2012 WORKSHOPS

*On July 23-24, 2012, I'll be offering an"Envelope Meets Book" workshop at Appalachian State University's Turchin Center for the Visual Arts (in Boone, NC).

*On September 9-10, I'll be offering a "Soft-Cover Coptic-Stitched Journal" workshop at the Paul and Florence Thomas Memorial Art School (in Glendale Springs, NC), in conjunction with Ashe County's On the Same Page Literary Festival.

Details on both workshops will be coming soon!

REPRESENTATION BY VAMP & TRAMP BOOKSELLERS:

I've long admired the fine work of Bill & Vicky Stewart, who, as Vamp & Tramp Booksellers, so passionately represent artists' books, fine-press books, and broadsides. You can explore V&T's remarkable collection on the website or at one of the Stewarts' presentations around the country, as described on the Upcoming Events part of their website. Now, I'm delighted to say that Vamp & Tramp is representing a number of my artist's books, including two miniature books. Some of the books are one-of-a-kind, and others are part of editions.

Through Vamp & Tramp, several special-collections libraries have recently purchased books: Denison University, Blue Ridge Bounty and Flowing Essence (the blue book in the photo below); the University of Vermont, Flowing Essence; and the Savannah College of Art & Design's Savannah campus, Great Good/Bad Fortune. I'm honored to have works in these collections! You can see images of all these books in my Portfolio.

You can "meet" Bill Stewart and glimpse one of my books--a red, black, and white flag-style book about bats, titled Great Good/Bad Fortune--on a short but fascinating video about the 44th California International Antiquarian Booksellers Fair. (For Bill and my book, you can start at the 00:38 time marker, but I hope you'll get to enjoy the whole synopsis.)

 

EXHIBITIONS

From October 4-November 4,  2011, the Jones House Cultural & Community Center, Boone, NC (the town where I live) presented the solo exhibition "Books as Curious Creations," which contained a wide variety of my handmade books, ranging from large sculptural ones to miniatures. One side of the gallery highlighted my book projects related to Mammoth Cave National Park, where I served as the 2009 Artist-in-Residence, and displayed the complex sculptural book Depth Perception: Mapmaking Legacies at Mammoth Cave (described on this webpage). Visitors also saw a seven-book set, created collaboratively with Washington State artist Lucia Harrison, that relates to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and includes a large Slinky-style book. Other books dealt with a wide range of subjects, from my family's quilting heritage to details from my editing experiences to the wonders of nature.

         

Depth Perception: Mapmaking Legacies at Mammoth Cave is a large, recently created artist's book that appeared in The Celebration of the Book, an invitational book arts exhibition held May 27-August 4, 2011, at the McMaster Gallery, University of South Carolina, Columbia. An exhibition catalog is available as a download or a printed volume through Lulu.com.

An image of this book has also been selected for inclusion in the National Park Service's planned online exhibition Through Your Eyes, which will profile some of the artwork created by various National Parks' artists-in-residence. I'll share updates and links as soon as those are available.This book is rooted in my experiences as Mammoth Cave National Park's 2009 Artist-in-Residence, and I am celebrating the astounding cave explorations and mapmaking accomplishments of two key 19th- and early-20th-century figures, the enslaved African American guide Stephen Bishop and a visiting German civil engineer Max Kaemper (assisted by guide Ed Bishop, a great-nephew of Stephen Bishop). In the book, I use a complex folded and sewn structure with pop-up features as the base for many of my cave-interior photographs, along with text about these remarkable people and their maps. The fully opened book, which has several sections, extends to 42", and other views appear in the Portfolio part of this website.

Even when Depth Perception: Mapmaking Legacies at Mammoth Cave is closed, parts of the cave-interior photographs, cave-map names, and cut-out/pop-up forms are evident. The book can be read and viewed from many angles, which are intended to hint at Mammoth Cave's labyrinthine passageways and their multiple levels. When the covers are opened partially, more of the cave-interior photographs are visible, as are portions of the maps created by the explorer-mapmakers being celebrated. Details about these people, Stephen Bishop and Max Kaemper, can be read by folding down both ends of the book and then opening the covers of small interior books, as shown here on one end.

The Celebration of the Book, co-sponsored by the Southeast Association for Book Arts, offered a fascinating range of works by 35 book artists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Other Exhibition News:

For a winter 2010-2011 exhibition, curator MalPina Chan selected two of my artist's books for The Book as Art: Hand2Hand, which included artists' books designed so that readers/viewers could interact with them at Seattle's Columbia City Gallery. For a thoughtful take on the show, read this review from the South Seattle Beacon.

One of my books, titled Six Letters, Two Words: Clues to Incalculable Losses, is a unique design with movable cubes that make sounds as people shift and turn over the cubes to explore the topic of worldwide bird extinction.

The other book, Change/Discovery, is a Jacob's ladder style, so that the reader-viewer sees the text while making the interconnected panels flip in a mesmerizing succession.

 

 

Images and more detailed descriptions of all the books mentioned on this page appear in this site's Portfolio of Selected Artist's Books.

 

GRANT:

I'm honored to have been selected as one of eight 2010-2011 Regional Artist Project of Northwest North Carolina grant recipients. This project is funded as a cooperative venture of the Alleghany Arts Council, the Ashe County Arts Council, the Watauga County Arts Council, and the Cultural Arts Council of Wilkes, with support from a Regional Artist Project Grant of the North Carolina Arts Council, a state agency. I'm very grateful for this support, which was applied toward my participation in this year's Paper & Book Intensive. During the May event in Michigan, I participated in workshops taught by Andrea Dezso (on tunnel books), Ann Frellsen (on basic book-conservation techniques), and Susan Skarsgard (on creating image and content in artists' books). The focused time with book-art colleagues fed my creative spirit and gave me invaluable ideas about more bookmaking possibilities.

 

TEACHING:

On August 10-11, 2011, I offered the workshop Accordion-Book Adventures at the Florence Thomas Memorial Art School, in scenic Glendale Springs, NC. On the evening of August 9, I also offered an Instructor's Open Studio, in which I shared examples of my handmade books, offered some books for sale, and answered questions about the field of book arts. 

If you would like to discuss workshop possibilities with me, please e-mail me at sharon@sharphandmadebooks.com.  


 

Thanks for your interest!  Please check back regularly for updates. Something new is always taking shape . . .