Sue Mulcahy, Choices, Charcoal, gesso, crayon, graphite, soot, acrylic medium, wax on rag and rice papers
Lain York, Stock Characters/Dialogue Boxes, Cut vinyl
forming a kind of rectangular tube. Readers gaze through peepholes in the covers of the books and are treated to illustrations, pop-up elements, and even text receding into the three-dimensional space defined by the connected pages. McGee’s take on this form offers the depth and shape of the form while the colorful washes, painted geometric shapes, and rusty residues on her panels stand in for the fantastical figures that might populate a more traditional volume.
The images in Lain York's Stock Characters/Dialog Boxes are cartoonish and irreverent, and the techniques—often purposely slapdash and offhanded—are a perfect match for this compendium of colorful characters.
Mel Ziegler’s contribution to the exhibition is also a foldout book but one that plays with more familiar conventions. Ziegler’s volume is sandwiched between two bookends in lieu of front and back covers. The bookends are replicas of Mt. Rushmore, and his book opens to reveal a series of portraits, taken from kitsch memorabilia, of the presidents who grace the mountain. Each is printed on the folded sections of one long page. Grouped together, the portraits reveal that these are more types than representations of real men.
One of the most powerful pieces in the show is Alecia Henry’s A Tale. Featuring combinations of board, gesso, and fabric that make the work unmistakably Henry’s, A Tale is a series of masks that serve as the pages in a visual narrative meant to challenge the Anglo-Saxon biases of traditional fairy tales. Containing real mystery, beauty, and even some scary surprises, the stack of masks rests on a pile of dirt within a beautifully bound box made by Stadig. The combination reminds us that the best fairy stories put the “fun” in “funereal.” The exhibit 20 Collaborations in Book Art will be on display in the Nashville Public Library Art Gallery through July 27. To see all of the books online visit www.20collaborations.com.
Alicia Henry, A Tale, Mixed media
NashvilleArts.com
March 2014 | 49