Collection Spotlight: Jim Pernotto's "Upper U.S. Papermill"

Continuing our examination of unconventional materials and methods used in the creation of artist’s books, is Jim Pernotto’s Upper U.S. Papermill. I selected this work because of the interesting binding, as well as the juxtaposition of the leaves of paper.

Pernotto’s work spans a good chunk of time and makes use of all media. His foundational experimentation in expression came in the form of papermaking and printmaking, though he now paints and uses various mediums in order to explore recent fascination with the nexus of science and myth. Interweaving time and space, the viewer pulls apart meaning from context. Convergence of themes seems to be how Pernotto finds success in his compositions. In Upper U.S. Papermill, created in 1975, we see the concept of book as a radically bound object from another consciousness. Pernotto does not deem a conventional vertical binding necessary to understand content. He opts for a a form resembling a curved, toothy smile, the stitching mimicking sutures in skin. The grin widens to allow movement, while the corners restrict the opening.

Collection Spotlight: Maryann Riker's "Dreams"

Unconventional materials used in a dynamic way to create both the environment and subtext to storytelling are especially engaging. Maryann Riker uses vellum and acetate to create a narrative in her piece Dreams.

Riker uses blue and white mottled vellum as end paper, forming a backdrop for the four clear acetate leaves of her book. One can guess that she wishes to mimic sky and clouds. Perhaps she is referencing adages of dreamers having their head in the clouds, or an evolving, dynamic space that seems finite in cliché, but infinite in practice. On clear acetate she has printed partial compositions which, when layered upon one another, become a collected image of snapshots, an outline of a house, and the phrase “Dreams/ Forever Omnipotent/ Always Elusive.”

Riker’s composition relies on the reader to open the book, and through the turning of each page, subtract an image, constantly transforming the overall image into a new message to take away. The images suggest a wandering mind seeking stability. The house is rendered as an outline, showing the frame only. Other images appear within this structure.  The snapshots show people, who do not connect intimately with us as readers, and who appear to struggle against the restraints imposed by the architectural structure.  Riker’s quote “Dreams/ Forever Omnipotent/ Always Elusive” refers to the notion of a full fledged fantasy within the constant confines of reality. The images are printed on clear material, drawing parallels to the negative space our dreams inhabit.

Open House This Saturday 9/10 from 2-5pm

This Saturday, September 10 from 2 – 5 pm is our Fall Open House/ Closing Party!

Come help us kick off the Fall Semester with a special Saturday Arts Book Lounge.

The schedule is as follows:

All Day: Brigid Elmer and friends will be binding chapbooks in the Bindery, and Ana Cordeiro will be printing in the printshop

2:00: Jennifer Verbit will be demonstrating some simple pop-up engineering.

2:30: Kimberly McClure will be printmaking on the etching press.

3:00: Sarah Mcdermott will be demonstrating simple binding techniques.

3:30: Yukari Hayashida will also be demonstrating binding techniques.

Come check out their crafts and preview the fall course line-up. Staff will be available to talk about the Center's programs, advise students about workshops being offered this fall, and discuss our exciting ongoing renovations. Refreshments will be on hand.

It is also the last day to view our summer exhibitions, Multiple, Limited, Unique: Highlights from the Permanent Collection of The Center for Book Arts and The Un[framed] Photograph. Artists Heidi Neilson, and Franco Marinai, showing in the The [Un]Framed Photograph will be on hand to talk about their work.

3:30: Franco Marinai

4:00: Heidi Neilson

Admission is free and open to the public.

Collection Spotlight: Maddy Rosenberg's The Mini Book of Death

From artist Maddy Rosenberg comes a 2008 accordion book titled The Mini Book of Death. Rosenberg presents us with a white fold out book in which quotes about death stand starkly in the middle of each page. The expression of many artists’ fascination with death has made its way into a variety of formats and perspectives (for irony and humor think Arnow, for a worldview of the death of women look at Silverberg). The energy that Rosenberg impresses upon the page is that of wisdom and enlightenment. The dark ink of the quotes is swallowed by the enveloping white, and the dimensions lend a feeling that such wisdom is to be carried around and absorbed into the subconscious, a petite business model of the balance of life and death.

“As a well day spent brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death” – Leonardo da Vinci

"Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death does not come, and when death has come, we are not."- Epicurus

Maddy Rosenberg is an artist that works in several media. She paints with oils, prints, draws, and creates artists’ books, installations and toy theater. She also has a history of working with The Center for Book Arts. In 2010 she curated her third exhibition at CBA, Narrative Sequences. She is involved in numerous arts initiatives, including her DUMBO gallery, Central Booking, which shares our passion for bringing book arts to the public.

Visit Maddy Rosenberg’s website here.

View this and other works of Rosenberg’s here.

-Rebecca Kish