Unique Books

Library (Meandering Canon)

unique book with 9 double page spreads accordion folded with covered boards, in contrasting book box.

“Library” (Meandering Canon) is a unique artist book, with material on both sides of the accordion folded pages. Each pair of facing pages bears scanned and printed text blocks of the verso (left side) and recto (right side) pages from a different historical book. But the pages are scanned and printed one on the next until the paper can hold no more. Only the edges show us readable fragments of the texts.  The chosen books are from important writers, but not necessarily their pivotal work, hence “Meandering” canon. Size is 5×8″ Text areas are excised precisely and adhered to the pages. 2020.

https://youtu.be/L_m0YbBpx-Y

Crotch

unique book of [110] ink drawn pages in a case binding, with contrasting slipcase.

The interior is made of 27 A4 sheets bearing ink drawings on front and back; then folded and nested into signatures, creating “new” drawings by pairing different half pages together. 

Most of the ink in the drawings sits in the gutter of the binding, hence the book title, “Crotch.”  This word choice (rather than “gutter” or “binding”) intentionally links the book’s form to the body… but with a colloquial, even coarse suggestion.

The closed book’s cover is formal and subdued, but with the boldfaced title, CROTCH.  The juxtaposition of aesthetic with connotation creates intrigue without leading readers’ expectations. Once opened, readers are presented with a title page followed by 52 double page ink drawings. The drawings play with shodo ink calligraphy to expressive abstraction.  The drawings are sometimes an integrated whole, other times the two sides are starkly different; but overall, they present no narrative sequence. Instead they explore variation and the relation of recto and verso.

Banned Books

A series of 9 books (all in the current Penguin edition) that were  banned from public libraries or public sale at some point in time.  Each is contained in a covering made with a “domestic art” historically the realm of women, working at home by a different woman:

“Four Dialogues” Socrates/Plato
Needlepoint by JoLynn Maher

“Thee Origin of the Specied” Darwin
Batik by Stephanie Corne

“Analects” Confucius
Macreme by Miranda Maher

“Critique of Pure Reason” Kant
Crochet by Dona Armand-Monro

“Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences” Galileo
Hand Dyed Applique by Jennifer Bevil

“Ulysses” Joyce
Potholder Weaving by Caitlin Rothermel 

“Discourrse o Method” Descartes
Cross Stitch by Sarah Stengle

“Justine” de Sade
Quilting by Karen Crenshaw

“The Prince” Machiavelli
Knitting by Laura Graff