Silent Auction Preview: Shawn Sheehy's "A Pop-Up Guide To Wildflowers"

There are so many things we look forward to when putting on the benefit: delicious food, free-flowing wine, the warm camaraderie of our book arts friends. But one of the most interesting parts and the one that changes most substantially from year to year is the plethora of gorgeous artwork that makes up the silent auction. If we had the time, we'd tell you about every single one of the 55 fabulous pieces, but there is cheese to buy and corners to sweep, so instead we thought we'd give you a few highlights to whet your appetite. All of the amazing works on auction this year can be viewed here.

With "A Pop-Up Guide To Wildflowers," Shawn Sheehy contrasts the playful nature of the pop up book form with gorgeously simple sculptural elements and letterpressed text. The dozen flowers represented are both humble and nostalgic, and the variety of shapes and techniques provides a comprehensive overview of Sheehy's estimable skills. We're totally into this book because the instant appeal of cheery pop-ups plus the thoughtful intentionality of Sheehy's work (his work aims to explore "the dynamic ecological principles that operate in wild and in domesticated environments,") melds seamlessly and beautifully.

In his artist statement, Sheehy explains his attraction to the pop-up form:

Artists' books can uniquely communicate complex narrative concepts through image-based and text-based channels. Within the book arts, I am most attracted to creating pop-ups—I enjoy working sculpturally within the book format. I enjoy the engineering challenge involved in developing intricate dimensional forms that fold flat. I control as much of the book production as possible: I make the paper, write the text, illustrate the images, engineer the structures, bind the folios and design the integrated whole. Pop-up images are particularly powerful in capturing a viewer's attention-—they facilitate the delivery of a potentially distasteful message with their attractive packaging. Making pop-up books for adults permits playing in the borderlands between 'youth culture' and 'adult culture' and thus striking out into new territory.

 A nationally-recognized book artist, Sheehy has taught at the Center for Book Arts, and also at the Paper & Book Intensive, Penland School of Crafts, and the Columbia College Centers for Book and Paper Arts. You can visit his website here, and bid on "A Pop-Up Guide To Widlflowers" here.

-Fabulous Saturday volunteer Faith Hale is guest blogging about this week's auction for us. She's currently an apprentice at Paper Dragon in Brooklyn, and is about to take off to the West Coast to start her MFA degree at Mills College in the book arts program there. Thanks Faith!