Artists' books are a hybrid form. Artists make them for all kinds of reasons, and with different intentions. Artists' books may be rich and fancy, or they may look as common as supermarket circulars. There is no one look about them.photo, William Blake, The Temptation of Eve, perhaps the earliest example of a book artist in the modern sense.
The simplest definition of artists' books is: "books made by artists." Though bordering on the tautological, this is a good working definition for a rich and complicated genre.
One of the reasons discussions of artists' books begin with efforts of definition is that they are a subset of a medium: the book. Paintings don't exist outside of art, but books do. All paintings are made by artists (arguably of varying degrees of talent and professionalism; trained elephants and schoolchildren notwithstanding). Defining what is meant by the term artists' book is a necessary requirement for a form whose related (non-fine arts) members include TV Guides and the Bible.
It's important not to confuse artists' books with art books, or books about artists (monographs, for instance). In the last several decades many artists have made books, and used the book form as a primary tool of expression. This movement into a relatively unexplored medium or genre needed a new descriptor. Artists' books is the result, and though its definition is not entirely fixed, it is the term most often used to describe recent or contemporary book productions by artists.
Thinking of the artists as being responsible for both the text and the physical realization of that text as a book may be a helpful construct in understanding the field. The difference between an artists' book and a book illustrated by an artist has to do with intentionality and degrees of control. The illustrator may be one of several subordinate collaborators who is responsible for one aspect of the book's realization. In general, the book artist conceptually controls the whole publication.
What is it about book form that attracts artists? The books' physical nature is one inducement. Structurally, the book is a gathering of bound, usually printed, pages. The properties of portability, sequence, and containment are of particular interest to visual artists. Other allures of the book form that have been exploited by artists have to do with function: readers invest books with authority; their use is known, and their presence is ubiquitous.
Tracy Honn,
Silver Buckle Press
Artist's Books: Highlights from the Kohler Art Library
The Cincinnati Book Arts Society to which I belong has a study group. We meet at a local library, nine times a year, on the third Saturday of the month.
Our last program was the first of a two part demonstration of interlocking and woven books structures, specifically the piano hinge structure. The image at top left, Crown of Thorns by Tennille Shuster, believe it or not, is just such a structure. The one at top right by our program presenter, Cody Calhoun (who, incidentally has a book in the online Flag Book Bind-O-Rama Exhibit), is the more traditional format. Here is a free tutorial. Don’t be confused by the name, skewered book. Skewers are often used in the construction of this type of book, but piano hinge is the traditional name.
In a previous post I wrote about paper cutting and suggested using it creatively in creating artist books. Madalyn Eastus’ book, Woof, is one that does. Don’t let the title fool you though. This book isn't about dogs. Instead, the title comes from the weaving term, woof which refers to the thread which is shuttled back and forth across the warp (the set of lengthwise threads attached to a loom before weaving begins) to create a woven fabric.
Thinking about the Pulp Function competition I wrote about yesterday, I realized that books were not mentioned in the blurb about the exhibition but I hope book artists will consider entering. I think a survey of contemporary paper art should include books and there are a lot of book artists who use paper in innovative ways. Daniel Essig is one of them.
Journals serve a number of purposes. They provide a place to collect ideas, to store clippings of articles, photos … anything that inspires. Journals can be reference books when what is stored are notes about techniques, recipes, swatches, samples or photographs. They can be a repository of events in the life of the journalist or observations, written, drawn or photographed, of the world. If a journal is kept regularly, patterns emerge, patterns that reveal what is attractive/interesting to the journalist and patterns in the journalist him/herself.
