The Book Shopper

Book Art Exhibit in Atlanta

No, this isn’t a picture of a bookish me relaxing in my living room, rather I am volunteering at the Book as Art 7.0 exhibit at Decatur Public Library’s Periodical Room. Most of the time, I just walk through exhibits such as this, but this time I spent the whole afternoon there so I had plenty of time to pick favorites. The piece behind me is known as Book by Rosalyn Driscoll of Haydenville, Massachusetts. Good thing it was bolted on the wall otherwise, I would have been tempted to ask the library for a loan.

Here are a few other notables with some minor descriptions:

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Blue Horizon

by Peggy Johnston 

Des Moines, Iowa

"Inspired by a bundle of aeronautical maps" Note the little plane flying over the book made of maps.

 

 

 

 

Take Me I'm Yours

by Laura Russell

Portland, Oregon

"In a bit of whimsey, image and text playoff each other to create irrelevant parking of singles pickup lines with intimate portraits (Polaroids) of abandoned furniture that can be cast aside like a bad romance on city streets everywhere."

 

 

 

 

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Chance Operation

by Andrew Huot

Norcross, Georgia 

Huot is the owner of Big River Bindery in Norcross.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Bird Windows

by Lynn S. Kordal

Conner, Washington

"old style cut and paste collage"

 

 

 

 

 

The Gallery Hours for Book as Art 7.0 are from 2 to 6 p.m. daily in the Periodicals Room of the Decatur Library with the final showing at 7 p.m. Friday, September 27th which includes an opportunity for attendees to put on the white gloves and actually touch the pieces. They are for sale (not for loan).

 

Books As Art Sampler

Here's just a few of the pieces from the Books as Art exhibit at the Decatur (GA) Public Library. About the only thing these pieces have in common is that they are books. The month-long exhibit runs through September 29th:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Sconce by Dawn Peterson, of Tybee Island, Georgia

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goode's School Atlas by Lynn Skordal of Mercer Island, Washington.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Internet Knowledge by Megan Mattax of Richmond Virginia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Taxonomy of Shapes by Radha Pandey of Iowa City, Iowa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sacred Geometry - Reliquary by Daniel Essig of Asheville, North Carolina.

 

A list of all the works with artist commentary can be found the exhibit home page.

 

 

At Fall Line Books - Saturday

I will be going to the Fall Line Press 50 Artist Talks on Saturday, June 3rd beginning at 3 p.m. My book Down & Outbound: A Mass Satire falls into the gray area of something related to an artist book because of its unusual format and numerous illustrations. Fall Line Press has been supportive of the book.

It's also a great opportunity to visit the Fall Line Book Shop and Gallery, which has shelves full of photography books and art books. Currently they are featuring 50 world-class self-published photobooks from across the globe.  I attended their open house earlier this spring and this collection is worth seeing. People who appreciate what I call "Books as Art as Books" will enjoy seeing the collection and chatting with those who share the same interest. See you there.  

Fall Line Press is located at 675 Drewery Lane, Suite #6 in Atlanta near the Beltline and on the border of Midtown and Virginia Highlands.

Down & Outbound at Printed Matter Inc.

While in New York City, I was able to make a "sales" call on behalf of Down & Outbound at Printed Matter Inc. the world renowned book art store in the hip neighborhood of Chelsea. When I first published Down and Outbound I mailed a submission of the book for their store-gallery, but unfortunately it was rejected. Although no one likes rejection, I appreciated getting a resp0nse, which does not often happen.

I also admire Printed Matter for their book-as-art mentality. Although many of their offerings do have that made-in-the-garage feel, there is an edgy cleverness to many of the books in their store.  Two of my favorites have been  The High Line: A Field Guide and Handbook (2015?)and Brian Dillon's book of essays, Objects in This Mirror (2014), which, by the way, has been reviewed on Amazon only by me.

Sales Call

But this time I was not buying, I was selling.  I brought in a copy of Down & Outbound and interrupted the clerk who was eating his lunch.  I confessed that I had submitted the book before, but this time had traveled from Atlanta --  and like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz --  I had  "come  a long, long way" to resubmit in person. Instead of calling security,  he took the book and thumbed through it after considerately wiping the mayo and shredded kale from his hands.

"Here is the secret of Down & Outbound " I told him. "It fits so nicely in one's hand; Notice how the soft black comb binding doesn't pinch, it massages the sensual area between the thumb and the index finger, which gives the book a soothing pet-like quality." I could see him falling under its spell.  I encouraged him to keep the book and enjoy it:  "I am always looking for good homes for the book," I added.

He agreed to keep the book (victory!) and allowed me to add the Down and Outbound promotional postcards to their stack of giveaways. So  stop by Printed Matter, and  pick up one of the postcards to use as a handsome bookmark or send a note to a friend or better yet, present it to the front desk and ask where you could buy this book.

 

Let the Arrow Guide You

  

Half Letter Press

Today I sent a sample copy of Down & Outbound: A Mass Transit Satire to Half Letter Press. a distributor that appeals to me both as an author and as a book shopper. Check out a screen shot of their catalog of books, zines, periodicals and posters. Will they respond? They should.  After all,  I sent them a self-addressed, stamped postcard, (below) which I include with every book order.

Don't underestimate the power of the pedestrian.

Thumbnail Reviews: Two Book Oddities

I am always a sucker for  intrigued by books that are unconventional by either format or subject matter or some combination thereof:

Cloud, The 3 (2007) by Helen Mirra

Mirra is an artist who defies easy classification - visual artist, sculptor, poet, professor and Cloud, The 3 reflects this. In this book, Mirra has indexed John Dewey's Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920)and reformatted it as a collection of short poems. Each page contains an index entry or two. Notice in the samples shown on the left (if you click on it to enlarge you will see it better) how they are alphabetical like an index and how their position shifts with each succeeding page. Clever.  I liked this book for several reasons: (a) It is fast reading, (b) I used to index for living (films not books) and (c) I appreciate short bursts of meaningful epigrams.  Here's just a few more examples:

 

Being everything, it was

    nothing, 66

 

Class interest and bias, 35

 

Default is inevitable

    and irremediable, 81

 

Squirm, dodge, evade,

    disguise, cover up, 

    find excuses, 104

Paper Knowledge: Toward A Media History of Documents (2014) by Lisa Gitelman

In this series of four scholarly thought pieces (but more thoughtful than academic) Professor of English and Media, Culture and Communication, Lisa Gitelman explores the significance of often overlooked paper documents. Gitelman focuses more on how the legacy of such documents as: death certificates, fill-in-the-blank forms and a 1936 printer's manual by Robert  C. Binkley entitled Manual on Methods to Reproduce Research Materials.

Though it is demanding to read, it's a pleasurable one too as Gitelman looks at how changes in technology and the business of printing has evolved in the last 150 years. She includes stories and anecdotes about ditto machines and mimeograph machines. (For those who went to school in their sixties can you recall the gluey warm smell of the fresh blue ink -- like Proust's madeleine?)  In another chapter she focuses on the history of the xerography. Who can forget the  early adoption of photocopying, which included xeroxing faces, hands and for the more adventurous -- buttocks. In the chapter she details the watershed moment for xerography, when Daniel Ellsburg removed classified Defense Department documents, copied them and then "published" The Pentagon Papers.

In a last full chapter, Gitelman offers a retrospective of Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF), which was developed in the 1990s and now has become ubiquitous. But what does this page-as-image really mean? For Gitelman, it reflects the culture of the modern office. In this passage Gitelman quotes from the Adobe's 1993 Acrobat manual, Beyond Paper: The Official Guide to Adobe Acrobat.

"Everyone has either launched their own memo grenade at one time or another or has sighted one lobbed over office partitions and across organizational charts." These are the memos sent up the chain of command -- to complain, criticize, or aggrandize the writer -- that fall flat, "explode" and embarrass him or her instead, with potentially career-damaging results. "And unfortunately, memo grenades will exist as long as there is office communication,"even if Adobe Acrobat exists to deliver them. Employees in this world don't as much bond together at the water cooler and the photocopy machine as they delight in deriding each others foibles and ambitions.

Postscript

For the record, I really resisted trying to scan the couple of pages from the Mirra book. Besides looking kind of horrible, it really doesn't do the book any justice. This book is an art object -- if you couldn't already tell from the word jumble front cover.  The Gitelman block quote in Paper Knowledge is from page 127.  The quotes within the block quote come from the Adobe manual. I wanted to scan this too, because I am a lazy typist, but two ugly scans in the same posting are verboten in the blog style manual.

 

 

The Book as Art Exhibit

On my day off I stopped by The Book as Art: No Jacket Required exhibit at the Art Institute of Atlanta/Decatur in downtown Decatur. The exhibit is being held through September 18th in conjunction with the Decatur Arts Alliance and is part of the AJC Decatur Book Festival.

It's been a tradition of mine to always check out book art exhibits whenever I stumble across them. (See related posts.)  Like these artists, I prefer the tactile qualities of the book over the convenience of audio and digital books.  However even  a funky book of "mixed fibers and found objects"  when nailed to a wall like Susan Lenz's  Book I, Book V, and Book VII, (shown above)  does limit one of the best product  features of the traditional book --- portability.

Another favorite of mine among the 33 artists and approximately 40 installations, is Ania Gilmore's Library of Alexandria, (shown left), which is described in the exhibit notes  as: an "altered book, (with) rolled and burned pages, wax, shellac ink."  From now on, I will think twice before loaning a book to somebody, especially an artist.

If you're going to the upcoming Decatur Book Festival on Labor Day weekend, be sure and check out the Art Alliance gallery on Ponce de Leon. At the DBF, you will need a break from  the elements (heat, rain, humidity, maddening crowds of children with sticky faces) and No Jacket Required provides an excellent refuge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Historical Atlas on Display

For those of you who either a.) appreciate old books, b.) like maps,  c.) relish fine printing, or d) all of the above, make an effort to see the Joan Blaeu's Grooten Atlas, first published in the Netherlands in 1662-1665.

The Grooten Atlas along with framed prints are currently on display at the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking on the campus of Georgia Tech University in Atlanta. Here's the press release from the Museum:

"Georgia Tech’s Price Gilbert Memorial Library and the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking proudly exhibit Joan Blaeu’s Grooten Atlas from February 27 to June 26, 2015.  Also called the Atlas major, the atlas was published in Amsterdam between 1662-1665.  Blaeu’s nine volume atlas remains the foremost European Atlas published in the seventeenth century.  These works are familiar to some faculty and students, but the larger community has been unaware that Georgia Tech has these treasures in the rare book collection.  This particular edition is one of the few remaining hand-colored, gold-embossed deluxe editions of the Atlas, bound in Moroccan leather.  Original volumes of the Atlas will be on exhibit along with reproductions of select maps from the collection. 

Exhibited maps include European views of Africa, the Americas and Asia, depicting important trade routes and ports.  Detailed views of European cities and countries provide insight into a continent developing the geopolitical regions known today.  The Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking map of Virginia and Florida will also be featured in the exhibit.                 

Explore how the Grooten Atlas came to be produced in 1660s Amsterdam, the culmination of years of research, the development of papermaking and printmaking, and the establishment of the art of map making.  Joan Blaeu, a second-generation mapmaker, celebrates the work of Tycho Brahe, mentor to Blaeu’s father. Brahe’s study of astronomy and contributions to celestial navigation provide a solid foundation to the development of the Atlases.                  

Considered together, the Blaeu’s Grooten Atlas provides important examples of evolving cartographic technologies and rich material exploring the idea of Europe after the Thirty Years War."

Be mindful of the hours since the museum keeps more "business hours" 9-5, Monday to Friday.  But there is free, easy access parking in front of the museum on 10th Street, which is important if you ever tried to park near there.  Admission is free but the museum appreciates  donations. Here's a few more marginal photos of the exhibit that should not preempt you from attending.

One of the Many Walls of Maps

 

Tools of Cartography

 

Printed Matter, Inc.

As mentioned in the September 8^th posting “Chelsea Lit Crawl,” I wanted to dedicate a specific posting to another bookstore that I visited recently when I was in New York City – Printed Matter, Inc.

Printed Matter, Inc. carries tens of thousands of pamphlets, zines, posters, but mainly they stock what they define as artists' books or “publications that have been conceived as artworks in their own right. These ‘projects for the page’ are generally inexpensive, often produced in large or open editions, and are democratically available.” To say the least, there is quite an eclectric collection and you can shop online if you are so inclined.

 

When I was there I purchased two books. The first was an illustrated book about the High Line, the former elevated rail line that was converted into a greenway beginning in 2006. Its full title A Field Guide and Handbook of Thoughts, Musings, Observations, Case Studies, and Histories (Alternative, Conventional & Otherwise) on the Elevated Structure Formerly and Now Known as the High Line of the Borough of Manhattan (2013) serves not only as a title but practically as a synopis as well. The book looks and feels like one of those nature field guides that you might find at a National Park gift shop with detailed illustrations of birds, insects and plants that live in this reclaimed habitat. There is a also a brief history of the High Line, which is an example of how local activism can effect major changes.

 

Although Printed Matter, Inc. (shown left) handles thousands of books from other publishers, High Line by Mark Dion, Jorge Colombo, Ethan House, et. al was published by the book store itself.

 

My second pick was Objects in This Mirror: Essays (2014) by Brian Dillon. Admittedly, the book is still in it's shrinkwrap, so I have not read it yet, but I will get to it before the end of the year. (See my December 13th posting.) It is published by Sternberg Press out of Germany and the display copy looked intriguing with its promotional blurb from Wayne Koestenbaum. Moreover, Dillon is the UK editor of one of my favorite periodicals Cabinet Magazine.

My DBF 2014 Self Assessment

As always, my Festival plans and my actual participation did not exactly match (see last posting), but this year's Decatur Book Festival (DBF) had a few moments worth reflecting upon.

I did make it to one of the Civil War panels to hear the discussion surrounding the "nefarious" William T. Sherman and the destruction of Atlanta. I was too shy and too Midwestern to rebuke some of  grandstanding by Dr. Stephen Davis (author of What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman's Bombardment and Burning of Atlanta)  even when he was giving John Bell Hood a historical pass on the Confederate general's strategy in defending Atlanta. 

And as predicted, the University of Georgia Press did have a copies of Brown and Elwell's Crossroads of Conflict: A Guide to Civil War Sites in Georgia for sale. I also found out that they have a new book, The Civil War in Georgia, which was published as a separate piece from the New Georgia Encylopedia.

A late morning beer (a St Bernardius ABT 12) at The Brickstore with a book selling exhibitor friend. It was a little early, but we did beat the crowds.

I chatted with some illustrators and a few self-published authors. Some of those book covers were pretty steamy, especially for such a hot and humid day.

I did make to the Decatur Arts Alliance/ The Art Institute of Atlanta-Decatur Book as Art exhibit. Shown here is Diane Jacobs', Hair Talk, Volume II.  You can see the exhibit until September 19th. For more details, including a slideshow of the entire collection, visit here.

At the Georgia State booth I picked a free copy of the literary journal Five Points.  Near the booth, I met Julia Eichelberger, the author of Tell About Night Flowers: Eudora Welty's Gardening Letters 1940-1949  but unfortunately I missed her and Pearl McHaney's lecture on Welty. Maybe I would have asked my them to comment on the Welty quote that sticks in my mind: 

Whatever our theme in writing, it is old and tried. Whatever our place, it has been visited by the stranger, it will never be new again. It is only the vision that can be new; but that is enough.

Then again, I would have been too shy and too Midwestern to talk in front of a crowd --- unless I had imbibed in a second St. Bernardius ABT 12 beforehand. Remember DBF can also mean Decatur Beer Festival