If These Walls Could Pep Talk
Interactive artist book with magnetized disc and magnets.
This book was part of the annual Alchemical Vessels exhibition at Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery – a fundraiser where 100+ DC artists are all given the same form to respond to. Some years it’s a box, others a bowl, others a piece of wood. This book was my response to the call to transform a 13-inch-diameter birch disc in accordance with the theme of “Our Common Thread – An artist’s journey through the universal truths of pain, joy, healing and living.”
From the Colophon: Sometimes I forget what I am capable of, creatively and otherwise. To remember, I hang reminders on my walls. Eventually – as I move into a new apartment or out of a window of time – I take them down, opening up space for the next.
Artist Note: Many of the artifacts documented here hung on my walls between 2012 and 2016. Those years span my time in grad school – my first time really going after something real, and experiencing all of the doubts that can come with doing so.
When I received the large wooden disc as the starting point for my vessel, I didn’t know what was going to happen. My books are typically handheld, rectangular, made from paper – so the wood, shape and scale all felt far out of my comfort zone. It was an exciting challenge to make a book that felt authentic to me while still celebrating the vessel’s original form.
Production Notes:
Materials: Wood, magnetic paint, glue, bookcloth, paper, thread, magnets
Typeface: Lora
Printing: Laser on Neenah Environment
Special gratitude to Josh Whipkey for the nomination to participate in Alchemical Vessels 2018, to Mark Hannallah for our early conversations about the concept, and to Sarah Irvin for our collaboration on its execution.
Wooden disc painted with magnetic paint, plus v5 of a template for covering it with book cloth.
Covering the disc (magnetic side down) with book cloth. Circles are much trickier than the rectangles I am used to.
9 test runs to figure out how to cover a tiny magnetic circle in paper!