement: I think of myself as a reconstructive caretaker with my practice focusing on re-imagining the neglected and the forgotten. Most of my material comes from investigating and recycling people’s discarded images and objects. I manipulate these materials and weave them into new imaginary stories. Often the transformative process incorporates hand building, hand stitching, beading, and folding. The work materializes from these methodical, repetitive techniques, which naturally are meditative and contemplative. Many of my ancestors spent their lifetime working with their hands doing piece work, brick laying, quilting and baking. Traveling in a number of Asian countries I marvel at the offerings being prepared daily. The creation and short life of the offering is such an act of devotion. I think of my practice as having a sense of reverence. I honor the discarded - book, diary, photograph, letter. I feel a sense of responsibility and respect, as I re-work the ephemeral, for what it was, the use it served, the people to whom it was useful and the short time we are here on earth surrounding ourselves with these things. |
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Artist Bio: Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine are a father-son math-art team. Martin started the first private hot glass studio in Canada and has been called the father of Canadian glass. Since 2005, Martin Demaine has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Erik is also at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as a Professor in computer science. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2003. In these capacities, Erik and Martin work together in paper, glass, and other material. They use their exploration in sculpture to help visualize and understand unsolved problems in science, and their scientific abilities to inspire new art forms. Their artistic work includes curved origami sculptures in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, and the Renwick Gallery in the Smithsonian. Their scientific work includes over 60 published joint papers, including several about combining mathematics and art. They recently won a Guggenheim Fellowship (2013) for exploring folding of other materials, such as hot glass. |
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Website:
http://erikdemaine.org/curved/
Artist Statement:
We use our exploration in sculpture to help visualize and understand unsolved problems in science, and our scientific abilities to inspire new art forms.
These sculptures explore the power of folding paper along curved creases using a form first studied by Josef Albers at the Bauhaus in the late 1920s. Each paper component is folded by hand from a circle of paper, using a compass to score the creases and cut out a central hole. The paper folds itself into a natural equilibrium form depending on its creases, a process not yet understood mathematically.
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Artist Bio: Emily Fleisher is originally from New York, and graduated with an MFA in Sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design. She has shown at various venues including Stay Gold Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY, and Women and Their Work in Austin, TX. She has taught as an instructor of record at both Syracuse University and RISD. She currently lives with her family in San Antonio, TX and teaches at San Antonio College. |
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Artist Statement:
My work has always been predominantly about the physical space surrounding the ideas of home and familiarity. I pluck elements from my immediate sur- roundings and play with the boundaries between inte- rior and exterior space, and the familiar and remote.
My current environment in San Antonio, has further influenced these ideas. As I settled in here a few years ago, I became hypersensitive to the things that pop out as atypical in the rather bleak suburban land- scape. These interruptions break my expectations of my environment and feel like mini moments of revela- tion. I feel that the most ordinary of things are with- holding moments of insight into the monumental.
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Artist Bio: Born in Warsaw, Poland Ania Gilmore received her BFA with honors in Graphic Design from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, studied printmaking and book arts at the Rhode Island School of Design, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine. Her portfolio includes works on paper, artist books and mixed-media. Ania curated "Book Art the world of limitless" and "Nothing twice (Nic dwa razy)" exhibitions at ArtSpace Gallery in Maynard MA, "Resonance: books in time" in Rochester Public Library, Rochester NY, "Resonance: books in time II" in Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville MA and "Correspondence 9th International Book Art Festival" in Poland. She is an award winning artist and her works are in public and private collections in Australia, Hungry, Iraq, Japan, Poland, Romania, UK, and USA, and also are included in "1,000 Artists' Books: Exploring the Book as Art" book by Peter and Donna Thomas. Ania lives and works in Lexington, Massachusetts. |
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Artist Statement:
Agnes Martin once wrote “An Artist is the one who can fail and fail and still go on” - these powerful words reaffirmed my creative journey by inspiring me to realize that art is a process that when started can never be finished. While studying design and printmaking I discovered a great passion for Book Arts. In my work, I explore the book itself, the boundaries between the form and the content.
As an emigrant, I am infused with inspiration resident in my roots and history. I am interested in the continuous growing dialogue of identity and multiculturalism, which is a central element in modern society. The source of my imagery, which explores the connection between chaos and order amongst themes, is both derived by chance and experimentation.
Artist Bio:
| Edwin Jager is currently a Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh where he teaches courses in graphic design. He earned an undergraduate degree in printmaking from the Ontario College of Art and Design, an MFA from the University of Iowa and also earned a Graduate Certificate in the Arts and Technologies of the Book from the University of Iowa Center for the Book. Using sculpture, print, photography, text, and drawing, he explores the book as a physical and cultural artifact. Recent exhibitions include: The Open Book, Ypsilanti, Michigan; Book As Vessel, Jacksonville, Florida; and The Beautiful Book, Denver, Colorado. His work is also found in numerous institutional collections in the United States and Canada. |  |
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Artist Statement:
Book Implosions
What is a book? As we continue to produce books, what function will they serve? Will they be a useful means to convey and store information or will they become primarily aesthetic objects? With Book Implosions, I twist, fold, distort and clamp old textbooks, dictionaries and manuals into objects that retain all of their original parts but cannot be opened. This process transforms these disregarded objects into something that is, once again, worthy of contemplation. All of the content is there but in this form, is it still a book?
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Artist Bio: Peggy Johnston graduated from the University of Wyoming with degrees in art and education. Since then she has continued her studies in painting, printing and the book arts. She has taught locally in the public schools and at the Des Moines Art Center. She has also conducted workshops across the country. Her award winning work is in public and private collections nationally and internationally, including the National Museum for Women in the Arts. |
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Artist Statement:www.wavelandstudio.com
My love of paper and fascination with containers made it almost inevitable that I would discover the book arts.
Since crafting my first book, I have explored bookmaking as an art as well as a craft. I focus on the book as an art object. The style of binding, cover material, shape, closure--these are all elements of what I consider a functional piece of art.
I think of myself as a sculptor using bookbinding techniques. The mechanics and engineering involved in book structures fascinate me. Often, I will exaggerate elements of book design in creating these sculptural pieces.
I lean toward distinctive materials (old leather, metal, wood, old books) when designing my one-of-a-kind works. The materials I choose add a tactile aspect to the work. I search for just the right materials for some projects, but other times materials at hand suggest a project or design to me.
I often say that I am not in control of my art. It controls me.
Website:
laurenkohne.com
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Artist Bio: Carole P. Kunstadt received her BFA, magna cum laude from the Hartford Art School, West Hartford, Connecticut, and continued with postgraduate studies at the Akademie der Bildenen Künste, Munich, Germany. Kunstadt's works reference the material of books, deconstructing paper and text, and using it in metaphorical ways. Her devotion to books is inspired by the ability of the written word to take the reader to other places through stories, poems, and prayers. Kunstadt's process reveals how language can become visual through re-interpretation. The Museum of Biblical Art, New York, NY featured Kunstadt's Old Testament Series in the exhibition As Subject and Object: Contemporary Book Artists Explore Sacred Hebrew Texts. Representative works from the Old Testament Series are included in And The Word Is..., Gershman Gallery at The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA and were recently shown in Somewhere Between Creation and Destruction, Joseloff Gallery, Hartford Art School. Concurrent in Hartford, CT, in partnership, the Clare Gallery and the Charter Oak Cultural Center presented Between The Lines: Works by Carole P. Kunstadt - two consecutive solo exhibitions from September through December, 2014, providing a survey of the artist's past and current work. |
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Numerous group exhibitions throughout the United States which have showcased her work are notably, Slash: Paper Under the Knife, Museum of Arts & Design, New York, NY; The Book: A Contemporary View, Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE; Magnitude SEVEN and Textuality, Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center, Cincinnati, OH, and in Canada, The Art of the Book 2013, Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild, Calgary, Alberta.
Public Collections include the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Maine; Permanent Collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; The Center for Book Arts, New York, NY; Montclair State University, Montclair, N J; The Curt Teich Postcard Archives, Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda, IL.
The PBS/OFF BOOK Book Arts mini-documentary in the series on progressive arts, features Kunstadt in the segment Transforming the Sacred.
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Artist Statement:
Sacred Poem Series
The Sacred Poem Series takes physical, material, and intellectual inspiration from Parish Psalmody, A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship, 1844 & 1849.
The primary element used in this series is paper: the pages are taken from a Parish Psalmody. These pages of psalms are manipulated and recombined, resulting in a presentation that evokes an ecumenical offering: poems of praise and gratitude. The disintegrating pages suggest the temporal quality of our lives and the vulnerability of memory and history. In working with this aged text, embracing its inherent qualities while transforming the book’s pages, the paper itself gains significance through the process and merges with a new intent.
Visually there is a consistent and measured cadence to a page of psalms which is echoed in the repetitive weaving or restructuring of the paper: pages are cut in strips and woven creating an altered dense surface; multiple pages are stitched together and the shredded edges form new textural references; the layering of translucent tissue over the paper softens the effect of age and context, evoking the ephemeral while adding a veil of alternative possibilities. Although fragile, the paper is surprisingly resilient. In a number of the pieces the use of stitching emphasizes the repetition of the lines of text. The lines of stitching are suggestive of the passage of time, alluding to the age and the history contained within. The continuing repetitive action of sewing, knotting and weaving is similar to reciting, singing, and reading: implying that through the repetition of a task or ritual one has the possibility to transcend the mundane. The use of gold leaf elevates and heightens the rich textural qualities presenting a sumptuous visual experience. The interplay alludes to the enticing presentation of illuminated texts historically. Explored and displayed in this visual context, the alteration of the papers’ linear, tactile, and facile nature emphasizes transformation, while the possibility of revelation is playfully realized.
The intended use, as well as the nature of a psalm as spiritual repository, both imply a tradition of careful devotion and pious reverence. The physical text evocatively and powerfully serves as a gateway to an experience of the sacred and the realization of the latent power of the written word. This process of interaction is played out visually in the piece, mimicking the internal experience. Thus, through the individual evolution of each page, culminating in a transformation of the whole volume, the material and the conceptual interface delicately and suggestively with one another.
“A sense of intimacy and loss pervades the work; fragments of memory and belief are brought together to create a hybrid form that negates the sequential nature of reading, replacing it with suggestive echoes of inner states of praise, worship, and prayer.” David Revere McFadden, Slash: Paper Under the Knife, Museum of Arts & Design
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Artist Bio: Nationally recognized artist, Maria Lupo was born and raised in Newark, NJ. Maria attended Rutgers University, NJ receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Thru Rutgers University, Ms. Lupo began her Sculptural studies in Cennina, Italy. Her time in Tuscany proved to be a major influence on her Maria continued her studies in Sculpture at Hunter College, CUNY, receiving a Master’s of Fine Arts degree. In addition to her studies as a fine artist. Maria has completed her Post-Masters Specialization in Art Therapy from Caldwell College and is a Registered Art Therapist holding a second Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology. A recipient of the NJ State Council on the Arts fellowship award, Ms Lupo’s work is included in many public and private collections. |
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Artist Statement:
Going into my studio to work, I leave all the rules/traditions outside the door! My focus is on whatever materials or imagery that is suggested by my found materials.
My artistic process is organic and fluid, searching thru materials starts the process. When I create I surround myself with toy animal noses, stuffed animal forms, faux greenery and flowers, plus bags of topsoil.–
As well as recycled and found/discarded objects including books.
Diversity, acceptance, healing and ecological concerns are the rudimentary themes of my work.
I use topsoil, natural and found materials mostly. The environment also a concern as it relates to living things. This concern I juxtapose with the tradition of rendering humans, animals and objects as part of the Earth.
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Artist Bio: Erin Malkowski is a an artist/explorer with her eye on the sky. She speaks of the microcosm of a personal, familial lineage, that serves as a means to Malkowski is a graduate of the book arts & printmaking MFA program at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and is currently the Assistant Book Conservation Technician at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library at the University of Pennsylvania and Conservation Technician at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Malkowski’s work has been widely exhibited nationally and will be participating in an international exhibition to be held this fall in Australia and has works recently added to the collections of the Robert Hass Family Arts Library at Yale University and the Kimbrough Library at Ringling College of Art. |
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Artist Bio: Michele Mayfield is an artist, author, poet and speaker. She is a graduate of The University of Texas at Arlington, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications/Journalism. Michele lives with her husband, Steven, two sons, Sam and Peter, two dogs Teddy and Winston. Michele is a member of The Woman’s Club of Ft. Worth and a member of the Art Dept. there. Michele takes Water Mixed- Media from Paula Nemec. Michele is a member of The Texas Artist Coalition. She has won awards for her mixed media pieces and has held art shows at The Community Arts Center, Stage West Theatre and Botanic Garden’s Restaurant. She sells her art pieces to individual buyers and clients at art events. Michele has written and published three books, that include her art and poetry. She has won awards for her poetry and has taught art, poetry and journaling workshops.
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Artist Bio: Vicki Milewski is an Abstract Expressionist, American Artist working in oils, photography, film, words, music and other mediums. Vicki’s art is internationally collected and exhibited by museums, organizations and private owners. Vicki composes music for choirs and solo piano that is nationally performed. Vicki is also a published writer of articles, essays and poems; her book A White River Valley is just completed. Vicki ‘s main artistic focus is the healing potentials found in life, love and nature. The artist has studios in Chicago and on her family’s ancestral farm in central Wisconsin. |
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Websites:
http://vickimilewski.wix.com/vmartist
Artist Statement:
The Place Between Two Rocks (PB2R) is a series of art pieces that is a part of my larger White River Valley Collection: there is an Altered Book and an Artist Book, a piano piece, several folk songs, 5 drawings and a music video about the hike to get to PB2R, a video explanation of the altered book and an audio book excerpt from the book PB2R is featured in called Tell: the World About Us. PB2R is an actual place in the White River Badlands that has two rocks with a space between them. When I sit in that space I look south toward the white river and the prairie beyond it. I can sit all day with those rocks; having dreamt of them since childhood they helped me understand that dreams are real. Seeing them on the trail many years ago I thought the rocks a mirage, but once I sat between them I knew they are as real as me. They glow during dawn and dusk.
Artist Bio:
Irmari Nacht’s art is in several corporate and public collections: AT&T, PSE&G, ADP, Newark Museum, International Museum of Collage, Mexico, Bowdoin College, Jimmy Carter Museum, Cleveland Institute of Art, Rutgers University, and Yale Art Museum. She exhibits internationally, as well as nationally, and received two NJ State Council on the Arts Fellowships in Sculpture. She received a second Puffin Foundation Grant for “Who Am I?” an interactive project where the viewer becomes part of the artwork.
Her work has been recently shown at the Morris Museum,NJ; Redland Museum, Cleveland, Qu. (Australia); Belskie Museum,NJ; NJ State Museum; Newark Museum,NJ; WAH Center, NY, Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, VA; June Fitzpatrick Gallery, ME; Wiener Library, London,UK; PalazzoTrinci, Perugia, Italy; Rutgers University, NJ; and in solo shows at the AtriumGallery, Bard College at Simon's Rock, MA; Intermezzo Gallery, BergenPAC,NJ; and Brooklyn Public Library, NY.
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Artist Statement:
Irmari Nacht’s recycled books, a series entitled “SAVED”, uses books that otherwise might be discarded and transforms them into artworks. The books are cut, sometimes into slivers which curl and undulate, and return to the tree-like shape from which the paper was made. Lately, the books have exploded from their spines: a 4” book has grown to 24” through a series of cuts and spirals reaching out to the viewer with subliminal messages.
This artwork, using the book as a metaphor, addresses environmental concerns, change and transformation, information received and denied, altered reality, as well as the concept of multiple imagery,which highlights the strength and energy of repeated elements.I hope my books will increase awareness of environmental changes and will get people thinking about recycling, reusing and repurposing.
Artist Bio:
Kara Petraglia is a book artist, and writer with a BFA in Painting from the University of Florida, and an MFA in Book Arts and Printmaking from the University of the Arts. Kara grew up in South Florida, only to return to her New York roots in 2007. After pursuing a career in nonprofit arts fundraising and services, Kara decided to return to the studio, relocating to the Greater Philadelphia Area.
Kara was awarded the 2013 Graduate Alumni Award in Honor of Lois M. Johnson for her experimental use of salt in printmaking and sculpture. And, most recently, was awarded the Artists and Writer’s Grant from the Vermont Studio Center for a residency in 2015.
Kara’s work is in numerous personal collections, as well as the Borowsky Center for Publication Arts’ collection. She has exhibited work in Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and in Skopelos, Greece.
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Artist Statement:
“…salt is the mineral substance or objective ground of personal experience making experience possible. No salt, no experiencing—merely a running on and running through of events without psychic body. Thus salt makes events sensed and felt, giving us each a sense of the personal—my tears, my sweat and blood, my taste and value.”
James Hillman, Salt and the Alchemical Soul
Salt is present at all levels of human experience from the most fundamental of bodily processes (i.e. tears, sweat and blood) to metaphors of language and emotion (e.g. “take it with a grain of salt”, “the salt of the earth”). My work explores how salt as a material can bridge literal and metaphoric narratives and through its physical residue, provide a ground for contemplating human experiences, both personal and communal. The salt accumulates over time creating solid and seemingly strong formations, but these will disintegrate and disperse, much like the swell of experience and emotion over time.
My work investigates how salt can function as a physical metaphor for sorrow and impending loss. I draw on a narrative from my personal history to explore these specific emotions, and use the accumulation of salt to parallel the accumulation of these emotions. This mixture of sorrow and anticipation for an impending loss creates a delicate emotional state, which is suggested by the delicate accumulation of salt crystals. This work does not allude to an end in the process, but only considers the growing accumulation of emotions as one nears the end of this emotional cycle.
Artist Bio:
Gina Pisello has a background in biology and secondary science education. She has been a part of San Diego Book Arts for 12 years and has grown as an artist thanks to the support and opportunities made possible by this organization. Her work has been seen in art publications, San Diego area public libraries and juried art shows around San Diego County and the country. Her work is in several private collections.
Website:
ginaunbound.blogspot.com
Artist Statement:
I have been playing with paper my whole life and making sculptural books for more than a decade. I find myself asking “What if…?” and artists’ books always seem to hold the answers.
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Artist Bio: Lynn lives and works on an island in the middle of a lake surrounded by a big city, in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. After retiring from the practice of law eight years ago, she began making artist’s books and small works on paper. Old-style cut & paste collage has been and remains a favorite medium, and she frequently also incorporates sewing techniques, thread, fabric, metal, wood and other materials into her pieces. The goal is always to tell a story that might startle, amuse or provoke. Lynn’s work has appeared in collage and book arts exhibitions across the country, most recently: |
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Sheffield Int’l Artist’s Book Prize, 2015, SIAB, Sheffield, UK (artist’s book)
Contemporary Women Artists XVII-Reimagining Femmage, 2015, Foundry Art Centre, St. Charles, MO
(fabric artist’s book & embroidered wall piece)
The Crow Show, 2015, The Studio Door Gallery, San Diego, CA (artist’s book & collage piece)
Sacred | Profane, 2014, 23 Sandy Gallery, Portland, OR (altered book)
Outside the Margin, 2014, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, Silver Spring, MD (altered book)
Greater than the Sum, 2014, National Collage Society, Denver, CO (collage piece)
Lynn is a frequent contributor to Kollage Kit.blogspot.com, a collaborative website featuring themed cut & paste paper collage. Some of her personal collage work is published on-line at regularpaper.blogspot.com, and she maintains a general portfolio of book arts projects, collage and mixed media works (“Some Paperwork”) at lynnskordal.paspartout.com.
Website:
http://lynnskordal.paspartout.com/
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Artist Bio: Rhonda Thomas-Urdang is a studio artist working across multiple disciplines. Since founding Flagstaff Feminist Art Project, she has worked primarily in femmage, collage and assemblage. Her thought-provoking art pieces have been exhibited in more than 20 national juried and international group shows in 15 states since 2014. Rhonda received her BFA in painting from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and worked in the graphic arts industry as a color separation artist. Her experimental approach has earned her numerous awards. This is her first Artists’ Book. It was awarded 3rd Pl. at the 2nd Annual Juried Artists’ Book Exhibition, WoCA Projects, in 2014. |
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Website:
http://www.flagstafffeministartproject.com/
Artist Statement:
Kim Jong-un Scrapbook #22 -- Magical Tisha B’Av accordion-fold prayer book -- was handmade by myself in the bizarre and beautifully cryptic City of Pyongyang, North Korea. Although I’ve never traveled to this site, I have done so in my own mind’s eye. Paloma (Pablo) Picasso was correct when she (he) said, “Everything you can imagine is real.”
As an artist who enjoys making collages out of scraps of paper that I’ve cut-out with a manicuring scissors, this 22 page book was amusing to watch come to life as my ingenuity unfolded on every new plate. I used printed elements, decorative handmade rice papers, vintage Japanese and Chinese woodblock prints 1850, pearlescent liquid acrylic paints (Mazuma Gold from the Palace of the Sun), cardstock, NY Times newspapers and magazines, ink, pencil, and black French tulle`.
The United Nations voted to hold North Korea accountable for years of systematic ‘unspeakable atrocities’ that could move the Hermit Kingdom and its leader closer to indictment for crimes against humanity in 2014. The “dear one” Kim Jong-un, has been the supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea since the state funeral for his father December 28, 2011.
This picture book is an example of political satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics. I’ve used subversive artistic intent to show a place where political speech and dissent are forbidden by the North Korean regime. I’ve made mocking attacks on a politician while ridiculing his abuse of power. The phrase JeSuis Charlie was a popular slogan at rallies in Paris.
My Kim Jong-un Artist’s Book seems newly relevant as North Korea filed a complaint on June 27, 2014, with the United Nations over James Franco’s and Seth Rogen’s controversial film “The Interview” which was cancelled in theaters on Christmas day. In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the reclusive country has called the comedy movie “an act of war” and accused the United States of sponsoring terrorism by allowing such a film to be made.
In mid-December 2014, hackers threatened violence against the theaters showing the film, prompting the nation’s largest theatre chains to drop the film. Sony then canceled the film’s release all together. President Obama and others criticized Sony for pulling the film, calling it self-censorship. However, Sony Pictures decided on a limited release of “The interview” after all.
On the 62nd Anniversary of the armistice of the Korean Conflict, 27 July, 2015, Kim Jong-un has further escalated his anti-American rhetoric and boasted about his country’s nuclear arsenal in a showboating speech broadcast on state television. Based on estimates by international agencies, North Korea is believed to have between 6 to 27 small nuclear warheads. North Korean army General Pak Song Yik, widely believed to be the country’s new Defense Minister, stepped up the hostility by saying that if the United States didn’t end their tough policies towards North Korea and provoked another war, they would fight until “there would be no one left to sign a surrender document” -- threatening to “leave no Americans alive” at a mass patriotic gathering.
Professional activity
Full Professor at the FBBAA of the Universitat Politècnica de València in the line of Engraving and Drawing. Researcher in the Biosensible Graph Group and in the ATOTARO group: Diversidad Gráfica; She has developed R&D projects in the work group: “Grafotserxil” and in the Center for Art and Environment Research CIAE currently. Ph.D. in Arts. Senior Lecturer
Artistic speech, conferences and congresses
She focuses her research on the graphic-plastic languages of multiple reproduction of images by specializing in expanded, hybrid and interdisciplinary graphics production.
Since 2013, she has followed another path in her artistic discourse. That path is intimately linked to the Bosquearte project, in which the issue of biodiversity and sustainability is worked within the SDG Sustainable Development Goals.
Around these concepts she participates in different conferences and meetings as a speaker at events of an artistic nature in Spain, France, Germany, the United States, Asia, Mexico and Buenos Aires. She has been published in journals of recognized impact and has published 16 ISBN books.
Exhibitions
She has done more than 100 individual exhibitions and 200 collective exhibitions at international and national level as an artist and curator in: Mainz, Greece, Uruguay, Marseille, Bulgaria, Italy, Holland, Mexico, New York, Germany, Taiwan, Buenos Aires, Lithuania, Colombia, Milan, San Francisco, Salamanca-Argentina-Valencia; tour of the United States, Asia, Mexico, Bogotá-Brazil; Poland, London, Turkia, Hanoi (Vietnam), Almaty (Kazakhstan), Mostaganem (Algeria), China, Chile, Sicily, Ukraine, Palermo (Italy), Phoenix (Arizona), Jordan, La Rochelle (France), among other countries.
Websites
http://www.facebook.com/ana.tomasmiralles
Artist Statement:
In the last three years I have become interested in the book as “object.” Since the late ‘50s, early ‘60s artists, like Lucas Samaras, Joseph Cornell, Robert Morris, Lenore Tawney and Dan Graham, have explored and transcended the traditional format of the book; Duchamp’s “Unhappy Readymade”, Cornell’s book Incessions, and Lucas Samaras’ obsession with the “altered book”, as an object of fear.
My interest with the altered book is to take the pages of the book, How to Make French Pastry Cakes, and thus create 3-D objects which physically show the viewer the contents of the book.
Each cake is constructed from the French pastry book, which is completely deconstructed; pages are cut, folded, and restructured into individual cake layers. These layers are then placed on top of one another and secured by using PVA glue. Each cake (altered book) is then completed with finishing touches and labeled according to each individual type of cake: “Gold Leaf Cake”, “Red Velvet Cake”, and “Garden Cake.”
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Artist Bio: Born in New York City, Annie has a BFA from Smith College and an MAT in Fine Arts from Harvard. She has taught drawing, painting and book design in the Boston area for over 20 years, and has worked for 18 years as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer. She has been a mixed media painter and book artist for most of her adult life. Her work is in collections in Boston, New York, Turin, and Istanbul. She lives and works in Boston, and spends summers on the Aegean Sea, in the Turkish coastal town of Cesme Dalyan with her husband and two sons. |
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Website:
Artist Statement:
I make a conscious effort not to work from intent, but rather to give myself over to the materials completely, and to pay close attention to the textures, materials, colors, and the emotional and physical response they elicit. I am fascinated with decay, the coming apart of things that are tidy or predictable; likewise, an interest in pattern and the random disruption of pattern. Most essentially, I trust in mark-making as the most natural physical way of connecting, seeing, and recording encounters. Books are a vehicle for both ideas and tangible expression, for exploring the complement between materials, content, and responsive form.