A 'uniquely portable magic' at Columbia City Gallery
If Stephen King is right that “books are a uniquely portable magic”… then a book arts exhibit must be a special kind of sorcery.
“The Book as Art” gathers a dazzling array of handmade books at the Columbia City Gallery. They’re different from the books I alter, which are usually sealed shut (partially or completely). Although I make narrative art, the story is told within a more traditional volume. These artworks tend to deconstruct the book design itself. It’s fascinating to see what qualifies as a “book" in an artist’s opinion, and what materials they choose to manipulate.
MalPina Chan, “The Evil Eye:: Envy and Jealousy”
Narrowing down the selection must’ve been a nightmare for MalPina Chan and her co-curators. But installation day… now that I would’ve volunteered enthusiastically to do.
Getting back to the “portable” part of the magic, though, I can’t escape the desire to hold a book in my hands. How do you allow people to get a good feel for the artwork, literally and figuratively?
Fortunately, there’s a time and place to ask: the book artist panel discussion at the gallery tomorrow, October 19th, at 4pm. After a couple hours in this magicians’ workshop, maybe I’ll walk out with a few secrets I can take back to my own studio.
Resin-ating with history
I'm gonna have some fun with newsprint and resin paper. Have you ever tried this technique?
I plan to use it in the collage portraits I'm making for the Liberty Bank Building apartments. If you've seen my work, you know I often layer translucent images over patterned paper and other materials.
For this project, I get to incorporate newspaper clippings about the bank from that time. Not the originals -- I'm copying the images onto newsprint.
I'll add fine art paper to the collages for color, mostly from my current hoard. (It's not "hoarding" per se if you use it eventually.)
Later, I'll start piecing together "suits" for each founder. My paper stash gives me a lot of options here, but I may have to pass up some of my favorite patterns. These folks were founding a bank in the late 1960s, after all. I'll try to avoid anything too wild, but again... no promises.