Slow Book Salon Exhibit

I'm fortunate to be part of a group of regional bookmakers, the Slow Book Salon. The title is modeled after the "slow" movement: things done with attention, intention, and care. For the past three years, the group has been invited to show its work at the Design Gallery in Burnsville. Burnsville, a small, charming town about an hour northeast of Asheville, and about 15 minutes from Penland. The Design Gallery is a lovely space, featuring the work of regional artists, and the exhibition coincides each year with the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival, which Burnsville established and hosts. The book exhibit plays on the theme of the Literary Festival, which changes annually. This year it was "The Beloved Community."

I love seeing the work of my fellow bookmakers together in one venue. As happens whenever I'm lucky enough to visit an exhibition of book arts, I'm delighted by the variety of the work, and the many interpretations of the book form. At this exhibit, I particularly enjoyed learning more about the personal aesthetic of each of the members of the group -- some of whom I know well and others whom I see only occasionally.

Here are just a few of the books in the exhibit, which closes this week. A detail from Annie Cicale's book -- incorporating watercolor and calligraphy -- is at top right.

The images in Susan Doggett's The Red Thread are linoleum block prints on mulberry paper.

Kathy Steinsberger's Happily Ever After includes collagraph prints & photopolymer prints.

Each year Carol Norby makes a "slinky" book using postcards from the prior year's exhibition.

In Boundaries, Lisa Blackburn created a -and-box combination that s handmade paper and image transfers. This is one of the spreads.

Bryony Smith presented an ancient book form.

Margaret Couch Cogswell's mixed media creation, The Village Idiot

Another mixed media work, Carol Norby's These Beautiful Counties

Priscilla Hill created a mixed media book with mica covers and pages.

Sharon Sharp's linocut print was the centerpiece of her book.

My First Exhibit (Yikes!)

Late last year, I joined our regional Book Salon, a group of artists working in the book form. I learned about it at BookWorks, our terrific local book arts studio and learning center. I'm delighted to be counted among these talented and generous artists who share my passion for book arts.

For the second year, the members of the Book Salon have been invited to participate in an exhibit at The Design Gallery, in the charming town of Burnsville, neighbor to the Penland School of Crafts. Both years, the timing of the exhibit has coincided with Burnsville's annual Carolina Mountains Literary Festival. The festival will be held the weekend of September 14-15; the book exhibit runs through the end of September. The theme for both: "Roots and Wings" ("Good parents give their children Roots and Wings. Roots to know where home is, wings to fly away and exercise what’s been taught them." -- Jonas Salk).

This is the first time I've shown one of my books. To say that I was nervous about exhibiting my work is an understatement. I've been making books for less than 18 months, although my serious interest in the book as an art form started at least a year before that. My love of books in general, of course, is an incurable lifelong condition.

So let's just say that when i walked into the gallery for the opening reception last Friday evening and heard that my book had sold, I was just the teensiest, tiniest bit excited (ha!). Just a titch. I'm still over the moon.

I began the book, Take Wing, with the premise that a journal should be special but not precious. I've seen too many journals (and bought a few myself) that seem too elegant and "important" to write in. For me, art is as much in the personal and the commonplace as in the universal and the extraordinary. So I mixed fine elements, such as handmade cover papers and Italian text paper, with humble materials such as muslin cloth and locally-produced mica. I'm pleased with the result, and glad to think that it pleased the buyer, and that it will serve its purpose.

There are some truly beautiful books in the exhibit, and I've included just a few in this post. I'll be back at the gallery later in the month to take more photos and post those images here. What impressed me most -- and I should be used to this by now -- was the diversity of the offerings. Not one book in the exhibit is like any other there. Each book is as unique as the artist who created it.

Take Wing

The image of the birds is an inkjet transfer onto muslin layered under a piece of mica

In addition to the traditional text block papers, I included graph paper, dictionary pages and "holey" card-stock-weight computer paper

Moe Hoxie's beautiful "kimono" book

A lovely journal, using embroidery on paper, by Annie Fain Liden

Continuity, a wonderfully sculptural "slinky" book by Carol Norby

Field Trip

Tuesday was a field trip with a friend to visit the gallery in Burnsville that will be hosting the exhibition for our Book Salon for a month later this year. It's a lovely space. Coincidentally, Wendy Reid, the owner, serves with me on the Board of HandMade in America. She's brought in a wonderful selection of art at all price points. I noticed that the gallery participates in several community and philanthropic causes, usually by donating a percentage of sales of specific objects.

We stopped in at the Burnsville Town Center across the street from the gallery to see a quilt that my friend had heard about. It's amazing. The work of quilt artist Barbara Webster, it portrays key places, people and sights in the history of Yancey County, and surrounds them with representations of the four seasons. She used both old photographs and took over a thousand new ones. it's a masterpiece of design, and spans the entire lobby wall (the size is 24' x 7'). It's well worth making a trip just to see it.

After lunch (which was a delayed birthday treat for me), we traveled on to Penland School of Crafts, so that my friend could visit with a book artist friend she hadn't seen for nearly 20 years, Jana Pullman, who's been teaching a two-month class in leather bindings. I planned to visit Annie Fain Liden, who's currently a teaching assistant in Beth Ross Johnson's weaving class. Annie Fain is one of my bookmaking teachers as well as a friend, and it was a joy to catch up with her.

It was a long day, and a good one. I'm soooo looking forward to the book arts workshop I'll be taking at Penland this summer with book artist Laura Wait. I've been Googling Laura to learn more about her work and have found many examples of her books, which has made me even more enthusiastic about learning from her.