CBAA the Association for Book Art Education

Capitalizing on the interdisciplinary nature of the field, this blog calls attention to criticism and theory about the book as a medium and/or subject in works of art and, more generally, about book art. It seeks to encourage dialogue, solicit comments, and create a generative space for new ideas from critics and theorists of various fields regarding the aesthetic, semiotic, haptic, cognitive, historical, and other features that distinguish these works and their function in ethical, political, and social matters.

To contribute to the list of underrepresented voices in the book arts, see CBAA Book Art + Social Justice Resource List.

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AI AND AB (ARTIST BOOKS) // Peter Tanner

15 Apr 2024 11:19 AM | Susan Viguers (Administrator)

Recently I have been fascinated to learn more about how to use AI for teaching purposes. I have found it to be a great resource, always disclosing to my students that I am using it so that they use similar best practices and cite its use. To demonstrate some of what AI can do I asked ChatGPT a few questions. It is interesting to see its answers and how they represent ways that the information we share with AI influences the results it can provide. For clarity’s sake all the questions below are from myself and all the answers in all their redundant glory were generated by the ChatGPT’s AI.

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Peter Tanner Question (PT Question): What is ChatGPT and what can it do?

ChatGPT AI Answer: ChatGPT is a conversational AI model developed by OpenAI, based on the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) architecture. It's designed to generate human-like text based on the input it receives. ChatGPT is trained on a vast amount of text data from the internet, allowing it to understand and generate responses across a wide range of topics and contexts.

Here are some of the things ChatGPT can do:

1. Answer Questions: ChatGPT can provide information and answer questions on a wide variety of topics, drawing from its extensive training data.

2. Engage in Conversation: ChatGPT can engage in text-based conversation, responding to prompts and interacting with users in a manner similar to human conversation.

3. Generate Text: Whether it's writing stories, poems, articles, or even code snippets, ChatGPT can generate text in a coherent and contextually relevant manner.

4. Assist with Writing: ChatGPT can help with writing tasks by suggesting ideas, providing feedback, or generating content based on specific prompts or requirements.

5. Language Translation: While not perfect, ChatGPT can assist with language translation tasks by converting text from one language to another.

6. Creative Exploration: ChatGPT can be used for creative exploration, generating ideas, brainstorming, or providing inspiration for artistic or design projects.

Overall, ChatGPT is a versatile tool that can assist with a wide range of tasks involving natural language processing and generation. However, it's important to keep in mind that while ChatGPT can produce human-like text, it doesn't have understanding or consciousness like a human does.

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PT Question: What is an artist book?

ChatGPT AI Answer: An artist's book is a medium of artistic expression that uses the book format as its primary means of presentation. Unlike traditional books, which focus primarily on conveying written content, artist's books emphasize the visual and tactile experience of the book object itself. They can take many forms, including handmade books, altered books, unique or limited-edition works, and even sculptural or multimedia creations.

Artist's books often blur the boundaries between visual art, literature, and design. They can incorporate a wide range of materials, such as paper, fabric, metal, wood, and found objects. Artists may use various techniques such as painting, printmaking, collage, photography, and typography to create their books.

The content of artist's books can vary widely, ranging from narrative storytelling to abstract expressionism to political commentary. Some artist's books explore themes of identity, memory, or social justice, while others experiment with the structure and format of the book itself.

Overall, artist's books offer a unique and immersive artistic experience that engages the viewer on multiple levels, challenging conventional notions of what a book can be.

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PT Question: Can AI help create artist books?

ChatGPT AI Answer: Yes, AI can certainly play a role in the creation of artist's books, either directly or indirectly. Here's how:

1. Content Generation: AI can be used to generate written content for artist's books. For example, a language model like GPT-3 could be prompted with themes, ideas, or specific text passages to generate narratives, poetry, or other textual elements that can be incorporated into the book.

2. Design Assistance: AI tools can assist artists in designing the layout and visual elements of their books. For instance, software programs equipped with AI algorithms can help with layout composition, image editing, and typography selection, ensuring a visually appealing and cohesive design.

3. Collaborative Creation: AI can facilitate collaborative creation processes between artists and machines. Artists can interact with AI models to explore new ideas, experiment with different styles, or generate content collaboratively, leading to innovative and unexpected outcomes.

4. Automated Production: AI-driven automation technologies can streamline the production process of artist's books by handling repetitive tasks such as image processing, text layout, and even physical bookbinding in some cases, allowing artists to focus more on the creative aspects of their work.

5. Inspiration and Exploration: AI can serve as a source of inspiration and exploration for artists, providing access to vast amounts of data, images, texts, and other resources that can spark creativity and inform the conceptualization and execution of artist's books.

While AI can provide valuable assistance in various aspects of creating artist's books, it's important to recognize that human creativity, intuition, and artistic sensibility remain essential throughout the creative process. AI should be viewed as a tool to augment and enhance human creativity rather than replace it entirely. Ultimately, the synergy between human and machine capabilities can lead to exciting and innovative outcomes in the realm of artist's books.

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PT Question: What are key artist books from United States?

ChatGPT AI Answer: The United States has a vibrant tradition of artist's books, with numerous influential works that have contributed to the development of the medium. Here are some key examples:

1. "The Birds" by Edward Ruscha: Published in 1972, "The Birds" is a seminal work by American artist Edward Ruscha. It features black-and-white photographs of various species of birds, accompanied by simple, descriptive text. Ruscha's use of photography and text in a minimalist format has had a profound influence on the genre of artist's books.

2. "A Humument" by Tom Phillips: Tom Phillips' "A Humument" is an ongoing project that involves altering and reinterpreting the pages of a Victorian novel, "A Human Document" by W.H. Mallock. Phillips paints, collages, and obscures the original text, creating a new narrative and visual experience. The project blurs the boundaries between literature and visual art and has inspired generations of artists.

3. "Diary of a Victorian Dandy" by Duane Michals: This artist's book by Duane Michals combines photography and handwritten text to create a fictional narrative about the life of a Victorian-era dandy. Michals' innovative use of sequencing and storytelling techniques has made "Diary of a Victorian Dandy" a landmark work in the genre.

4. "Seven American Deaths and Disasters" by Kenneth Goldsmith: Published in 2013, "Seven American Deaths and Disasters" is a provocative artist's book by conceptual poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It consists of transcriptions of radio and television broadcasts related to seven iconic American tragedies, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the September 11 attacks. Goldsmith's appropriation and recontextualization of media texts raise questions about representation, memory, and collective trauma.

5. "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski: While not strictly an artist's book, "House of Leaves" is a groundbreaking novel that incorporates innovative typographic design and unconventional page layouts to create a complex and immersive reading experience. Mark Z. Danielewski's experimental approach to storytelling challenges traditional notions of narrative structure and has inspired artists and writers alike.

These are just a few examples of the diverse and influential artist's books that have emerged from the United States. They demonstrate the country's rich artistic heritage and its ongoing contributions to the field of book arts.

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PT Question: What was the first artist book?

ChatGPT AI Answer: Pinpointing the "first" artist's book can be challenging due to the broad and evolving definition of the genre and the long history of artists experimenting with book formats. However, one early example often cited as a precursor to the modern artist's book is the "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili," published in 1499.

The "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili" is a Renaissance-era book that combines text with lavish woodcut illustrations. It tells the story of a protagonist, Poliphilo, on a dreamlike journey through a landscape filled with classical architecture, mythological figures, and erotic encounters. The book's intricate design and integration of text and image make it a landmark work in the history of book arts.

While not a contemporary artist's book in the modern sense, the "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili" exemplifies many characteristics of the genre, including the integration of visual and textual elements, the exploration of unconventional narrative structures, and the use of the book format as a vehicle for artistic expression. It has inspired generations of artists and designers and continues to be celebrated for its beauty and innovation.

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PT Comment: All the previous answers were generated by the ChatGPT AI. For many of you and myself, the repetition that we read can be grating, but that is important to note because it separates us from the AI. But also think about what these answers represent: An AI provided the definition of the artist book. That represents a non-research-based consensus found on the internet. It created a list of the most important books in the history of artist books in the United States, but it did not choose Twenty-six Gas Stations, which may perturb many readers. What should be readily apparent is that while there are vast amounts of information available for AI to use, there is a great deal of serious academic research that is not available for access by either AI or Google’s search engines. AI can only present us with an amalgam of the data that we have fed to it. The adage “garbage in garbage out” comes to mind. AI can generate many types of information. However, as humans and specialists in our fields we are the content authorities. The metadata is a proxy, not “the” thing.

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PT Question: Who is Peter Tanner?

ChatGPT AI Answer: As of my last update in January 2022, I don't have specific information about an individual named Peter Tanner who is widely known or recognized. It's possible that Peter Tanner could be a private individual, a professional in a specialized field, or someone who has gained prominence after that time. If Peter Tanner is associated with a particular field or area of expertise, providing more context could help in providing relevant information.

Peter Tanner teaches Spanish Language and Literature at Utah State University and is Editor of Openings: Studies in Book Art. He has a Ph.D. in Latin American literature, an MA in Latin American Art History, and a BFA in Painting and Printmaking. His research focuses on artist books from Latin America.

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MUSING FROM THE 2024 COLLEGE ART ASSOCIATE CONFERENCE // Peter Tanner

01 Apr 2024 12:00 AM | Susan Viguers (Administrator)

In February of this year, I was in Chicago for the annual College Art Association (CAA) conference. It was, as usual, a fantastic opportunity to take the pulse of art historic trends, and it was also a chance to raise awareness about CBAA as I co-chaired a session with Levi Sherman on artist books. As I attended the various sessions that were of interest to me, I was struck by how often I encountered theories and practices that are relevant to book art and book art theory.

In one session, an infamous book from México El libro negro del terror nazi en Europa: Testimonio de escritores y artistas de 16 naciones (published in Mexico City in 1943 under the auspices of the exile press El Libro Libre) was analyzed as a document that proves that information was escaping from Europe about the horrors of Nazi concentration camps to at least México, if not all of Latin America at a very early date, perhaps even before the U.S. knew of such atrocities. It emphasized to me the fact that books are and contain testimonies of assembled knowledge.

In another session about community engagement with art and art history outside the lecture hall, artists and art historians both discussed how to use art object production in association with collections from regional museums and diverse art aficionados. This panel’s presenters discussed how teaching about diverse art objects from diverse communities enhanced student experiences in primary and secondary educational institutions. They also spoke to the importance and presented examples of taking art to the community. At one of these institutions, art history students and art students worked with people from a center for the blind and visually impaired, through interviews and descriptions, to create art that both permitted non-visual appreciation and opened up students’ understanding of diverse communities’ wants and needs. We could use some more outreach like this.

There were also other sessions where theories relevant to the artist book and from the history of artist books were presented.

The shallowest mention was in a session about how to get published. In that session one audience member asked the editors present if their particular publishers published artist books. My ears naturally perked up. I took the opportunity after the session to ask the person who asked that question what it was that they had meant by publishing an artist book. They had meant a monograph of some sort on a particular artist’s work, which is what I had suspected. However, to my surprise they had not heard about our field of activity, nor had they thought that an artist book could have any other meaning. I explained the difference in the time that I had with them, hoping to not appear to be as much of an artist book kook as I really am. The point of this interaction is that wide-spread knowledge of our field is not something that we can take for granted. To this point, one person who attended our panel had never heard of artist books nor CBAA until this conference. We are all ambassadors and educators for our field.

One very interesting question that came up for artists and art historians involved how each discipline navigates its connection to advancing technology and AI in particular. AI represents a new connection between art and technology, and as such raises manifold questions and implications that are too broad to be discussed here. What I will ask instead is what kinds of artist books can be made using AI? How will artist books in all their varieties engage with similar technologies? While I do not believe that AI will replace humans or artist books and their makers, I do think that people who can use AI will redefine what we think of as possible in the creation of artist books.

The most direct and profound reference to artist books was in a session co-sponsored by the Association for Latin American Art (ALAA) and the Institute of Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA). In this session the keynote speaker, Dr. Esther Gabara, from Duke University, presented research from her 2022 book titled Non-literary Fiction: Art of the Americas under Neoliberalism, in which she explicitly applied to art in Latin America the theories developed by Mexican book artist and theorist Ulises Carrión (1941-1989). She argued that those theories contributed to a new way to interpret Latin American conceptual and theoretical art. However, what she missed is Carrión’s connections to the larger world of artist book creation (though I am hoping she points that out later in her book, which I have yet to finish).

Through my attendance at CAA, I became further aware of two very important but conflicting perspectives. Artist books and book art have a great deal to contribute to the theoretical understanding of art and its long and manifold connections to technology, but it also labors in relative obscurity. What kind of solutions to these problems do you see?

Peter Tanner teaches Spanish Language and Literature at Utah State University and is Editor of Openings: Studies in Book Art. He has a Ph.D. in Latin American literature, an MA in Latin American Art History, and a BFA in Painting and Printmaking. His research focuses on artist books from Latin America.

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KEEPING MOMENTUM // Beth Sheehan

15 Mar 2024 12:00 AM | Susan Viguers (Administrator)

One of my favorite questions to ask artists is: if there was an apocalypse and you were the only person left but all of your basic needs were met (electricity still works, you have plenty of food, etc.) would you continue to make art?

In my Considering Everything article, I discussed idea generation and where to start when you are beginning a project. But after you have your idea there are still a lot of decisions to make and all of the effort that goes into the creation of your work. The art-making process can be draining and it seems inevitable for artists to experience maker’s block at some point, so how do you keep your momentum and motivation as an artist? How do you stay interested in what you are making over the course of your artistic life? What do you do if you get stuck along the way? I do not believe there is a universal answer, so I would like to present some solutions and encourage a discussion about additional solutions.

Monotype by Beth Sheehan

Sometimes artists get stuck at the idea generation stage. When this is the case for me, I find that there are two primary causes. First, my output can only be as good as my input: similar to the way gas tanks function, if I have not filled my tank, my creative practice will run out of momentum. So, if I am not having success generating ideas and artwork, I consider what I have been reading, watching, listening to, and looking at. Inspiration can come from anywhere, but it has helped me to recognize what kinds of sources provide me with inspiration more frequently than others and then turn to those kinds of sources again and again.

The second cause that typically blocks my idea generation is often a processing issue. I may have many ideas and a lot of creative fuel, but if I do not spend time processing and organizing my thoughts, the fuel is not usable. To assist in my processing, I prefer to journal about my ideas. I usually ask myself questions such as:

● What interests me most about this idea?

● What part of my idea feels the least solid?

● What are the most important aspects of this idea?

● Should this idea become several separate projects?

● Are there any rules that I would like to impose on this idea (such as a specific size, form, medium, etc.)?

Beth Sheehan graining a litho stone

Sometimes artists get stuck at the execution stage. Perhaps you enjoy coming up with ideas but do not enjoy the actual making. There is precedent for creating non-object artworks, one form being what Gao Minglu terms “proposal art (fangan yishu)”[1]. However, there are also ways to push forward into actually making your work, as well. It should be noted first, though, that art does not have to be made within a specific timeframe, you are allowed to work on more than one artwork at a time, and you are not a failure if you abandon a project that is no longer enjoyable (it is good to remember that just because you have spent time, money or energy on a project, does not mean you need to continue with it, as per the Sunk Cost Fallacy).

During the execution stage, I find that it is easier to move forward if I produce test prints, material tests, or make multiple mock-ups of my ideas. Alternatively, I occasionally find it more beneficial to make smaller projects that I do not treat seriously. By focusing on something that is lower stakes and more immediate like a quick one-page book, a collage, or a monotype print, I can get into the mode of making without the pressure of executing my actual project. Using writing prompts as making prompts or using ideation decks can be particularly liberating.

And finally, if I am further along in the execution stage and feel myself losing momentum, I find it best to invite an artist, art historian, critic, or curator to my studio for a studio visit. The visitor might see threads in your work that you have not seen, they may suggest artists or media for you to research that help reinvigorate your passion for your project, or you may even disagree with their insights but through disagreeing, you find you are able to think through what you think about your work in ways you were unable to do alone.

[1] Gao Minglu, Total Modernity and the Avant-Garde in Twentieth-Century Chinese Art (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2011), page 142.

Beth Sheehan is an artist currently living in Tuscaloosa, AL. She teaches paper, print, and book workshops around the US and virtually. She co-authored the book Bookforms. Sheehan has also worked as a professional printer at Durham Press and Harlan & Weaver and was the Bindery Manager at Small Editions.

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WHAT DO WE OWE THE VIEWER? // Beth Sheehan

01 Mar 2024 12:00 AM | Susan Viguers (Administrator)

Lately, I have been participating in discussions regarding the artist’s role in artworks, specifically if the artist’s background and personal experiences should manifest in their artworks or if artworks should be more universally relatable and non-auto-biographical. In these conversations, the predominant mentality is in favor of non-auto-biographical works, which seems heavily tied to a desire for artwork to be accessible to every audience. These discussions have prompted me to contemplate the question: What do artists owe their viewer?

My artwork is about memory and my drive to make my work comes from personal experience with Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM). SDAM primarily manifests for me in an inability to visually replay moments from my past, thereby making it particularly difficult to determine if my memories are genuine recollections or if they were fabricated from a narrative I created or embellished. But memory is universally untrustworthy for all people and that universal unreliability also plays a role in my work as I use my own lack of memory to frame questions about the truth and reality of a past that is inaccessible in the present.

Beth Sheehan, “Memento,” 2015-2022

I find myself on a potentially less-popular side of the auto-biographical art discussion, as I would argue that artworks should not (and cannot) cater to every member of an audience. I would like to further assert that by generalizing the accessibility of their content, an artist can lessen the importance and impact of their artworks for the community that relates to the artist’s auto-biographical works. Further, the removal of the personal can rob a viewer of the potential to understand experiences that they are unfamiliar with.

Through my artworks, I have connected with people who did not realize that their cerebral experience was abnormal because discussing the intricacies of memory and perception presents a difficult stage for communication. For example, if two people are discussing a shared memory, both may use the phrase “I remember,” but one person may be using visual recall to replay the memory like a movie (episodic memory) and the other person may be simply accessing the factual information their brain stored (more similar to the way we recall trivia). If my work contained no relation to my personal experience and instead focused solely on universal experiences of memory, I feel I would be doing my viewer a disservice.

Beth Sheehan, “In the Moments,” 2023

However, even though my personal preference favors works that are founded in the artist’s experience, I also feel that everything is best in moderation. If an artist’s work stems from personal experience and that artist creates work that is self-referential and completely unrelatable, I would begin to question if the work should be shared with the public. So, then, I come back to my initial question: What do artists owe their viewer?

To unpack that question further, I’d like to consider the following as well:

- Does the artist owe the viewer relatability, understanding, connection, universality, authenticity, or their story/experiences?

- If the viewer is owed something, are they owed that thing within the artwork itself or in the artist’s statement or interviews?

- Is abstraction kinder to the viewer because it has the potential to be equally relatable/accessible regardless of the viewer’s experience? If the viewer presumes artwork will have a deeper meaning and then they cannot glean one from abstraction, will the work no longer be accessible?

- Should art be for everyone? Does your answer change if I phrase the question differently: Should all art be for all people?

-What are the sacrifices made when art becomes less personal and more universal? What are the sacrifices made when art IS personal?

- Do the expectations for the viewer/artist relationship change based on medium? Does visual art demand something different for the relationship than a medium like poetry?

Beth Sheehan is an artist currently living in Tuscaloosa, AL. She teaches paper, print, and book workshops around the US and virtually. She co-authored the book Bookforms. Sheehan has also worked as a professional printer at Durham Press and Harlan & Weaver and was the Bindery Manager at Small Editions.

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ARTIST BOOK READING SERIES // AB Gorham

15 Feb 2024 12:00 AM | Susan Viguers (Administrator)

For this post, I intend to create a space for conversation about the reading and performance of artist books, as well as introduce an Artist Book Reading Series co-hosted by myself and Aaron Cohick.

During Codex 2021, Aaron Cohick of New Lights Press and I began a conversation about the lack of reading events or book performances in the artist book world. Why weren’t public readings of books more common in the book art world? My own interest in reading and performing artist books started with my thesis defense in 2014 and became a practice I continued to engage with via CBAA conference panels (1, 2) and live poetry readings and other literary events in Tallahassee, FL and Reno, NV. Reading and performing my artist books has always felt like a natural progression of the artistic work of my book objects, as they include primarily poetic experimental texts and typography intended to be performed aloud. In a book object, the sound of the text being read aloud is determined by the shape of the page and the caesuras and margins offering visual and audible pause. I, like many writers, compose text aloud, so when that text is letterpress printed onto the page, the act of reading aloud (again) causes my tonal breath to mix with the sound of a finger rubbing along the paper edge of the book, the small crack of the spine giving. The reader of an artist book gets to have a similar engagement with text and object, except with their own inner reading voice. However, the performance of a book allows for another iteration of the book object. These readings and events can include elements of choregraphed performance, or audio and visual presentations.

The literary world, including the behemoth Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), has embraced the physical embodiments of literature, including performances (have you ever seen Abraham Smith perform his work?), reading events that include audience participation, or the like. The literary world and the artist book world have previously collided and there are a number of artists working in performative reading modes, including, I Wish To Say…Vol 2. By Sheryl Oring and Selected Durations by David Abel, two artist books in the Cynthia Sears Artists Book Collection Bainbridge Island Museum of Art as discussed by Yuka Petz on Artist’s Books Unshelved on June 17, 2023.

For a very recent example of artist book readings, this year at CODEX, Michelle Wilson & Anne Beck hosted an “evening of readings and performance” at the Rhinoceros Reading Room & Ephemera Collection. I hope this reading event is the beginning of a new series!

I’m continuing to research the history of readings and performance related to or happening within the book arts world, looking to the audience of the CBAA Book Arts Theory and Criticism Blog to chime in with some suggestions. I suspect there have been many of these performances or readings that may not have been documented in any formal way and I am hoping that book arts peers can help me build up that archive.

In the meantime, I will include the call for proposal for the Artist Book Reading Series co-hosted by Aaron Cohick and me.

SUBMIT PROPOSAL HERE

CALL FOR READERS

Artist books will be interpreted very broadly for this series. All visual/text formats are welcome: zines, limited editions, fine press, open edition artists’ books, visual poetry, comics, animations, digital art, hybrid media, etc., but all submissions must be tied to a physical book or other publication.

Individual readings will be 10 minutes long with four readers per event. Initial events will take place on Zoom but we are hoping to do some irl events in the future.

Readings can be live, recorded (audio or video), and/or can include visual elements. They could also be a combination of all those things (& maybe others!).

These are not talks about artist book projects. They are performative readings/enactments of the “books.”

All readers will be paid $150. Funding for this series will come from paying subscribers.

The deadline to submit for the May 2024 reading is March 1. The deadline for the fall reading is July 1.

AB Gorham is a book artist and writer from Montana and holds MFAs in Book Arts and Poetry from The University of Alabama. She is Assistant Professor of Book Arts and Papermaking at University of Nebraska Omaha. Her poems have been published in Puerto Del Sol, The Call Center, American Letters and Commentary, DIAGRAM, and Gulf Coast, among others. Her artist books are collected nationally and Unidentified Found Object Song was a semi-finalist for the 2022 MCBA Book Prize.

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CULLING THE ARCHIVES // AB Gorham

01 Feb 2024 12:00 AM | Susan Viguers (Administrator)

In Fall of 2023, I started as Assistant Professor of Book Arts and Papermaking at University of Nebraska Omaha. As newly appointed director, I was eager to make the book arts and papermaking studios my own. Taking over an institution like the UNO Fine Arts Press and Book Arts Program, with its long and robust history of fine press printing, and its excellent undergraduate book arts curriculum, was exciting, intimidating, complex, and also involved reassessment of the program’s aesthetic, vision, priorities, and budget.

The University of Nebraska Omaha Fine Arts Press and Book Arts Curriculum began with Harry Duncan in 1972. Duncan developed the curricular program and published as the fine press Abattoir Editions, producing fine press books in editions of 200-300. Naming the press after Omaha’s stockyards tied the publishing work to Omaha’s mid-western landscape and sensibility, and planted the roots of fine press publications until 1985 when Duncan retired. After his retirement, Bonnie O’Connell directed the UNO Book Arts Program until 2019.

Before I joined UNO, previous instructors, adjuncts, and gallery directors approached the task of clearing out and organizing the potential archival materials, even transporting those materials to the Special Collections Library on campus to be catalogued in the Fine Arts Press Collection. In fact, the recent exhibition at UNO Gallery, Pressing Matters, explored the history of UNO’s Fine Arts Press and the book arts curriculum. The exhibition occasioned an intensive inventory of the books and other archival materials, including its student work archive, as a way to organize materials for the display at the exhibition. This exhibition also used many items from the informal archive, including carved blocks by Karen Kunc (collaborator), newspaper articles about Harry Duncan and Bonnie O’Connell, and letters between Duncan and authors.

I have worked in extremely well-organized studios, such as the studios at Florida State University and Small Craft Advisory Press, and at University of Nevada, Reno, and Black Rock Press. Those studios have developed systems to determine what elements of an edition’s production to keep, and what elements can be recycled or upcycled into student work. These systems prioritize both “perfect” proofs as well as “interesting” proofs that contain the kind of misprints that look like a whole new piece of art. As a working artist, I’m inclined to keep every small scrap of paper (and all of the proofs) because paper is expensive and I need paper to make mockups for the next project. But I know for the most part what the imperfections of each print look like and can assign them value according to how close to the final edition they are. Understanding the value of materials I’m less familiar with is proving to be more difficult.

In the UNO book arts studio, I have encountered stacks of unbound sheets, original drawings and early mockups by Bonnie O’Connell, Harry Duncan, former students, and even surplus Abbattoir and Fine Arts Press title labels for books. Absolute treasures! The history of fine press printing is told by these stacks of sometimes-unfinished editions. Luckily, I can call on Bonnie to clarify whether some of the parts of books are TBB (To Be Bound) or simple overage that can be whittled down to a few copies for the Harry Duncan archive in the Special Collections Library on UNO’s campus. However, and for example, Abattoir Editions has not produced much new fine letterpress printed work since 2001, but much of the completed books and material components of print and binding production remain in the Fine Arts Press studio storage area, leaving me with decisions to be made regarding where or if to archive these materials.

Surrounded by the materials, separated into stacks for the UNO archivists to peruse, I’m asking myself the following questions:

What are the benefits for keeping some of the archive in-studio?

These materials can be used for examples for class

They allow me to make repairs to books, including those that are in the Fine Arts Press archive in the UNO library and beyond

For studios that house Presses, the students are exposed to the overage, and can integrate them into their projects

Students can see the process of a piece, including sketches, inspiring new ideas and approaches, encouraging them to keep going during the slog of makeready.

What are the downfalls for keeping so much archival material in the studio? Mostly, it is an issue of space. And, somewhat, a preservation issue. I don’t yet have archival boxes for keeping documents in an acid-free environment, but I plan to build up this system of safe-keeping in the next year or so.

AB Gorham is a book artist and writer from Montana and holds MFAs in Book Arts and Poetry from The University of Alabama. She is Assistant Professor of Book Arts and Papermaking at University of Nebraska Omaha. Her poems have been published in Puerto Del Sol, The Call Center, American Letters and Commentary, DIAGRAM, and Gulf Coast, among others. Her artist books are collected nationally and Unidentified Found Object Song was a semi-finalist for the 2022 MCBA Book Prize.

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LET IT BLEED, PART 2: VARIATIONS IN FULL BLEED INTERACTIONS // Jeff Nilan

15 Jan 2024 11:00 AM | Susan Viguers (Administrator)

In this follow up post to Let it Bleed, part one, I will explore further the relationship between basic color interaction theory and the ways that full bleed photographs influence one another. I will compare three artist books – two made by former students from my Book Arts classes – along with one of mine that I have used in classes as a teaching tool for the past few semesters.

The first book, The Nature of Us by Ashley Swindell, is a case bound book with full-bleed images and flyout pages throughout. This combination allows for the flyouts to be pulled out to interact with a page spread or tucked back away at any time. The photographs in her book depict the transition from previously rural small-town Ohio into a more suburban new housing development reality. The images in the book layer upon one another; past, present, and future are inextricably linked both in binding and in image interactions. As there is no space between the images, they are always seen in relation to one another. Flyouts at times appear as details of faraway elements in the photographs. Other times they extend the image outside of the standard book length, and when left out they inform the subsequent images. This relates to the subject matter of The Nature of Us in that it embeds and expands the dialogue between loss of the rural and replacement with the suburban; we cannot see one without consideration of the other.

The Nature of Us, consecutive page spreads, case bound book, Ashley Swindell

The second book, Home by Maggie Myers, is a “cased-in” accordion binding with occasional “half-pages,” and the page spreads throughout the book are full bleed photographs. In Home, Myers is conflating photographs taken in her childhood home with photographs taken in her college apartment. The photographs are close ups of walls and surfaces. Light and shadows move through the accordion pages, with the binding knitting together the two separate spaces. Diagonal rays of light seem to transcend the edges of the individual images, resulting in a sort of panoramic viewing of one single space. In this, a comparison can be made to the study showing three colors appearing as two (see color study example in part one) in that images of like subject matter/formal relationships can reduce down, such as three images becoming more like two.

Home, accordion binding, Maggie Myers

The third book, Ground by Jeff Nilan, was initially constructed as a “board book” with full-bleed photographs and one “flyout” page spread. I have always been fond of this book – the photographs and their sequential order – but to me it has never felt like it was settled or comfortable in its binding. Over the past few semesters, I have used this book as a teaching tool by redesigning the layout and binding style while keeping the original nineteen photographs in their original order. With this, I can begin to talk to my students about image/layout /binding relationships through a direct comparison of the same content. The images below show the same page spread as presented in three different binding types: an accordion binding, a Japanese four-hole binding, and the most recent iteration, a traditional case bound book. The case bound iteration is the first to include space between the images, along with removing the potential for altering the sequence as is possible in the accordion version.

Ground, case bound page spread, Jeff Nilan

Ground, accordion page spread, Jeff Nilan

Ground, Japanese binding page spread, Jeff Nilan

Relating the image interactions of these three books to our discussion around color relativity, flyout full-bleed images, and accordion image progressions is like adding additional background colors to the Albers style color studies. In the color study example below, we see that the turquoise strip on the bottom is the same as the strip and individual bars within each of the four backgrounds. There are five distinct color files being used for the study. However, due to the color subtraction and simultaneous contrast effects, we get the appearance of nine hues – 5 distinct colors interact to appear as 9 hues. The turquoise hue is changed in varying degrees of value, intensity, and hue, depending upon which background it interacts with. The turquoise then is a constant, but an inconsistent one; it is unable, when submersed into the full bleed background colors, to show itself for what it is on its own. The turquoise is always seen and interpreted in relation to the background color. Colors influence one another and so, too, images influence one another, especially when the images are flush against one another on at least one contiguous edge.

5 hues appear as 9, digital color study, Jeff Nilan

Jeff Nilan received an MFA from Indiana University in 1999. Growing up in Nebraska, Nilan’s art draws influence from the landscape and culture of the Midwest and he is interested in the ways art reflects and shapes the mythology of this region. Jeff resides in Delaware, Ohio and is Professor of Studio Art at Ohio Wesleyan University.

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LET IT BLEED: COLOR THEORY AND PHOTOGRAPHIC SEQUENCING FOR BOOK ARTS, PART 1 // Jeff Nilan

01 Jan 2024 12:00 AM | Susan Viguers (Administrator)

For the past twenty years I have taught three courses: Color/Design Fundamentals, Photography, and Book Arts. One place where the concerns of the three courses meet is in designing page spreads for artist books. In my book arts courses, students often use the convention of the "full bleed" page layouts when using photographs in their books. I would like to explore the qualities of full-bleed images in book design, as it relates to the concept of "simultaneous contrast" and "color relativity.”

In my color/design courses, I posit that color is relative – always influenced by light and proximity to other colors. I stress that this relativity happens whether we want it to or not, so we should understand how it works. I base this study on the findings of a nineteenth century French chemist, Michel Eugene Chevreul, who published the book The Laws of Contrast of Colour: And Their Application to the Arts, in which he outlines the idea of "simultaneous contrast" in color interaction. Speaking about the juxtaposition of adjacent colors, contiguous on one edge, Chevruel writes, "now as these modifications cause the colours to appear, when looked at together, more different than they really are, I have given them the name of the simultaneous contrast of colours."[1]

Clarity of the color effects can be seen in the classic teaching studies of Josef Albers, who was influenced by Chevreul [2], by making studies in which 3 colors appear as two or three colors appear as four. In these simple arrangements, placing two full bleed color blocks adjacent to one another and adding one additional hue into both blocks will result in either an expansion or a reduction of the individual hues.

Digital color study examples by Jeff Nilan

In my photography courses, we explore how images influence one another in a group, a series, and ultimately in a sequence. We come to see that the information in photographs, regardless of the color/tonal qualities, is also relative. Like color, images are influenced by proximity to other images. This subject matter seems especially pliant when images are placed flush against one another with a "contiguous edge." As this happens whether we intend it to or not, we should understand more about how it works. A book that I regularly show in all three of my courses, that combines the concept of simultaneous contrast with photographic imagery, is Some(W)here by Andres Gonzalez.

I stumbled upon Some(W)here years ago at Photo-Eye Books, when I randomly pulled the small cloudy grey casebound book off of the shelf because it had a blank spine. In fact, other than the title on the front and back covers and a minimal colophon, there is no text throughout the book. Opening the book, we are drawn into the sequence with a close up of landing gear on an airplane. What follows is a seeming travelog of images, both disparate in subject and related in tone, that are knitted together as full bleed page spreads with occasional partial pages.

Gonzalez, Andreas (2012). SOME(W)HERE. Amsterdam: MartSpruijt

Images in the book often transcend the gutter, sometimes pinched, with the main focal point of the photograph sinking into and out from the gutter. Images become layered when passages of partial pages interact with previous and those yet not arrived at, such as horizon line from a yet unseen landscape. Full width pages then become hints, fragments, place holders, that we can we hang on to for brief passages, before they disappear back into the text block.

Just as a brown rectangle in the Albers' study mentioned above surrounded by red and green cannot be seen as it is when surrounded by white, in Some(W)here, I would suggest, the images can never be viewed as individuals, uninformed and shaped by the others. They are, as full bleeds, a continuous vibration of subject matter.

[1] Chevruel, M.E. (1861, 3rd Edition). The Laws of Contrast of Colour: And Their Application to the Arts. London: Routledge, Warne, and Routledge. Link to the Getty Center Library PDF: https://ia803206.us.archive.org/20/items/lawsofcontrastof00chev/lawsofcontrastof00chev.pdf

[2] https://clarencewardartlibrary.tumblr.com/post/189845887016/color-theory-chevreul-albers

[3] Gonzalez, Andreas (2012). SOME(W)HERE. Amsterdam: MartSpruijt.

Jeff Nilan received an MFA from Indiana University in 1999. Growing up in Nebraska, Nilan’s art draws influence from the landscape and culture of the Midwest and he is interested in the ways art reflects and shapes the mythology of this region. Jeff resides in Delaware, Ohio and is Professor of Studio Art at Ohio Wesleyan University.

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INTIMACY AS MORE THAN A EUPHEMISM // Carley Gomez

15 Dec 2023 12:00 AM | Susan Viguers (Administrator)

I frequently see the word “intimacy” associated with artist books. But what exactly does it mean? What we lack in a shared understanding, we make up for with diverse definitions that offer myriad ways to experience and interpret artist books. Yet, lurking beneath these definitions is a shared sense of euphemism, one that limits what intimacy can be. First, I will catalogue several existing uses of the concept in our field. Then, I will offer a more expansive vision of intimacy.

Intimacy as exchange

Having an “intimate” experience with a book is conceived as an imaginary meeting-of-minds with the book’s creator. In an article for The Art Newspaper, tellingly titled “In an ever-mediated world, artists’ books offer an intimate encounter,” Jacky Klein discusses the increasing popularity of artist books: “The growth of the sector also attests to the continuing lure of the book as a space for an intimate, unmediated encounter with its maker.” [1]

Tia Blassingame and Ellen Sheffield describe artist books similarly in a Bainbridge Island Museum of Art exhibition, “Troubling: Artists’ Books that enlighten and disrupt old ways of being and seeing.” They write, “Artists’ books have an uncanny ability to take even the most challenging, complex, polarizing content and mix it with techniques from papermaking to paper engineering and printmaking with almost any other elements…in order to have a conversation with the reader/viewer. These conversations may be intimate, emotional, educational, thought-provoking, opinion-altering, and world view expanding.” [2] However, this form of conversation is often one-sided and reduces the potential for other types of intimacy.

Intimacy as disclosure

In The Century of Artists’ Books, Johanna Drucker uses Duane Michael’s Take One and See Mr. Fujiyama to discuss a category she calls photo-narratives with text. She writes: “The captions are handwritten under the images and have all the characteristic immediacy and intimacy of personal jottings.” [3] The implication is that unedited, or at least, unpolished statements create “intimacy,” that the direct trace of the artist’s hand reveals a certain rawness. The viewer performs the role of voyeur, witnessing something private, illicit, but placed in plain sight by the artist’s own hand.

Intimacy as physical closeness

In gallery didactics and artist statements, I often read “intimate” as a euphemism for “small” — the smaller the book, the closer one must be to properly experience it. Such closeness may, but does not necessarily, entail the disclosure of personal jottings or shared thoughts and feelings of the definitions above.

This physical closeness is not just a feature of the book and its reader but also of elements within the book. We see this in Clive Phillpot’s essay “Some Contemporary Artists and Their Books.” He writes, “The fact that certain bookworks combine words and pictures intimately, in a non-illustrative manner, complicates [analogies to film and poetry] and makes for further richness.” [4] As a formal feature of the composition, physical proximity is meant to inform the viewer’s interpretation, but this is a unidirectional form of meaning-making. It also isn’t clear how intimacy here differs from mere closeness, or whether all comingling of text and image is intimate.

Toward a new intimacy

Despite the variety of uses above, the euphemistic connotations of “intimacy” saddle the word with conservative baggage. Quality and value are absent from phrases like “being intimate,” and its default use assumes an interaction between two people. It is no surprise that the “intimacy” of the artist book often mirrors the heteronormative encounter — artist and reader, giver and receiver.

However, Johanna Drucker pushes beyond this conservative paradigm, writing “No single encounter with a successful book closes off its polyvalent possibilities.” [5] On the following page, Drucker uses “intimate” as physical closeness, but she also gestures toward an expanded definition: “Enclosure and intimacy are two familiar features of this spatial embrace, and as a personal experience offering itself anew to each viewer, the book is unparalleled for its richness of detail, variety, and repleteness.” [6]

That experience is not rich in spite of the book’s embrace but because of it. The agency of the book mediates the exchange between artist and viewer. By recognizing the third party in this relationship, we can trouble the heteronormative paradigm of intimacy. This further expands the multiplicity of experiences and meanings already implied in Drucker’s claim that each reader sees the book anew.

Previous forms of “intimacy” conceive of two people as close together, physically and/or metaphorically, as possible. In the context of artist books, such an intimacy erases the object it is supposed to theorize. Instead, we must recognize another, queer, polyvalent intimacy. In this expansive and inclusive intimacy, the book is not an inert layer of mediation between two people, it is an agential object that amplifies their experience.

1. Jacky Klein, “In an ever-mediated world, artists’ books offer an intimate encounter,” The Art Newspaper, April 22, 2020, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2020/04/22/in-an-ever-mediated-world-artists-books-offer-an-intimate-encounter.

2. Tia Blassingame and Ellen Sheffield, “Troubling: Artists’ Books that enlighten and disrupt old ways of being and seeing,” Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, accessed December 3, 2023, https://www.biartmuseum.org/exhibitions/troubling-artists-books-that-enlighten-and-disrupt-old-ways-of-being-and-seeing/.

3. Johanna Drucker, The Century of Artists’ Books (New York City: Granary Books, 1995), 264–265.

4. Clive Phillpot, “Some Contemporary Artists and Their Books” in Joan Lyons, ed., Artists’ Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook (Rochester, N.Y.: Visual Studies Workshop, 1985), 129.

5. Drucker, 359.

6. Drucker, 360.

Carley Gomez is an artist and writer in Madison, Wisconsin. She is co-founder of Partial Press.

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COLLABORATIVE VOICES FOR CANCER & LOVE: PART II. Midwifery, VSW Press // Kathy Hettinga and Tate Shaw

01 Dec 2023 12:00 AM | Susan Viguers (Administrator)

I am grateful for the collaborative work of Tate Shaw and his decision to publish Cancer & Love as a VSW Press book. As I mentioned in Part I, the book began during the start of the COVID pandemic, necessitating a long-distance collaboration. During the lockdown, I experienced expanses of productive time, married with long gestational periods. Tate’s description of his work as that of ‘midwifery’—helping the artist to birth their vision—is aptly true for Cancer & Love.

Cancer & Love, Kathy T. Hettinga, French-fold Mohawk Superfine, 7x7.75, with 5x7 booklet.

Below Tate describes his work as editor: “As the current editor of VSW Press, I consider myself less an editor and more a facilitator of artists’ visions for a publication made with available means. When I’m selecting or inviting an artist to publish a book with VSW, I’m conscious of how the work is in dialogue with—or making completely new additions to—the themes and perspectives found in the roughly six hundred titles published by the Press, founded by Joan Lyons in 1971. About 85% of the Press’ catalog was published by Joan. Women telling their own stories through images and texts (including diaries) to make books about being women, lovers, bodies, having health events and encounters with the healthcare industry, all are present in that history. Connected to Cancer & Love, specific past titles from VSW Press that come to mind are Joan’s own book The Gynecologist and Susan E. King’s Treading the Maze.

Cancer & Love, Kathy T. Hettinga, French-fold Mohawk Superfine, 7x7.75, with 5x7 booklet.

“I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on Joan’s work as a publisher and my own work with artists in part because I was recently asked to interview Joan for a kind of retrospective of her work at a prominent gallery in the region. In addition, as part of a 50^th anniversary issue of Afterimage: the Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, I was interviewed in connection to an earlier interview I did of Joan that Afterimage published in 2004, when I was her student. Here is what I said in that piece:

“‘Despite being more comfortable and friendly with Joan after two decades, I was more intimidated to interview her the second time, earlier this year. As a student, I believed I knew more than I did about her practice and publishing approach. She is often described as a feminist artist—and she is—but I had a narrow, masculinist view of what that meant. I’ve been party to Joan’s commitment and fierceness firsthand and have always heard stories about her willingness to wade into conflicts. I think I anticipated she would be assertive and authoritative about her role as an editor and publisher. Back then I wanted her to tell me the secret to selecting and shaping books to be published because that’s exactly what I wanted to do and I wanted to be seen as such an authority in the field. But she basically said that she worked in service to artists’ visions and midwifed productions into being. And after learning to do just that for years with VSW Press, I understood Joan’s approach more from lived experience, which is humbling and edifying. I see more of the pluralism in Joan’s feminism now and attempted in our most recent interview to reframe that same question for her to discuss how she helped ground and support a plurality of voices through her work as an artist, printer, and publisher.’”

“So all that to say, when I’m working with artists I try to model Joan’s approach of midwifery (if I can claim the metaphor). Where I’m most directive is being open to and suggesting that artists draw from their interests in other modes and media like literature, film, sound, etc. or to affirm and be supportive of ideas that may seem crazy to them or ones they haven’t seen before. This leads to more intersectional and experimental publications and more creative challenges. Unfortunately, I’m always mindful as well to try and keep editions at a relatively inexpensive retail point of less than $75, if possible. Because I’d like people to read the books we make and not just have them be collected or boxed up somewhere (or remain in the Press storeroom, for that matter). My experience working with artists on books is they will have ideas and approaches to their material that would never occur to me to personally try and accomplish, which was very much the case with Cancer & Love. It’s been a creative puzzle we’ve been handing back and forth for years to try and resolve for ourselves and for the reader.”

Cancer & Love, Kathy T. Hettinga. Early clothbound dummy on left, final wrap-around post structure on right, with 6 booklets in French fold envelopes.

Given the grace of time and Tate’s ongoing support of the vision, it became apparent that the book needed to incorporate more text from my chemo journals. The reader may read as much (or as little) as desired. The growing text necessitated numerous structural dummies, that in the final puzzle became saddle-stitched booklets, fitted into envelopes formed by French folds. These in turn created the need for spine-padding, which in turn necessitated the cover design to morph from a clothbound codex to a wrap-around one. Tate shared that opening the wrap-around cover and laying the booklets out, created the necessary material/immaterial space to read Cancer & Love. Solving the ‘creative puzzle’ with Tate was a deep and engaging privilege!

Kathy T. Hettinga is a book artist, designer, photographer and hospice chaplain. Awarded the Distinguished Professor of Art, her books are in collections from Harvard’s Fogg Museum to UCLA. Residencies include: Yale Research Fellow, Luce Center for Arts and Religion, Pyramid Atlantic, WSW and VSW.

Tate Shaw is an artist, writer, publisher, and curator. At VSW Tate is the Editor of Visual Studies Workshop Press where he works with artists and the community to conceive, produce and distribute books. He is also the Director of Tower Fine Arts Gallery and Associate Professor at SUNY Brockport.

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