Art & Words: A Celebration of the Book in Works of Art

Ar t & Word s

A Celebration of the Book in Works of Art

A r t &Word s A Celebration of the Book in Works of Art Robert Adams

Marie Dern

Charles Hobson

Carolee Campbell

Brian Dettmer

Sandy Tilcock

Julie Chen

Daniel Essig

Danielle Giudici Wallis

Coleen Curry

Andrew Hayes

Barbara Wildenboer

A note from: Robin Eidsmo Executive Director SUN VALLEY WRITERS’ CONFERENCE

For 25 years, the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference has been privileged to celebrate writers, to the joy of all of us who love books. To enrich your Conference experience and engage your senses, we offer you an extraordinary 25th anniversary exhibition that features the book as an art form.

Three years ago, we installed the ART & WORDS exhibition to honor Carolee Campbell, a respected book artist and friend. Throughout the Conference years, Carolee’s beautiful broadsides, with their thoughtfully chosen passages from the poetry and prose of our writers, have been given to presenters and major donors.

For the second year in a row, SVWC is benefitting from the extraordinary knowledge and curatorial skills of Donna Seager of Seager/Gray Gallery. Donna, who annually curates her gallery’s Art of the Book exhibition, has deliberately chosen a wide range of works that include handmade artist books, altered books, and sculpture. For this 25th anniversary of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, there will be pieces on exhibit by several artists who have been directly inspired by past and new presenters at the Conference.

For example, established book artist, Charles Hobson, who has long been an admirer of the prose of Barry Lopez, based his piece, The Mappist, on Lopez’s multi-layered short story of the same name. Poems by our treasured, twice-named Poet Laureate, William S. Merwin, were instrumental in the creation of both Carolee Campbell’s The Real World of Manuel Córdova and Charles Hobson’s Trees.

Award-winning bookbinder Coleen Curry first acquired a signed, first edition of Carl Hiaasen’s Razor Girl, bound it in leather and emblazoned the cover with razor blades.

In appreciation of Madeline Miller’s Circe, Barbara Wildenboer, a South African who is internationally recognized and a recipient of numerous awards, altered a vintage mythology book entitled Tales of Gods and Heroes.

I invite you to visit our third annual ART & WORDS exhibition. This exquisite installation at the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference promises to expand your vision, open new windows of appreciation, and offer a refreshing glimpse into the rich and diverse world of art inspired by books.

A r t & Word s A Celebration of the Book in Works of Art Celebrating 25 years of The Sun Valley Writers Conference Saturday, July 20 - Tuesday, July 23, 2019 Front Cover: Carolee Campbell, The Real World of Manuel Cรณrdova: W S Merwin, 1995, handmade artist book, 3.5 x 13.25 inches Back Cover: Daniel Essig, Eddy, 2019, painted wood, handmade paper, mica, lead type, urchins, Ethiopian and Coptic bindings, 5.25 x 8.5 x 3 inches Photo Credits: Robert Adams: Jay Daniel, Black Cat Studio Carolee Campbell: Carolee Campbell Julie Chen: Sibila Savage Coleen Curry: Jay Daniel, Black Cat Studio Daniel Essig: Steve Mann Andrew Hayes: Steve Mann Charles Hobson: Alice Shaw Exhibition Curated by Donna Seager

Direct inquiries to: Seager Gray Gallery 108 Throckmorton Avenue Mill Valley, CA 94941 415-384-8288 seagergray.com All rights reserved.

Catalogs can be purchased through the gallery for $20 plus handling and shipping. Email us at art@seagergray.com

It was a great treat for me to curate an exhibition of book-related arts for a crowd of people gathered to celebrate their love of writers and the written word.

To my mind, books are difficult to surpass as both relevant symbol and rich material available to artists everywhere. This magical object holding pages in consecutive order, bound together with thread glue and cloth has the power to transport us into unknown lands, educate and entertain us or bring to us collections of poetry – glimpses into the sublime. Books are a revered form to hold meaning.

In the hands of artists, books can be transformed into eloquent works that enhance our experience of reading, subvert or recontextualize content, replicate patterns found in nature or make wry commentary on popular culture.

I am grateful to Barbi Reed for her partnership in this project and to the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference for giving me the opportunity to exhibit the works in an atmosphere centered on writing and the love of books.

Donna Seager, June, 2019

Robert Adams Deer, 2018 basswood, milk paint 31 x 29 x 16 inches

Robert Adams Mill Valley, California

Woodcarver, Robert Adams attended the Art Institute of Boston and spent two more years studying drawing and painting at the San Francisco Art Institute where he also delved into ceramics and paint finishes. In order to frame his work, he got a job at a frame shop and eventually opened a framing business himself finding that he loved working with wood. The access to a shop and tools inspired his move toward wood sculpture.

Adams has been in many ACC (American Craft Council) exhibitions and has shown in galleries across the country.

He sources ideas from folk art, antique furniture and vintage objects, the hidden layers of paint and wear always speaking to him. These new works bring his drawings into 3 dimensions and showcase his reverence for early folk traditions.

Many of Adams’ works pair beautifully carved books with figures or animals like Deer and, connecting them to their place in storytelling and expanding our imagination.

Robert Adams Sentinel, 2017 basswood, milk paint 26 x 15 x 12 inches

Carolee Campbell The Real World of Manuel Cรณrdova W S Merwin, 1995 handmade artist book 3.5 x 13.25 inches

Carolee Campbell, Ninja Press Sherman Oaks, California

Ninja press was inaugurated in 1984 by Carolee Campbell who is its sole proprietor. While there was no specific literary agenda governing the selection of works to be published by the press at the outset, the abiding interest has been, in the main, contemporary poetry. Turning photographic sequences into bound books ushered the way into bookbinding, followed by experimental book structures. Eventually, she expanded her work into letterpress printing, thereby opening the way into contemporary poetry – confronting it for the first time with a directness and penetration she had seldom experienced as a reader.

One of the primary goals set at the inception of the press was to strive toward the highest standards of excellence in craftsmanship and quality while attempting to find new approaches to the union between word, image, and book structure. That aspiration continues to fuel the inspiration for future edition works as well as one-of-a-kind books. Campbell’s aim is toward the sublime. With impeccable taste in poetry and a deep respect for materials, her books enhance the experience of reading, communicating the deep reverence she herself has for poetry.

The Real World of Manuel Córdova, a single, long poem by W. S. Merwin was inspired by events in the life of Manuel Córdova-Rios; extraordinary events that took place deep in the forest at the headwaters of the Amazon River in 1907.

Printed in hand set Samson Uncial on kakishibu, a persimmon-washed and smoked handmade paper from the Fuji Paper Mills Cooperative in Tokushima, Japan. The accordion-style book may be read in hand, stanza by stanza, or opened entirely to reveal all forty-three, fourteen-line stanzas. Fully extended, the book is fifteen feet long. The image of a river undulates alongside the poem.

Some of the institutions which hold all or significant Ninja Press books are the British Library, Brown University, University of California (Los Angeles), University of California (San Diego), University of California (Santa Barbara), California Polytechnic State University (San Luis Obispo), California State University (Northridge), Columbia University, Dartmouth College, University of Delaware, Getty Research Institute, University of Iowa, Lafayette College, Library of Congress, University of Nevada-Reno, Occidental College, University of Pennsylvania, University of San Francisco, San Francisco Public Library, Scripps College, Smith College, Stanford University, University of Utah, University of Vermont, University of Washington, Wellesley College, Western Michigan University, and University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Julie Chen True to Life, 2004 handmade letterpress book 9.5 x 14.75 x 1 inches edition of 100

Julie Chen, Flying Fish Press Berkeley, California

Julie Chen’s non-traditional approach to bookmaking inspires us to consider new definitions of what a book can be. Her talents incorporate writing, printing, binding and inventing structures that offer new experiences of reading. Under the imprint Flying Fish Press, she has been publishing limited edition artists’ books for over 20 years. Her work is known for combining three-dimensional and movable book structures with fine letterpress printing and inspired artistic vision.

True to Life is about the subtle yet powerful influence that memory has on daily life. Personal history, while seemingly rooted in fact, may contain more meaning as narrative than it does as documentation of truth. In the form of a tablet with sliding pages, True to Life offers an innovative physical structure which corresponds to the shifting nature of memory, allowing the reader to create different combinations of text and image and thus alter the content of the piece, deliberately or by chance, with each reading. The tablet, with wooden handles and plexiglass window, measures 9 1/2 inches by 14 3/4 inches by 1 inch thick. The box contains a lifting floor with a built-in prop and can hold the tablet in an upright position for reading and display. The box dimensions are 10 inches by 15 inches by 2 1/2 inches.

In addition to the text, which is thoughtful and exquisitely human, Chen has created a visual language in which the shapes and patterns in the wonderful prints all have significance with a legend to explain. Three views are offered below.

Julie Chen Chrysalis, 2019 handmade letterpress book 9 x 16 x 4.5 inches edition of 50

Julie Chen, Flying Fish Press Berkeley, California

Chrysalis is an interpretation of the complex and transformative nature of the process of grief. The piece consists of a sculptural book object housed in a box. The book object is held together by a series of magnets and can be opened by the viewer until all the panels lie in a flat plane, revealing an inner book with circular pages that can be held in the hand and read. All content is letterpress printed on handmade paper using photopolymer plates.

The shape of the outer structure is a version of an oloid, a geometric shape discovered by sculptor and mathematician Paul Schate in 1929.

An oloid is defined by the space created by two linked circles that intersect on perpendicular planes. It is the relationship of the circles that creates the shape.

Julie received her undergraduate education at University of California, Berkeley and a graduate degree in Book Arts from Mills College in Oakland, California. Her artists’ books can be found in many collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She teaches in the book art program at Mills College in Oakland, California, as well teaching workshops at institutions around the country. She lives and works in Berkeley, California. Her catalog, Reading the Object: Three Decades of Books by Julie Chen was published by Mills College Center for the Book and Flying Fish Press.

Coleen Curry

Muir Beach, California Coleen Curry was sent the list of authors attending the Sun Valley Writers Conference and became interested in creating a custom binding for Carl Hiaasen’s Razor Girl using actual razor blades and leather. She obtained a signed first edition copy of the book for rebinding. Housed in a fabric-covered clamshell box, this leather-bound one of a kind binding looks menacing with its razor blades sewn into beautifully variegated leather, but the blades are actually soft and have no power to harm.

Curry is a contemporary design binder. Her aim is to craft technically evocative bindings that provide a visual, sensual, and tactile experience. She bound her first book in 2003 with Tini Muira; the experience was a game changer. In 2009, Coleen received her Diploma in Fine Binding from the American Academy of Bookbinding (AAB). Notably she has studied with Monique Lallier, Eleanore Ramsey, and Hélène Jolis. Coleen assists Don Glaister teaching fine binding at AAB and has led workshops in the US and Australia since 2014. She is past President of the Hand Bookbinders of California and a Board member of the San Francisco Center for the Book. She exhibits internationally, has won several awards, and her work is held in both private and public collections including the Boston Athenæum and Bancroft Library. Coleen is Canadian and lives on the California coast where she crafts design binding, and in her free time, swims and rock climbs.

“I am fascinated with contrast of texture, form and movement, and incorporate asymmetry and Earth elements into my bindings,” says Curry. “I tend to work on one book or small editions at a time, and utilize a combination of traditional materials, found objects, with manipulated leather and modified decorative techniques to realize the final design. My aim is to craft bindings that provide a visual, sensual, and tactile experience.”

Coleen Curry Razor Girl, 2019 custom bound signed first edition copy 10 x 7.5 x 2 inches

Marie Dern and Danielle Giudici Wallis Crow, 2012 hand made artist book 9.5 x 9 inches

Marie Dern, Danielle Giudici Wallis Fairfax, California, Redlands, California

Marie C. Dern was born and raised in Salt Lake City. She received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley. After graduation she attended the Sorbonne in Paris. Returning to school in the 80s, Marie received a Master of Arts degree in Book Arts from Mills College in 1986.

In 1974 Marie began Jungle Garden Press in Berkeley. She has since printed and published more than 40 books, including her own writings as well as others. She also makes sculptural books, one of a kind and small editions. Her books are printed letterpress and are bound by hand with attention to combining structure and content to illuminate the meaning of the text. The subjects are often humorous and ironic.

Danielle Giudici-Wallis received her MFA from Stanford University where she was recipient of the Murphy Cadogan Grant, the James Borelli Fellowship in Art, the Anita Squires Memorial Fund in Photography and a fellowship from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for the Visual Arts. Her work has been exhibited widely in the Bay Area and beyond including shows at Catharine Clark Gallery, SFMOMA Artists Gallery, The Bedford Gallery, Raid Projects in Los Angeles, The San Jose Museum of Art and The California Palace of the Legion of Honor which holds one of her artist’s books in their Achenbach collection.

Crow is an accordion book with tree stump binding, letterpress text on mulberry paper, knitted paper bark, piano hinge, drawing on vellum and curved paper replicating the rings of a tree.

Danielle Giudici-Wallis explores themes of home and place in her work. Having recently moved from the Bay Area to a small desert town in Southern California, she found a note about a pet crow - lost, sight-impaired, but willing to come when called - a found poem. When she told the story to her friend Marie Dern, they decided to collaborate, incorporating GiudiciWallis' unique way of knitting paper to form the bark of the tree stump.

Brian Dettmer The New Practical Reference, 2018 hardcover books, acrylic, varnish

33.25 x 11.75 x 11.75 inches

Brian Dettmer New York, New York

Brian Dettmer is a New York-based artist born in 1974 in Naperville, Illinois known for his detailed and innovative sculptures with books and other forms of antiquated media.

In his work, Dettmer begins with an existing book and seals its edges, creating an enclosed vessel full of unearthed potential. He cuts into the surface of the book and dissects through it from the front. He works with knives, tweezers and surgical tools to carve one page at a time, exposing each layer while cutting around ideas and images of interest. Nothing inside the books is relocated or implanted, only removed. Images and ideas are revealed to expose alternate histories and memories. His work is a collaboration with the existing material and its past creators and the completed pieces expose new relationships of the book’s internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception.

About his work Brian says: “The age of information in physical form is waning. As intangible routes thrive with quicker fluidity, material and history are being lost, slipping and eroding into the ether. Newer media swiftly flips forms, unrestricted by the weight of material and the responsibility of history. In the tangible world we are left with a frozen material but in the intangible world we may be left with nothing. History is lost as formats change from physical stability to digital distress.

The New Practical Reference, 2018 is composed of a six volume set of reference books titled The New Practical Reference Library, originally published by Hanson Bellows Company in 1913. The structure of this work frames the object of the book a cultural artifact- an object from a different culture that is now misunderstood through the mediation of time. Holes through the sculpture’s surface suggest the forgotten memories of our own cultural past, allowing us windows to see through the dense records of history. Through sculptural subtraction, a matrix of images and text presents a rich surface of fragmented clusters and concepts in a new light. Texts and imagery become poetry and even political commentary as isolated words, images, and facts take on new meanings.

Daniel Essig Eddy, 2019 handmade book 5.25 x 8.5 x 3 inches above

Shelved, 2019 handmade book 6 x 9 x 4.5 inches right

Daniel Essig

Penland, North Carolina

Penland artist, Daniel Essig blends imagination with a deep respect for ancient traditions. Using a fourth-century binding known as Ethiopian-style Coptic, he creates mixed-media book structures that incorporate unusual woods, handmade papers, found objects and mica. Both sculptor and archivist, Essig has been collecting things from the time he was a child in Missouri – rocks, shells, Indian arrowhead, seedpods, bones bits of rusty nails, animal teeth and fossils. “They represent periods in my life, even just days or moments,” he says. “I keep my collection of objects in drawers, bottles, and boxes within a single small room in my house. The space has the feel of a German Wunderkammern, a “cabinet of curiosities.” I often sit in the room and scan my collection, seeking just the right object to inspire a new book or sculpture.”

There is no mistaking a work by Daniel Essig. They have the patina of time with the distressed wood and embedded artifacts and at the same time they often challenge the notion of book as in his work Eddy, where two books are mounted back to back with a wooden vessel on top. As you move to open the books on opposite sides, the boat turns as in a whirlpool.

All of the books have Essig’s signature Coptic binding.

Essig received his degree at the University of South Illinois at Carbondale, where he worked for a time as a graduate assistant for a professor who went on photographic caving expeditions. He found himself gravitating towards the colors of decay, the beauty of aging. “I kept an eye out for Native American petroglyphs, abstract designs or images of footprints or animals.” He had also begun to experiment in bookmaking. His professor’s wife, a graduate student, made exquisite books and had studied at Penland in North Carolina. She knew it was the right place for Essig. As he finished his degree at Carbondale, he spent his summers as a work scholarship student at Penland, and later became a core student there. It was at Penland that he began to concentrate exclusively on Ethiopian Coptic books.

Essig is now a studio artist and teacher living in Penland. He teaches book arts workshops at book centers, craft schools and colleges. He exhibits his work nationally and is in numerous collections including the Mint Museum and The Clarence Ward Art Library at Oberlin College. His sculptural pieces are featured in The Penland Book of Handmade Books as well as countless other publications. He holds a unique place among book artists and is respected world-wide.

Andrew Hayes Omphalos, 2019 fabricated steel and book paper 21.5 x 13 x 8.5 inches

Andrew Hayes

Asheville, North Carolina

Like a conductor of an orchestra, Andrew Hayes transforms steel and paper into a symphony of shape and form. Masterfully counterpointing curved and straight lines, he continues to find new arrangements that resolve the elements in satisfying and surprising ways. Paper in Hayes’ sculpture assumes the natural properties of water, taking the shape of whatever contains or borders it.

In his work, Omphalos for instance, the upper lines of a rectangle meet in the middle to hold suspended a curved shape of steel and book pages that widens beyond the width of the sides giving the illusion of weight and gravity. The title, Omphalos is a religious stone artifact. In Ancient Greek, the word means "navel." Among the Ancient Greeks, it was a widespread belief that Delphi was the center of the world. According to the myths regarding the founding of the Delphic Oracle, Zeus, in his attempt to locate the center of the earth, launched two eagles from the two ends of the world, and the eagles, starting simultaneously and flying at equal speed, crossed their paths above the area of Delphi, and so was the place where Zeus placed the stone. Omphalos Syndrome refers to the belief that a place of geopolitical power and currency is the most important place in the world.

A master of steel fabrication Hayes’ welds are imperceptible, and his surfaces are sanded to a pebble-like smoothness, except for when roughness is intentional. His forms are elegant, even formal in their design, but they are never oversimplified as he constantly tinkers with the shapes innovating creative approaches to composition.

Andrew Hayes grew up in Tucson, Arizona and studied sculpture at Northern Arizona University. The desert landscape inspired much of his early sculptural work and allowed him to cultivate his style in fabricated steel. While living in Portland, Oregon, bouncing between welding jobs and creating his own work he was invited to the EMMA collaboration. The experience was liberating for him and he was encouraged to apply to the Core Fellowship at Penland School of Crafts. There he was able to explore a variety of materials and technique.

Andrew Hayes' work appears in collections at the Yale Museum of Art, the Houston Museum of Art and Black Mountain College. He has been the subject of many reviews and articles and is a favorite among online zines such as Design Milk and Beautiful Decay. It is, however, in the studio that his greatest strides are made. In these sophisticated works, he continues to push boundaries while adhering to rigorous standards of flawless fabrication. His instinct for composition and form becomes ever more refined by curious investigation, faith in process and an ever-deepening understanding of his materials and the various ways they can behave.

Charles Hobson The Mappist, Barry Lopez, 2005 handmade artist book 11 x 10 x 1.25 inches

Charles Hobson

San Francisco, California

Barry Lopez’s exquisitely multi-layered short story, The Mappist was made into a limited edition of forty-eight copies in the summer and fall of 2005 by Charles Hobson of Pacific Editions.

Each book has been assembled using original USGS maps for the concertina binding and selected pages, and the cover has been wrapped with a reproduction of a 1911 map of Bogotá from the collection of the Library of Congress. The slipcase has been covered with wood-grained paper to suggest the map cabinet which plays a pivotal role in the story. A metal label holder acts as a spine label. The concertina binding, when looked at from the edge, takes on its own topography of mountains and valleys.

Lopez’s story deals with his narrator’s search for the creator of unique maps that capture the essence of a place, including such details as soil, plant life, geology and history.

The mapmaker, Benefideo illuminates the layered depths of understanding possible when the world is viewed in all its related complexity. The awe inspired by the mappist’s renderings echo Lopez’ own reverence and respect for nature.

Images of hands emulating gestures of a map maker at work have been reproduced as digital pigment prints on transparent film.

Landscape images and an image of pencils from the writing desk of Barry Lopez have been created as monotypes with pastel and printed as digital pigment prints.

The text has been printed letterpress by Les Ferriss on BFK Rives using a Garamond Narrow typeface. John DeMerritt made the slipcase and board covers with the assis- tance of Kris Langan. The book design and images have been created by Charles Hobson who assembled the book with the assistance of Alice Shaw.

Charles Hobson Quarantine, Eavan Boland, 2011 handmade artist book 9 x 6.5 x 2.25 inches

Charles Hobson

San Francisco, California

Charles Hobson is well-known in the artist's book world, both for his own finely made exquisite artist books and for his endless support of the book as a medium for art. His books are characterized by elegant choices in materials and delicately wrought imagery as well as a profound respect for his subject matter.

Charles Hobson has operated Pacific Editions, a publisher of limited edition artist books since 1986. He has taught about artists's books at the San Francisco Art Institute. In 2007, Stanford University acquired the design archive of his work and mounted coordinated exhibitions at the Green Library and the Cantor Art Museum. In 2019 The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco mounted an exhibition of his works at the Legion of Honor to celebrate the acquisition of thirty of his books by the Museums.

His work explores themes of poetry, classical mythology, astronomy, surrealism, shipwrecks, and love affairs of famous historical figures, among other topics, through the medium of the artist's book.

Eavan Boland’s moving poem, Quarantine is a stark and severe depiction of the deep relationship between a man and a woman that transcends the traditions of love poetry. The imagery and design of the book have been inspired by the bleak winter landscape of snow and frozen trees and by the practice of grafting. The woman is suffering from famine fever and must be quarantined. Her husband lifts her on his shoulders and carries her out in the cold winter storm. In the morning they are found dead.

But her feet were held against his breastbone.

The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her. (Eavan Boland) Hobson’s touching use of the grafting of trees as a metaphor for the deep intimacy between these two is inspired and the subtle stark images mirror the tone and substance of the beautiful text.

Quarantine has been made as a limited edition accordion book. The images are monotypes of bundled twigs that have been printed as highresolution prints with additional pastel finishing. The text is Palatino and is printed letterpress by JR Press, SF, on BFK Rives. The box was cut on a Gunnar 3001 Cutter at Magnolia Editions and the covers have been editioned by John DeMerritt. The book design and images are by Charles Hobson who assembled the book and the boxes with the assistance of Alice Shaw.

Charles Hobson

San Francisco, California I am looking at trees they may be one of the things I will miss most from the earth…. W. S. Merwin

Thus begins W. S. Merwin’s poem from The Moon Before Morning. This soft and contemplative poem conveys a sense of quiet awe as he looks into trees from a mysterious time and place. The poem was first published in 1977 shortly after he settled in Hawaii.

He lived on a former pineapple plantation in Haiku, Hawaii, where he spent his last years restoring the property and raising endangered palm trees. The plantation now has more than 700 palms that he planted, some of them very rare.

Charles Hobson created Trees as a limited edition of thirty copies in the spring and summer of 2010. The images of palm trees have been made as monotypes that have been reproduced as high-resolution digital prints on transparent film. They are hinged between pages of Strathmore 2-ply museum board and acid free foamcore with architectural model trees. The book is accompanied by its own miniature flashlight to create the dancing shadows of the trees.

The poem can be read by standing up the first pages and using it to prop each page against it as the pages are turned. The small tree in the opening at the front of the book is used to suggest the beginning of a recollection of trees in some distant, remembered time, following one of the threads of the poem.

When fully "accordioned-out" the book offers a succession of palm trees that can be positioned on different sides of the standing pages, giving a front and back view of the same image. A large architectural model palm tree sits in the window cut in the last panel which is backed by a transparent image of the night sky.

Trees was made as a limited edition of thirty copies in the spring and summer of 2010. The images of palm trees have been made as monotypes that have been reproduced as high-resolution digital prints on transparent film. Charles Hobson made the monotypes and designed and assembled the edition with the assistance of Alice Shaw.

Trees was selected by UC Santa Barbara in 2016 to mark it’s acquistion as the 3,000,000th book in its Library and the University of Arizona Poetry Center‘s added Trees to its collection in celebration of the 50,000th book acquired.

Charles Hobson Trees, W. S. Merwin, 2010 handmade artist book 9 x 6.5 x 2.25 inches

Lone Goose Press Apologia, Barry Lopez, 1997 handmade artist book 11.8 x 11 inches

Lone Goose Press Eugene, Oregon

Darkness rises in the valleys of Idaho,� writes Barry Lopez. East of Grand View, south of the Snake River, nighthawks swoop the roads for gnats, silent on the wing as owls. On a descending curve I see two of them lying soft as clouds in the road. I turn around and come back."

Apologia is a story about roadkill. It has long been a habit of writer Barry Lopez to remove dead animals from the road. At the conclusion of a journey from Oregon to Indiana in 1989, he wrote Apologia to explore the moral and emotional upheaval he experienced dealing with the dead every day. On the highway he encountered dozens of animals -- raccoons, jackrabbits, porcupines, red foxes, sparrows, spotted skunks, owls, deer, gulls, badgers, field mice, garter snakes, barn swallows, pronghorn antelope, squirrels -- all victims of vehicular destruction. Stopping for each body he saw, he gently removed each one from the road.

Lopez's eloquent prose is accompanied by Robin Eschner's dramatic black-and-white woodcuts. By turns violent, raw, and tender, they provide a stunning counterpoint to a reverent testimony.

Enclosed in a folder on the back cover, on an original USGS topographic map of Wyoming, is a tire-tread print made by Barry Lopez with the assistance of Sandy Tilcock, using the inked tire of Barry’s Toyota 4-Runner, the vehicle driven on the journey from Oregon to Indiana that is chronicled in the essay.

The book is housed in a clamshell box covered with black Canapetta book cloth, with a paper label on the spine.

Since 1989, Lone Goose Press has been publishing limited letterpress works, printed broadsides and hand bound books. With this slow, exacting work, owner Sandy Tilcock continues to honor the highest standards in traditional book arts.

Charles Hobson, of San Francisco, designed and organized the edition, which was printed letterpress by Susan Acker at Feathered Serpent Press, Novato, California. The artist Robin Eschner made the woodcuts and Nora Pauwels at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California printed the edition. John DeMerritt, of Emeryville, California, hinged the text pages and bound the book. Sandy Tilcock of Lone Goose Press, Eugene, Oregon, produced the boxes.

Barbara Wildenboer Barbara Wildenboer Tales of Gods and Heroes, 2019 handcut altered book 20 x 24 inches (framed) from the collection of Katja and Joerge Koennecke

Historia Naturel, 2019 handcut altered book 20 x 24 inches (framed) (right) from the collection of Katja and Joerge Koennecke

Barbara Wildenboer Cape Town, South Africa

Barbara Wildenboer delicately cuts and extracts the pages of old books to produce sculptural explorations of the contents inside.

The works are part of an ongoing project titled the Library of the Infinitesimally Small and Unimaginable Large, to which she has been contributing altered books since 2011. The series uses the site of the library as a metaphor for the larger universe, while also focusing on the decrease of printed materials as a result of the digital age.

“Through the act of altering books and other paper based objects the intention is to draw emphasis to our understanding of history as mediated through text or language and our understanding of the abstract terms of science through metaphor,” Wildenboer explains.

The Cape Town-based artist sources her books and maps from secondhand bookshops and flea markets from around the world, looking specifically for publications that have illustrations, paper quality, and subject matter that might be interesting to slice and transform.

Her work, Tales of Gods and Heroes is scheduled for a special curation Seager Gray is creating for the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference in July, the mythology theme an homage to Madeline Miller who will be at the conference with her book, Circe. In Historia Naturel, created especially for this exhibition, Wildenboer took full advantage of the images of bird species that peekaboo through the gorgeous paisley pattern of the endpapers of the book. The swirling cut paper mimics the wings of a bird.

Wildenboer has participated in group exhibitions and art fairs both nationally and internationally, including South Africa, San Francisco, Washington, London, Dubai, Sydney and Hong Kong.

She has been awarded several international residencies such as the Unesco-Aschberg residency (Jordan, 2006), the Al Mahatta residency (Palestine, 2009) and the Red De Residencias Artisticas Local (Bogota, Colombia, 2011), the Rimbun Dahan artist residency (Penang, Malaysia, 2013), L’Atelier Sur Seine (Fontainebleau, France 2016).