During the height of the Pandemic, I began participating in the monthly “Are You Book Enough” Instagram challenge initiated by Sarah Mottaghinejad of Editions Studio in Seattle, Washington. Sarah started this challenge both to build a community of book artists, and as a way to answer the perennial questions about what makes something an artist's book. Responding to the word Sarah throws out each month as a prompt has become both an inspiration and a wonderful diversion.
Creating artist's books is a natural extension of being a printmaker. The prints are where I start, the books where I land. I love being lost in the puzzle-solving qualities of building these structures. Each ‘failure’ leads to the next and the next, until at some point it works. Whether I am tediously cutting out the same shape over and over, measuring the distance between folds, or rolling ink on a plate in the print studio to create the material from which the books are crafted - my tenacity, courage and curiosity merge, and I am wholly engaged.
This selection of artist’s books are a random sampling of experiments, trials, and just plain “what-if” pieces. Some are in response to the Are You Book Enough challenge, others are simply a response to prints hanging on my studio wall, or thoughts kicking around inside my head that need a way out into the world.
Click on any of the thumbnails to view the full image, as well as additional views.
