Holland Cotter has an inspiring review of the NY Art Book Fair in Saturday's New York Times. His piece titled Art Between Covers, on Walls and in Your Hands is a refreshing reminder that there is still life in books."A book in a store is worth 20 on a Web site," is how he begins his story. Cotter then gives us three good reasons why the book in a public space experience is vital to the health of our culture:1- "you can check out the book’s contents and condition without buying."It doesn't matter how good a return policy the e-tailer's...
Endpapers
Endpaper illustration by Ben Kutcher from the 1925 edition of Oscar Wilde's House of Pomegranates 1925end·pa·per: a once-folded sheet of paper having one leaf pasted flat against the inside of the front or back cover of a book and the other pasted at the base to the first or last page.For a more in-depth definition see the Etherington & Roberts entry in their bookbinding and conservation focused Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology.Romeo Looks For a Job by Alain Gree 1966There is an online show with 70+ examples of endpapers hosted by Nancy Stahl at Drawger.com, a website "where illustrators are writing...
Deep Fried Books
John LaFalce and Drew Matott are two artists who set out to create something as a "commentary on America’s obsession with an unhealthy lifestyle, unstable foreign policy and blatant disregard for intellectualism."What they came up with was to produce "an edition of altered books that were battered and deep fried."Back in May as part of Chicago's Columbia College's Manifest Urban Arts Festival LaFalce and Matott cooked up 100 books, vacuum-sealed them, signed them and sent them into the world.Here is a visual tour:BasteFrySealand take homeI wonder if these would be eligible for the various Edible Book festivals? Maybe a special...
The Growing Bestiary of Briony Morrow-Cribbs
The "Cabinets of Curiosity" of the 16th and 17th century is the jumping off point for Morrow-Cribbs. These rooms of mythical constructs blur the boundary of fact and fiction, where the real and the imagined share the stage.Morrow-Cribs says she "uses the mediums of print and the book arts (and occasionally ceramics) to create a graphic connection between the recognizable 'real' world and my invisible, 'fantasy' world.Her latest project is providing 11 aquatint prints to accompany the first book publication of Brigit Pegeen Kelly's prose poem Iskandariya. The book is designed and published by Rollin Milroy at Heavenly Monkey.Milroy says...
"We, Too, are Book Artists" An Exhibition of African American Book Art
Hats off to The Minnesota Center for Book Arts for putting this one together. It is being curated by Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. and is being hailed as the first ever exhibit focusing solely on the work of African American book artists.The show contains the work of over 20 black book artists from across the nation.As one would hope, the show conveys a "strong social justice theme."MCBA Director Jeff Rathermel says of the shows participants:They're putting forth strong messages, either from a social perspective or a personal perspective..But there's a sincerity in the work that shines through. And if you,...