Artist Books

The Book as Stage, the latest exhibition at the Yale Haas Arts Library, features artist books. Artist books use books as the form and can vary wildly depending on the artist’s vision. This show focuses on theater and theatrical presentations using the book arts.

So much fun are the books that look like stage sets in miniature or mock ups for the real thing. Here’s the tunnel book format, with pages layered so we’re tricked into seeing depth.

Laura Davidson. Tunnel Vision. 2001.

Look at how this accordion-pleated book creates a construction site stage set, fronted with a nude in contrapposto. Weird and fun juxtaposition.

What you see in the back of the below image is the mirror reflection of the book. Notice the complicated intersections and weavings of strings. Aren’t the doorways of this sculptural book appealing? We can walk right into a Medieval world and join in with the characters.

Susan Collard. Geschichtliches. 2011.

The book is meant to be architectural, just as during the Medieval period, interest in Gothic architecture peaked (all puns intended). Susan Collard, the artist, purposefully included women in contemplation and learning, arenas occupied by men at the time.

This book focuses on the theater of war. It opens up to create the stage set, as you see. The pages are cut out to create theater scrims, layering the space. Newspaper clips and maps are collaged in, focusing on Middle East conflicts.

Maria G. Pisano. Theater of Operations. 2006.

Of course, what I see is the tie-in to the flag and American imagery. And I think of the Southern Connecticut State University students in my class “Shaping the American Identity.” Each made a page, mostly collaged, about their understanding of American identity at the end of the semester. The pages were then assembled into a class artist book. It was a powerful experience for us all, coming after their first election.

Hon 298 Fall 2016 and their Artist Book

Their energy, passion, and political intelligence is an inspiration, as powerful as any of these professional artists.

The Joy of Wax!

I’m not often on the art-making side of things, but today I ventured to an encaustic workshop.  I do love the encaustic technique of building up the surface with pigment and wax.

After a day with it, I know the process to be very forgiving of someone who is not particularly gifted artistically (a nice way of assessing my talents).  There’s also that serendipity thing that happens, which I really like.

Our workshop leader Leslie Giuliani is very talented and a marvelous instructor.  She made painting with wax the easiest thing in the world.  She even managed to take all my self-consciousness and self-judgment out of my work.  What I so appreciated is that Leslie seemed to take genuine pleasure in each person’s work.

She and I shared a chuckle over this homage to Jasper Johns, who layered wax and newspapers onto his paintings of the American flag.

homage-to-jasper-johns

I built up the layers by using pigmented wax, collaing ordinary fabrics and patterned tissue paper, then adding a layer of silver metallic wax, topping it all with ‘medium’ or clear wax.  Over the next few days, the piece may clear up, lighten, take on a new look.  I like what’s here and am interested in what may emerge.

Leslie passed on the tip of using wax pieces, shards really, on the painted surface.  I loved tossing the pieces onto the surface like confetti.

confetti

Working with the heat gun, some of the confetti melted, blurred, swirled in a very painterly way.  Other bits stayed intact.  Just fun.

I’m surprised that I like the results from this playful day as much as I do.  I actually may keep these little pieces, unusual for me after any kind of hand-craft, art-making adventure.  A really delightful discovery!

encaustic