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The Book as Art

8/25/2017

My work Archaic Inquiry: Serial Dilution was featured on the poster for The Book as Art exhibition tonight in Decatur, GA. The opening reception held tonight and I was ask to speak along with the show facilitators (Decatur Art Alliance) and the juror.

I had two pieces in the show. The one featured on the poster to the left as well as Inherent Knowledge. I discussed both these works along with my process and imagery. Below I have bulleted my talking points for my discussion. I went off script a few times, but all in all I feel it went really well.

Introduction / acknowledgment of the other artist and strength of work
I will be the first to say "I am a book maker". I do not possess the patience or technical precision needed for this discipline.
I studied fibers in school (both undergrad and grad) and love the tactile/versatile nature of the materials.
I call my pieces "book-like-forms"; they are bound like books and contain information, but are not meant to be read or experienced in a linear fashion, but rather examined from a selected viewpoint.
I purposely construct and then deconstruct the forms to obscure the information taking the content out of it's original context.
The forms are created by altering or breaking down discarded dictionaries into multiple individual units, that are then bound, stained, burned and shaped.
Shaping the form is the most important part of the process. It is when I "get to know" the piece.
Fire, water and air are used as my tools to create the organic shapes that more closely resemble flowers, seed pods and leaves than actual books.
Inherent Knowledge was my first work to use a dictionary's content in a three-dimensional way.
This piece is about the passage of knowledge from one generation to the next. As in my current work I use the book forms as a metaphor for knowledge.
I wanted this piece to be suspended, but did not want to use fishing line. (no mater what you do or how invisible the fishing line may seem it is always present and if the structure is going to be present I want to make it part of the work). I used swing set chain as away to suspend the piece and also give it a since of nostalgia. The baby-food jars represent innocence as well as make the form seem more precious than it already is (explain).
My most recent works deal specifically with inquiry and how books are quickly becoming obsolete in a digital world. (it is not that we as a culture are no longer reading books, but rather that they are not utilized for research, especially by the newer generations) Information can now be gained by a click of a button or a swipe of your finger.
I call this body of work Archaic Inquiries. I use epoxy-resin to suspend/preserve the forms in an amber-like capsule giving them a fossilized, prehistoric or "frozen in time" quality.
Serial Dilution came from my obsession with scientific processes. It is used in micro biology as away to systematically dilute a research sample.
I feel with each new generation the tactile experience of gaining knowledge from books has become less important as our world becomes more digitally driven.

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