A solo exhibition presenting 17 hand-bound volumes that document the artist’s creative output year by year, each paired with autobiographical essays. Begun in 2009, the durational project traces a life in art through painting, writing and experimental bookmaking. Many of the oil paintings featured in the books will also be on view.
Artist Statement: Since 2009, I have dedicated weeks, months, and years to designing, writing, and producing an annual book documenting my artwork with an accompanying memoir from that year. Each mixed-media volume is bound and presented with different materials that are often repurposed.
The 25-year Handmade Book series came about when, almost overnight, film, the standard way art was documented, became obsolete, replaced by digital hocus pocus. The idea, and the very possibility of work disappearing into the ether of the great World Wide Web, led me to this project in which every single work of art is documented in a form that can be physically held, like a print.
As a career artist for five decades, I sometimes do not recognize my own work in a client’s home or business. Designing and creating annual books gives me a longer memory, a growing skill set, and a greater ability to focus and maintain the very necessary discipline of documenting art that could otherwise be lost.
I began this project by making 100 copies of each volume. Realizing it would overtake my every waking hour, I reduced that number to 50. Upon calculating how many subscribers and complete sets of books existed, a more doable amount of copies became 37; two were added for exhibiting purposes.
Making each edition from producing art, concept design, writing, and assembling takes a full year. Constructing the books overlap. I ruminate about the next volume way before it is begun. I figured out how to utilize materials that played a prominent role in that specific
year; for instance, the boxes for Volume X were made from wood paneling that we had to replace due to flooding, in a big election year, retired political signs are Volume XV’s substrate. This year, exhibiting at the Carrboro Art Center (CAC) Volume XVII is in part a collaboration with the CAC’s makers-space.
“The Elements of Bookmaking” is a series of workshops that coincides with my comprehensive exhibit to date. Every Wednesday in April, 6 -9 PM: Participants will learn how to go about travel sketching, learning the mysteries of 3D printing, making paste paper (a wild and fun way to make decorative paper), and creating simple book structures as well as more complicated ones. If you, like me, love learning new fun things, sign up for “The Elements of Bookmaking”! The instructors are gifted in their craft, dynamic, and generous with their sharing. Join us!
–Artist Emily Eve Weinstein