Backbends: 3 Experimental Books

This is the story of a Girl and her Bone Folder. *Sigh* My studio has been crawling with renegade smudges of rubber cement and paper scraps. But after much folding and scribbling, I recently finished up a batch of experimental book forms:

"A Good Wife Knows Her Place"

This is a jacob's ladder book composed of 12 small collages on book board. The text comes from a 1955 Good Housekeeping article that draws out a list of rules all "good wives" must follow. The instructions range from "Let him speak first, his topics of discussion are more important." to "Always greet him with a smile to adequately express your desire to please him." I paired the text with vintage imagery of circus performers and contortionists to attempt to explain a frustrating lifestyle of constantly jumping through hoops to please. I enjoy this form because it can be read both forwards and backwards and acts as a toy that actually must be "man handled" in order to read. Acrylic, gesso, found papers, colored pencil & oil pastel.

"12 Sleeps"

This is a petite book--it's pages only slightly larger than a silver dollar. To make this book recorded my dreams for 12 nights, typed them and printed them on opalescent vellum. The box that houses it is collaged with dream interpretation text and coffee filters. I wanted this to be an experiment in sequence, so none of the pages contain any punctuation. This way each dream record bleeds into the next in one continuous sentence reminiscent of the way real dreams progress. The translucency of the pages allow the viewer to see a ghosted image of the next dream. This book can be read in a continuous loop as it doesn't matter where you begin reading the text, you will eventually complete the cycle.

"Dear Johnny

"Dear Johnny" is a maze book that makes commentary on celebrity obsession. The book itself is a grainy recycled card stock that has been generously coated with gesso and vine charcoal. The pages are full of the somewhat disturbing rantings of a crazed fan. In the beginning, the writing is fairly benign and the handwriting is small and reserved: "Dear Johnny, I've seen all your movies." "Dear Johnny, I'm your biggest fan--I'm sure lots of people say that, but I mean it." As the viewer turns the tiny pages the writing becomes more progressively larger, more frantic and manic, "Dear Johnny, I'm bleeding to death in my sleep." "Dear Johnny, we were mean to be, you just don't know it yet." It ends abruptly. The treat however is when the book is unfolded completely, you are greeted with an image of Johnny Depp as Sweeny Todd. :

This one is my personal favorite. :)