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SCULPTURAL BOOKWORKS
Throughout my artistic career I have often worked with the physicality of books, which are portable vessels of knowledge and stories. |
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Early Bookworks (early 1980s)
In the 1980s, when I was teaching at a university in Ontario, Canada, I created bookworks that usually resulted in old volumes being disassembled with the pages scrolled into a new altered form. I also created new books such as Gypsy Book that poetically examines aspects of the night sky. |
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Dialogue. c. 1980 book cover, scrolled pages, gauze, latex 5 x 5 x 4 in. (13 x 12 x 9 cm) |
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Midnight Candle. c. 1980 scrolled pages, yarn, beeswax, candle 4 x 5 x 4 in. (9 x 12 x 9 cm) |
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Reduction and the 9th of May. 1981 book cover, yarn, glue, scrolled pages 5 x 7 x 3 in. (13 x 18 x 8 cm) |
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The Same Subject Continued. 1981 blackboard erasers, scrolled pages, gauze, latex 5 x 7 x 2 in. (13 x 18 x 6 cm) |
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Gypsy Book: Pleiades, Fireflies and Aurora, open. 1983 fabric, gauze, beeswax, pages from Ephemeris 6 x 10 x 1 in. closed (16 x 26 x 2 cm closed) |
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Gypsy Book: Pleiades, Fireflies and Aurora, closed. |
Gypsy Book: Pleiades, Fireflies and Aurora, detail. |
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Gypsy Book: Pleiades, Fireflies and Aurora, hanging. |
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River Books (1989)
In 1989 I was hiking along a trail near the Taos Gorge in Northern New Mexico when I came across a pile of old, grotty, discarded library books. How they got there will never be known, but I was drawn to their state of decay. These dilapidated volumes had once been trees, then paper and eventually made into books. But when I found them, they were covered with rabbit turds, grass was growing up between the damp pages, and most of the text had long since fallen back into the earth. I filled my backpack with these crumbling books and took them to my studio to dry out for several months before coating each one with layers of fresh beeswax to preserve them.
all River Books below: decomposing library books, beeswax, wire, waxed cord; sizes vary and are approximately 10 x 7 x 3 in. each (26 x 18 x 8 cm each) |
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River Books, group 1. 1989 |
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Individual River Book from group 1. |
Individual River Book from group 2. |
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River Books, group 2. 1989 |
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River Books, group 3. 1989 |
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Individual River Book from group 3, front. |
Individual River Book from group 3, back. |
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River Books, group 4. 1989 |
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Individual River Book from group 4, front. |
Individual River Book from group 4, back, detail. |
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La Bibliothèque des Mémoires (1991)
La Bibliothèque des Mémoires (The Library of Memoirs) evolved in a lovely raw studio space with a dozen skylights where I worked for a summer in Paris, France, 1991. I would search through old book stalls beside the Seine to find interesting, tattered volumes in both French and English that were then disassembled and the pages scrolled to form new sculptures. |
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The Netherlands Retrospective installation of Bookworks. 2015 note: This installation combined two groups of work; River Books (1989, images above) and La Bibliothèque des Mémoires (1991, images below). Not all of the works shown in this image are currently available, but all of the ones shown in the images above and below are available. |
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La Bibliothèque des Mémoires: Snowstorm. 1991 scrolled pages, yarn, animal bones, beeswax 5 x 4 x 4 in. (13 x 10 x 10 cm) |
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La Bibliothèque des Mémoires: Cautions. 1991 book cover, scrolled pages, yarn, beeswax 5 x 4 x 3.5 in. (13 x 10 x 9 cm) |
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La Bibliothèque des Mémoires: Livre de Fleurs, front. 1991 book cover, bamboo with book pages 6.5 x 10 x 0.5 in. (17 x 25 x 1 cm) |
La Bibliothèque des Mémoires: Livre de Fleurs, back. |
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La Bibliothèque des Mémoires: Une Galaxie et Une Étoile Filante, front. 1991 book cover with applied star pages, raffia, matte medium 8 x 6 x 0.5 in. (20 x 15 x 1 cm) |
La Bibliothèque des Mémoires: Une Galaxie et Une Étoile Filante, back. |
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La Bibliothèque des Mémoires: Untitled. 1991 left sculpture: bells, scrolled pages, felt, beeswax; 10 x 2 x 2 in. (26 x 5 x 5 cm) right sculpture: scrolled star charts, rock, sticks; 8 x 3 x 2 in. (20 x 8 x 5 cm) |
La Bibliothèque des Mémoires: The Nightingale. 1991 tiny book titled The Nightingale, wood, nails, blue paint 5 x 4 x 3 in. (13 x 10 x 8 cm) |
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La Bibliothèque des Mémoires: Star Maps. 1991 constellation maps wrapped around bamboo, bent wood painted blue 8 x 1 x 1 in. (20 x 3 x 3 cm) |
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