artist's books
artist's books
dialogue
In collaboration with photographer Genevieve Coutroubis
This book documents a journey through Macedonia and Thrace through photographs, printmaking, text, and sound, and uses a complex book structure that invites the viewer
to be engaged in every aspect of the travels.
Archival pigment print, screenprint, and letterpress; French-door format case binding, audio CD of ambient sound recordings, vintage postcard
7.5 x 8 x .875 inches, 22 pages (opens to 7.5 x 86.5 inches)
Limited edition of 25
THE DREAM OF FLYING
Made as part of a box set—Appetite for Spectacle—exploring the work of Eadweard Muybridge in the context of Rebecca Solnit’s book River of Shadows. This box set was created in collaboration with six Philadelphia artists: Katie Baldwin, Julianna Foster, Katie Murken, Tara O'Brien, and Mary Tasillo.
Letterpress, screenprint, and Polaroid emulsion transfer; carousel book structure with magnet closure
Book: 4.5 x 2.75 x .5 inches
Box: 11 x 11 x 2.75 inches
Limited edition of 12
COLLECTIONS
Free Library of Philadelphia, PA
Scripps College, Northampton, MA
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX
University of California, Santa Barbara, CA
THE SPACE BETWEEN ME & YOU IS ONLY AS WIDE AS THE OCEAN
Inspired by an interest in oceanic travel, this book unfolds to create an environmental sculpture reminiscent of waves or distant mountain ranges.
Monoprints and letterpress, beeswax, accordion-fold binding with cloth-covered case
8.25 x 8.25 x .5 inches, 10 pages
Variable edition of 7
ASCENSION
On January 9, 1793, Jean-Pierre Blanchard launched the first successful manned balloon ascension in North America from Philadelphia. This book was born out of my ongoing interest in 18th-century travel writing and the history of aviation, particularly its relation to contemporary travel and war.
Screenprints and linocuts with chine collé and collage; cloth-covered case with bone clasp
8.25 x 8.25 x .5 inches, 8 pages
Limited edition of 5
COLLECTIONS
University of Pennsylvania, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Philadelphia, PA
HARRY & ZEKE GO FISHING
In collaboration with John Karpinski
Harry & Zeke Go Fishing addresses issues pertaining to attention deficit disorder, cumulus clouds, the slow but steady return of the door-to-door vacuum salesperson, and circus-related phobias, all within thirty-two, glorious, full-color pages.
Screenprint, letterpress and inkjet prints, fishhook clasp
3 .5 x 5.5 x .25 inches, 32 pages
Limited edition of 150
2006
COLLECTIONS
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA
Free Library of Philadelphia, PA
University of Pennsylvania, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Philadelphia, PA
BIBLIO (1): PHOTOGRAPHS OF GREECE 1995–2005
In collaboration with photographer Genevieve Coutroubis
A book of photographs documenting contemporary Greece, produced as an artist-in-residence
Letterpress and offset lithography, hand-bound
5.5 x 5.5 x .25 inches, 80 pages
Limited edition of 1000
COLLECTIONS
Free Library of Philadelphia, PA
KIOSK Archive, Kunstbibliothek, Berlin, Germany
Long Island University, New York
Ruth Hughes Artists Book Collection, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH
Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Greek Art Archives, Istanbul, Turkey
PrintROOM, Rotterdam, Netherlands
University of Pennsylvania, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Philadelphia, PA
Wells College, Aurora, NY
Over 100 private collections worldwide
THE PICTURES MY GRANDMOTHER THREW AWAY
A mock family album interrogating the early 20th-century domestic ideal, this book collects and reclaims photographs of women whose identities have been lost to history, re-inscribing stories that usually remain untold.
Silver gelatin prints & letterpress from metal type and hand-processed photopolymer plates
6 x 7.75 x .75 inches, 60 pages
Limited edition of 35 plus 5 special-edition copies with screenprinted tea towels in a clamshell box
STRANGE ENCOUNTERS
The Strange Encounters Project is a book of narratives about encounters with strangers in public places exploring how our interactions with people unknown to us define how we see ourselves in relation to the world. The book contains stories from thirteen international contributors.
Polaroid emulsion transfers and letterpress from hand-processed photopolymer plates; Coptic binding
6.5 x 8 x .5 inches, 66 pages
Limited edition of 25
prints
prints
The swimmers
Vintage imagery of swimmers around the world in the 1920s is paired with a life-sized line drawing of a swimming figure that moves across all ten prints.
Letterpress from experimental materials and screenprint
7 x 6.75 inches each;
100 x 10 inches framed
Series of 10 prints
Limited edition of 3
THE MIGRATORY PATTERNS OF EXTINCT & VANISHING BIRDS
These prints chart the imagined migration patterns of extinct birds to create an atlas of ghost maps haunted by repetition and absence. This series is part of a multi-form, long-term project that draws on my ongoing interest in avian imagery and themes.
Monoprints
19.75 x 19.75 inches;
21 x 21 inches (framed)
Series of 10 prints
THE NESTING HABITS OF EXTINCT & VANISHING BIRDS
Although we no longer dwell there, the past is all around us; it gives shape to the present. A particular nostalgia for the past—particularly the 1950s—continues to mold our relationship with our environment and the rhetorics of empire, war, and security being evoked in both politics and popular culture. This print series uses found text and images as building materials to weave new narratives that tease apart these inherited stories and fashion in their place a space that the present can inhabit.
Letterpress, lithography, and collage
10 x 10 inches;
16 x 20 inches (framed)
Series of 10 prints
THIS SHIT'S JUST LIKE DON QUIXOTE
In collaboration with poets Anne Boyer and Brandon Downing
Published on the occasion of the visit of Anne Boyer and Brandon Downing to Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA, in October 2007
Letterpress from wood type and photopolymer plates
11 x 15 inches
Set of 7 letterpress broadsides
Limited edition of 50
WALLFLOWERS
This print series accompanies an artist's book produced in response to an invitation from the Athenaeum of Philadelphia to make a new project based on research of their collections for the exhibition Art Bound: Book Design Past and Present. The Wallflowers series draws on the Athenaeum's collections of books on Victorian costume and wallpapers, we well as contemporaneous ideas about feminine virtues, libraries, and popular literature.
Pressure print and screenprint with chine collé and graphite flocking
11 x 13 inches
Limited edition of 5
installation
installation
nights at the circus
In collaboration with Beth Uzwiak
This multiform collaboration began with a deaccessioned copy of Djuna Barnes’s classic lesbian novel Nightwood (1937). Taking its inspiration from Nightwood itself, this installation sets the early 1900s circus—its dandies, charlatans, and coquettes—against imaginative renderings of human cells and organs. Together these forms celebrate the permissiveness of carnival, while questioning the place of “the marginal” in the everyday.
Handpainted screenprints; screenprint, relief print, watercolor collage, and thread on book pages; handmade paper sculptures; embroidery, vintage birdcage
Carrion: a cartography of roadkill
Carrion examines the intersections between a journey mapped through surveillance imagery—culled from satellite images of Philadelphia— and the journey as it is embodied, represented by prints of anatomical imagery and abstracted forms resembling internal organs or rotting meat. Together these imageries map an exploded geography, where places relate to one another in fragments, as in a dream.
Letterpress & screenprint on handmade paper, sculptural case with dyed bookbinding thread; book pages with sand-flocked screenprint; handmade paper and dyed thread sculptures
Book approximately 150 x 10 inches; sculptures various
Each one-of-a-kind
ONE IF BY LANd
One if by Land explores the spaces between the point of departure and the destination, where distractions or stories live. The text and projected photograph installations map spatial trajectories through transient locations—a taxi ride to a Romanian castle, a ferry past uninhabited Greek islands, a bus to a former concentration camp—taking viewers on a journey that invites them to re-examine these often overlooked, ephemeral spaces.
Polaroid transfers on Plexiglas; slide projection on two-sided screen; accompanying artist's book: offset lithography on card
4 x 5.75 x .125 inches
Set of 11 poem postcards
Limited edition of 500
curatorial
curatorial
Exhibitions curated for Venice Arts
Since 2010, I have organized dozens of exhibitions and hundreds of accompanying public programs at Venice Arts, a nonprofit center linking arts, education, and community.
LACE BENEFIT ART AUCTION 2011
Invited to be one of twenty guest curators for Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition's annual benefit art auction
L.A. Mart, Los Angeles, CA, May 2011
ARTISTS SELECTED:
Jen Bervin, Genevieve Coutroubis, Katie Murken, and Joshua Rickards
READING IN INSTALLMENTS: BOOK ART MEETS INSTALLATION
Selected as the 8th Annual Visiting Curator Exhibition by The Center for Emerging Visual Artists
The Felicity R. (Bebe) Benoliel Gallery
Philadelphia, PA
March–April 2009
ARTISTS IN THE EXHIBITION:
AC Berkheiser, Jen Bervin, Macy Chadwick, Lina Hakim, Dunya Steyns
Exhibitions curated for the Philadelphia Center for the Book
AUTHORS OF MISCHIEF
Curated with Judy Guston, Curator, Rosenbach Museum & Library and Robert Wuilfe, Curator, Landmarks Contemporary Projects
Rosenbach Museum & Library
September 23–October 5, 2008
Free Library of Philadelphia
October 14–December 5, 2008
ARTISTS IN THE EXHIBITION:
R. D. Burton, Monica Kane, Amee J. Pollack and Laurie Spitz, Jude Robison, Miriam Schaer
STRETCHING THE SPINE:
BOOKS ON HEALTH & HEALING
Hahnemann Medical Library, Philadelphia, PA
March 20–October 2, 2009
ARTISTS IN THE EXHIBITION:
Ellen Benson; Ellie Brown; Charlene Kwon; Ann Lovett; Tara O’Brien; Jessie Nebraska Gifford, Dikko Faust & Esther K. Smith, Purgatory Pie Press; Miriam Schaer; Elizabeth Sher; Lori Spencer; Beth Uzwiak
writing
writing
paperback LA
Honored to be included in Paperback LA, a surprising and witty collection of some of the best writing ever about Los Angeles, edited by Susan LaTempa. More than a dozen major selections include new work and fresh discoveries: a radio broadcast, a ballad, a magazine article, excerpts from prizewinning novels and memoirs. These pieces are punctuated by perceptive photo essays, a quotable lineup of one-liners, and other quick hits. My contribution on behalf of Venice Arts included a photo essay of work by youth in the organization's Art Mentoring program, accompanied by a short essay on the cultural resonance of the Venice Skate Park.
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM:
Eve Babitz • Paul Beatty • Dan Bern • Arna Bontemps • Carlos Bulosan • Cecil Castelucci • Victoria Dailey • William Heath Davis • Robert Landau • Justin Andrew Marks • Steve Martin • Hugo Reid • Vin Scully • Susan Sontag • Clancy Sigel • Hector Tobar • Victor and Mary Lau Valle • Elysa Voshell/Venice Arts
THE BLUE NOTEBOOK
"Reading in Installments: Book Art Meets Installation," my essay exploring intersections between book arts and installation through the work of five contemporary artists, was featured in the October 2009 edition of this peer-review journal published by Impact Press at the Centre for Fine Print Research, University of the West of England.
PHILACENTRIK
The first book project of the University of Pennsylvania's Common Press, Philacentrik includes views of Philadelphia from nine contributors. My story "The planes were falling out of the sky again" was included as a detachable insert. The book was designed and printed by Matt Neff and Chris Van Auken. The book was recognized in “Regional Design Annual: East,” Print (New York, November/December 2007).
7.75 x 10 inches, 32 pages
Printed in an edition of 120
STEREO 3: LA RÉVOLUTION C’EST CHIC
"The Revolution of the Artist Book" coauthored with Dunya Steyns
STEREO 4: REMOTE CONTROL
"The planes were falling out of the sky again," with illustrations by Dunya Steyns