Art of the Book

These horizontally-suspended pages represent theunspoken yet deeply-remembered stories which can evolve over decades of partnership. Rising from shadow shades into clear openness, monoprint “illustrations” and burnt screen-printed “text” are illuminated as they reach into a permanent timelessness. This work was created during the last months of my late husband’s life, its intricacy and delicacy giving me meditative focus at a challenging time.

“The Real View Collection” is an archive operating within the historical framework of early 20th-century stereography. Stereographs consist of two nearly identical photographs or photomechanical prints, paired to create the illusion of a single three-dimensional image, “producing an appearance of reality which cheats the senses with its seeming truth”. Under the guise of “The Real View Company”, a fictional stereograph publisher, the Collection is presented as a “luxury box” containing multiple collections of views and an original early 20th-century stereoscope. The Real View Collection aims to hijack the experience of “exploring the world from the comfort of one’s armchair” by addressing contemporary geopolitical and sociopolitical issues across the globe. Our “collections of views” are inspired by the visual language of the companies at the time and mimic popular themes of stereography, connected to leisure, travel, history. In our work, the themes are infiltrated by contemporary images of war, destruction, loss, and social inequality. The first set, “25 Views of Eastern European Landscape,” documents the war-torn landscapes of Ukraine, exploring the profound ecological devastation alongside the human tragedy. Subsequent collections, including “25 Views of Modern American Housing” and “25 Views of Palestine and The Holy Lands,” examine the crisis of accessible housing in the United States and the ongoing devastation in the Gaza Strip, respectively. Today, the sheer volume of visual content in our daily lives has numbed us to the true essence of imagery. In our work, we utilize stereographs’ true potential – to empower viewers to truly see, not just glance. By engaging with a stereoscope, we escape our everyday distractions and step into the scene, where each second spent within its depths intensifies our awareness. This experience transforms looking into seeing, as our eyes navigate the solid surfaces and confront the raw realities embedded within the image.The work is made to evoke an early 20th century aesthetic, positioning the work as an artifact of the past while being critical of our contemporary practices, societies, and the human condition. Paradoxically in our work, the creation of the stereo effect using singular images, relies on a new, currently developed technology, which is called machine seeing. We employ open-source algorithms and tools developed for machine seeing to generate “depth maps” from 2D images. A depth map is a pixel based image with different tones from white to black, each signifying levels of depth. These depth maps are then used to manipulate perspective and restructure pixel relations on the original image, creating the “right eye view” and, ultimately, the illusion of three-dimensionality when viewed through the stereoscope. The stereographs are created using photopolymer intaglio plates, and the letterpress text is printed with laser engraved matrixes. The final stereographic image is a synthesis of the real and the “imagined” – a 3D reality existing in one’s relative perception, a mirage dwelling in the space of *metaxy*, the in-between.

Personal handwritten family letters of dear people separated from each other on two hemispheres collected by my mother, circa 1980-1990, (including the time of Martial Law in Poland: 13 December 1981 – 22 July 1983) woven into over five meters family tapestry memoir; a conscious way of transforming fibers to give a new life and a new way of being together after unexpected family separation and misplacement. The tapestry is purposefully hung on bamboo, a tree often recognized as a symbol of strength, flexibility and adaptation to the most difficult circumstances.

Statement about Vessel Book 7:

This small but mighty book is an experiment in material and book form. I wanted to play with the idea of books made from the earth, meaning clay and paper. The idea of a book that can’t necessarily be read also intrigues me. This little book in its round, endless form, plays with these concepts. It also takes a great deal of planning and having the vision fully formed before the book is even brought into being. Holes have to be measured and pre-punched when the clay is still wet in order for a successful binding after the covers are fired. With eight books in the series to date, I have made a small collection in this style with paper and clay melding together.

General Artist Statement:

“As an observer by nature, my work is motivated through imagining objects have memory. Historically, books have been used as memory tools to record personal stories, myths, practical instruction, business, or historical events. I like to explore what “memory tool” means and play with ideas of objects found in nature, much like how an archeologist or naturalist uncovers an artifact or identifies a new species. Is this object animal? Mineral? Man-made?

I make both books and non-books with this thought process. I like to tinker, play, and engineer new book structures that would not typically be considered a book. I push the boundaries of form and function through haptics and experimentation. Using materials like clay, wire, bones, metals, thread, foliage, bugs, and paper, I ground the work back to the real world that has a sense of the familiar, yet recontextualize it into something new.”

By changing the perspective, the materials, do we change the visceral experience of stored language, or even the absence of language, as in “Silences”?

As a visual artist who specialized in working with paper thin translucent porcelain, papers, fabrics, and found objects, and as a writer and psychotherapist who specializes in words and the negative space where there is an absence of words, I cherish the ability to fuse these disciplines into my own very personalized expression of book art.

“People I Know, People I Don’t Know” is a unique collaged artist’s book.  The images are collages created from magazine & book scraps (some older, some new) mounted on pages made from decorative paper and/or spray-painted painted pages from vintage books.  Text (by the artist) is in the form of picture captions on each page (There are many ways to be sublime in this world.  On days when he had no appointments, they went to the dog park in their pajamas.)  Covers are hand-cut and formed from several layers of Lotka paper, bound with a simple locked stitch binding (similar to Coptic).  The book presents portraits of some people who interest me.  I think I know some of them, others, maybe not.  They are making their way in this world, just like you and me.

Inspired by characters who claim agency amidst oppression and censorship, my goal was to capture the threatening aura of the public arena while alluding to the wondrous life pulsing in secret places and the hidden thoughts and acts that happen therein. To capture this feeling, the dark intaglio printed pages of the accordion book reads as a haunting scene of a school assembly devoid of people. Turning the pages, the viewer engages in a hunt for the action, but it seems to always be just out of view. Then, from backstage, a fantastical broom sweeps joyously through multiple spreads, seeming to dance as it flits up debris, offering a source for a visual motif that persists throughout the pages. The scale of the broom and its gestural composition let the reader lay claim to the agency of irreverent play in the dark behind the stage. The final page shows the windows with curtains, assuring th e reader that no one saw as they let themself be swept away.

The world of book and paper arts is a wonderful rabbit hole with so much to learn, explore and hybridize. I’ve enjoyed learning and teaching historical art techniques like paper marbling, paste paper and international binds that many folks would not recognize as a traditional “book”. I’ve found my artistic format: The artist’s book.

Red Line

Single signature, link stitch, acrylic paper marbling, linen thread, found red nylon belt with metal buckle rings, #1/1

Red Line is a conceptual artist’s book. It’s a reaction to the latest round of women’s healthcare and reproductive rights court challenges that American women must face and fight against. The book uses a stitched red line as a warning line, a point of no return, and a political metaphor.