Book Art Notes
My artists’ books are meant to be seen as original works of art. They are one- of -a –kind. I am not sure that they resemble books in the traditional sense. They are sequential. They are on paper (sometimes not). They contain words (sometimes not).
My books function in the same way as all my work: as an expression of my creativity, often with social commentary, but sometimes in a purely abstract way, in absence of words or recognizable imagery. They are usually intended to be portable. They come with specially created cases or containers to help in the storage, protection and transportation of the work. The cases are an integral part of the work itself, the first step in the viewing process.
They are mixed-media. They combine many processes and media. They do not have traditionally binding.
They are supposed to be touched and interacted with, often with a specific predetermined sequence. All of their physical attributes are not visible at once. And in the process of manipulating them, their multi-layered approaches attempt to manipulate the viewer, just as the sequence of a film or even an obstacle course.
A single work may have a number of different display possibilities. My Artist's Books often have elements that may be arranged according to the viewer's preference, hanging, flat, or standing. Or my work may be transformed into a sculpture (this applies to all my books).
They are intended to decorate the collector's home or viewed in a library, gallery or museum.
My books address many themes. In Je Suis Le Dieu(1994-1995) I am referencing Max Ernst’s poetic phrases in his surrealistic work Rêve D’Une Petite Fille Qiu Voulut Entrer Au Carmel combined with phrases from French Symbolist poems by Leconte de Lisle and Charles Baudelaire. This book hides, obscures and exposes many emotional, private, and erotic thoughts in reference to religious and spiritual experiences. I chose to use watercolor, handmade paper, dry pigments, and gesso di muro (a plaster- like powder that mixes with dry pigment to create an impasto texture). The case was designed to look like the glass cases that contain sacred relics. It is intended to be difficult to read as I want the pages to be seen first and later, if desired read.
Chapter 1: Je suis le Dieu sans Femme ( I am God without woman). The inside reads : La Nature est vide et le soleil consume (nature is empty and the sun consumes).
Chapter 2 : Rêve d’une petit fille qui voulut entrer au Carmel (This is from Max Ernst) Miserere (I added this) . The inside reads: Dieu donnera plutôt sa miséricorde ( God will give much forgiveness).
Chapter 3 : Car j’ai peine je suis complètement nu (because I have sorrow or sadness I am completely nude or vulnerable). The inside reads: Parfois comme un soupir de feu âme brulante ( loosely translates : sometimes the breath of the soul is a scorching or blazing fire)
Chapter 4: Le Céleste fiancé , je prend toujours trop cher ( heavenly fiance, I always find so dear). Inside reads : La vérité que je cherche n’est pas en lui mais en mois (the truth that I search for is not in in him but in me).
Chapter 5: Je garde dans mon sanctuaire la tète et les bras qui ont touche le tonnerre (loosely translated : I guard in my scantuary or shrine the head and the arms that touch the thunder). Inside reads: Nous préservant de la foudre infernale (loosely translated: We protect ourselves from the infernal lightening).
Chapter 6: Vous êtes d'un mauvais gout particule (loosely translated: You have a bad taste in your mouth or bad breath) . This is from Max Ernst’s Surrealist’s book. The inside reads: Gouter une suprême et morne volupté(Loosely translated : Taste God and morne or do without pleasures).
Chapter 7: Vous êtes le Dieu de mon cœur et mon partage pour éternité Rêve (loosely translated: You are the God of my heart and I share this for all eternity: Dream). Le cœur trempe sept fois dans le néant divin (loosely translated: The heart beats seven times into the devine nothingness).
Je Suis Le Dieu has an interesting provenance. I created it while teaching in Cortona, Italy. It was exhibited at the Chicago Library, Sandler/Hudson Gallery, Atlanta, Spruill Gallery, Atlanta, Colquitt County Arts Center, Moultrie, GA, and The American InterContinental University, Atlanta.
The Three Pyramid Books (2005) was commissioned by the Carlos Museum to coincide with an exhibit on Egypt. It was to be a personal take or interpretation of ancient Egypt, hence the 3 pyramids. They are made with handmade paper, papyrus, vellum, collage, mixed media, tar, gesso di muro, gesso, dry pigment, encaustic and Plexiglas for the three cases. These books have been shown at the Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta, and the Spruill Art Gallery, Atlanta.
Pyramid Book 1 is loosely based on the interpretation of the three pyramids. The cover has a transparency of a photo taken in 1850. I do not know if it is the oldest known photo of these structures but that was what I was going for. Some of the pages are interpretation of hieroglyphs, hieratic, and demotic written language. Some are combinations of ancient Egyptian painting, wall painting from the tombs, imagery from the Book of the Dead, and other papyri discovered in tombs. Book 1 is more about the love poetry discovered in tombs written in either demotic or hieratic. Pages 6 and 7 are examples of a love poem about a young princess meeting her lover under a sycamore tree. The sycamore tree is the Egyptian symbol for the tree of life. She meets her lover and they drink and eat under the tree for many days enjoying each others company.
Pyramid Book 2 references the Napoleon siege in Egypt and his scientific investigation on the Pyramids and the ruins surrounding them. The cover page incorporates a transparency of a painting of the Sphinx and the Pyramid of Cheops done during Napoleon’s stay in Egypt. The nose of the Sphinx had been shot off by Napoleon’s troops as target practice and it is believed that Napoleon himself ordered this because the facial features did not fit how he perceived Cheops to look. The next page is a loose interpretation of a drawing actually drawn by Napoleon from his journal and notes he made while in Egypt. Other pages refer to mathematical theories, astrological diagrams, astronomical diagrams, the zodiac, a series of hieroglyphs, and a diagram of Cheops’ pyramid.
Pyramid Book 3 is perhaps the most curious because of its cover. I was left a very old set of encyclopedias dating from 1919 to 1959. Going through the books I came across a picture of the pyramids from the air dating 1940 with an article stating that German war planes had been flying over the pyramids threatening to destroy them. The Egyptian government cut off all the electricity in the area blacking out the city of Cairo and the Pyramids for several days. I made a transparency of the photo and painted tar around the image. The tar is significant for me as it refers to our tarring of certain groups and races of people that did not seeming fit society. It also references the tar pit in Los Angeles where wooly mammoths and wolves drowned thousands of years ago and were preserved in the tar. Thus tar becomes a complex metaphor: blackout, destruction, death, and survival. This third book has more pages that reference the Book of the Dead. It also has a page of an ancient map of a gold mine hidden deep in the mountain regions of Egypt. I do not think its location has been discovered. War is about power and greed. The pyramids have withstood both.
Orologio d'oro e oggetti d'oro di Papa, 1999-2000 (Gold watch and object of gold of the Pope Leone XIII) One of the times that I was teaching in Cortona someone left a book outside my 17th century condo. Each room was on a different floor. It was four stories. The book was printed in 1900, in Italian. The title is L’Aurora del Secolo del Sacramento, Anno IV-1900 (The Dawn of the Century of Sacrament). It really is an annual of articles by various religious figures, letters, and documentation of the first year of the 20th century. It documents the events of the Catholic Church in Italy. One of the photos in this book is of the gold watch and other gold jewelry that Pope Leone was wearing at the time of his death and the time of his death is the time on the watch. Apparently he died in 1899 but other records suggest 1903. This book was published in 1900.
Again, I used Plexiglas as Cover/ Case for this book. I had found an old silver train captain’s watch and used that as its lock. I used handmade paper for its matrix. Mixed media, enamel paint, collage, gesso, and encaustic.
The concept of time has always been intriguing to me. Is time linear or do we perceive time fluidly or arbitrarily? Hence the repeating clock motif.
My studio is a clutter of old books, manuscripts, transparencies, and objects
I find in my travels. I manipulate these transparency images to create an armature. This becomes the substructure, the framework that underlies my art. I overlap, juxtapose, cut and layer these images much the same way one might sketch ideas in a drawing pad. Ultimately, this develops into a finished work. I incorporate images from obscure 19th century books: old charts, plans, maps, technical drawings, botanical drawings and other obscure renderings. Time is the great ingredient.
With this book I was investigating, in part, thematic and visual patterns that suggest certain innate concepts that live in all of us: creating catalysts to stir up personal historical memories. I used antique classical imagery, figurative archetypes, and gestures influenced by the Italian Renaissance as a way of examining the condition of contemporary culture within a fragmented allegorical context. This book embodies both the metamorphic and the juxtapositional characteristics of divided isolated parts: hands, heads, birds, flowers, animals: fragments suggesting a narrative, a drama that opens the door for many interpretations. I intertwined unrelated images to represent how we interact or fail to interact- that quivering line between connection and separation, union, and distance. With this work I examined the relationship and similarity between Asian and Western iconography layering images in repetition much like saying a rosary or a mantra. The meditative aspect of these pages is intended. The use of labyrinthine symbols that appear are also intended serve as a right of passage or pilgrimage.
With this book I was working on the problem of stacking imagery. One way of achieving this is working through a pentimento effect. My goal in this book was to view simultaneously the progressive moments that transpire in a creation of work as if looking through to the past and seeing the future at the same instant. I strove to have visible the diverse imagery that I superimpose in my work fluctuating and pulsating at different intervals of time that seemingly peer back through time to see sequential frames simultaneously within the spatial confines of a single canvas. Much the same way in which memory fades or comes back on us when triggered by some stimulus that brings "forgotten" thoughts into the mainstream of our consciousness.