Artist’s Books/Book Works
I began making artist's books and book works in the mid 1970's. Throughout much of that decade, inexpensively produced, small, limited edition artist’s books and book works (or “unique volumes”) served a vital function by offering visual artists a variety of ways to present their work directly to an audience, work that often employed innovative if not groundbreaking formats, at least as far as books were concerned. The artist's book and its more “sculptural” form, the book work, were perfect vehicles for relating to the viewer and/or reader in a personal, or intimate way. While limited edition artist's books had the advantage of reaching a wider audience by virtue of being multiples, singular book works often seemed better able to push experimental boundaries by employing unusual materials, often fielding works that departed from conventional notions of a “book.” In either case, many of these works by artists of the period were concerned with revealing an inner life or world through visual metaphors, vivid symbols, and other devices. The result of such works, whether intended or not, was often intersubjective and revelatory: All human beings have inner lives that when expressed in some form or another can add complexity and meaning to daily life, for artist and audience alike. Like any other art form, such works have the potential to be enriching. Of course, artists have long embraced the notion of art as a vehicle or portal to an inner life. What a lot of the pioneering art in the 1970’s, including artist’s books and book works, contributed to this idea was the use and transformation of ordinary material and situations as the primary means toward this end. For many of us the aim was to transform the ordinary or commonplace, including books, into something more or other, thus revealing connections between an everyday experience of the world and what might be passed over unseen. For more on artist's book works go to this link.
Left: Graphite 1975, Book work, graphite on onion skin paper with clear mylar overlay, 12 pages, 8.5x11 inches, bound.
Right: Reflections 1976, Book work, reflective mylar with clear mylar overlay, 12 pages, 8.5x11 inches, bound.
TSMNFIWH, 1976 Artist’s book, Offset lithography, eight pages, 3x11 inches, stapled, edition of 50.
FourDay Diary text:
6/24/76 6/26/76
Something Another
is day
burning what
with to
confusion do
once after
upon a
a dream
time myself
6/25/76 a
When murderer
is (photo)
now 6/27/76
if Hello
not is
then? anyone
there?
Four Day Diary 1976 Book work, cord, photo and text on paper, 180 inches.
Note: The artist/author, a combat veteran of the Vietnam war, was in the mid 1970s still haunted by his participation in that conflict and struggling with his demons. This book work symbolizes an unlit fuse and a period of reflection; a coming to terms with oneself that was both cathartic and revelatory. The work tangibly documents four days over which a veteran symbolically dies and an artist is born.
Eye to Eye 2007 Book work, collage on paper glued on book covers, 17.5x12.5 inches. Right: Reverse. Note: A meeting of minds: The mechanical and the organic; the logical and the poetic.
Traces of the Eye 2012 Book works, collage on hinged canvas panels, edition of 12, 19 x 30 inches. Top: left: #1, right #2 Bottom: Installation view of #1 and #3.
Liber Dermis (Skin Book) 2008 Book work: Medical illustrations (human skin cross section) with texture medium and gold leaf on sealed medical book, mounted on wood, 17.5x12.5x3 inches.
Book Of Maladies 2013 Book work: Sealed medical volume, crystals and mixed media on painted wood base. 16x22x3 inches.
John Brown’s Body (Resurrection Piece) 2013 Book work, found volume, earth, brass & wood. Book: 5.5 x 8.5 x 2 inches.
Note: A copy of Stephen Vincent Benet’s 1928 book length narrative poem, John Brown’s Body, buried nine months and unearthed on May 1st, 2013.
Cosmic Sweep (brush book) 2013
Book work, 100 double sided photocopies of a comet, paintbrush handle, 14.5x6x1.5 inches.
Pictured Tales (A Scrapbook) 2016 Artist’s book, double sided photocopies, spiral bound, 9x12 inches, 27 pages, edition of 10.
Pictured Tales is a “literary collage” made from found photo reproductions and clippings of found texts. The texts, excerpted from a single volume, The Growing World - a collection of miscellany published in 1885 - cover a diversity of subjects: From character sketches to moral instruction; natural wonders to mythology; unusual plants and animals to unexplained phenomena. A Victorian era compendium dubbed “useful and entertaining,”The Growing World was illustrated but contained no photos. All the images used in Pictured Tales were gathered from various other sources and depict a variety of things. The sparsely constructed work pairs single photos with a clipping of text presented on a black page, cumulatively appearing as a series of scrapbook entries. The combinations initially explore how the juxtapositions of words and pictures determine or influence how both are interpreted or understood relative to each other. The sequence of these visual/verbal combinations also contributes to how some pairings are understood in context, as well as building a kind of disjointed narrative (possibly suggesting the vicissitudes of life). At a glance many of the pairings, given the titles of their texts, seem straightforward and plausibly linked. Yet, closer readings of both texts and images reveal that many combinations – by virtue of their odd, slightly off, or humorous juxtapositions - are less about the veracity or rightness of the pairings and more a matter of poetic coupling. The prosaic nature of both pictures and words is transformed into visual/verbal poetry.
Pictured Tales marries a conceptual approach to writing with that of photo collage, effectively producing a hybrid work. By imaginatively pairing found images and text, the related practices of appropriation and reframing are brought into focus. Some might question whether this work has any merit or standing as poetry. The principle barrier to recognizing the value of appropriation in the literary arts seems to be the problem of what constitutes authorship. While the art world has largely accepted the practice of appropriation tout court, much of the literary world seems resistant to the idea that wholesale appropriation of text can be a matter of authorship, or that anything original or creative can come of repurposing found material in this way. It may be, however, that it is not the appropriation and reframing of written material per se that the literary world finds objectionable, rather, it is the presumed negation of authorial intent and creative agency that is the problem. In the broadest sense, all works of art, literary or otherwise, even those deemed highly original, unique or stylistically distinctive, are ultimately matters of appropriation and repurposing, at least indirectly. Artists absorb culture, consciously or otherwise, in a myriad of ways, cognitively processing and repurposing its material as they see fit in equally varied and unique ways. “Originality,” like that of “authorship” is not only better understood in light of the process of absorbing culture, it can be revitalized as a cornerstone of creativity when the notion of it arising ex nihilo is discarded. Inspired art, particularly experimental or hybrid work that makes use of existing material, can contribute new understanding to what constitutes originality in part by foregrounding the practices of appropriation and reframing.
