Beaux Livres

[Thom Courcelle]

 The book form has featured prevalently it seems among our artwork.  I’ve tried writing to a few of you about the appeal of the book form… why it attracts us so much.  Most recently in the Trashpo Group, there have been several of us who have explored that medium.  I’m still a little hard pressed to explain fully the draw, but I am an admitted bibliophile… something about the familiarity of books, of how knowledge is contained in them… and even in that phrase—“contained knowledge”—there is some secret.  I don’t think of that knowledge as "imprisoned" in books, but there definitely is some magickal element about them.  If every book contains a little piece of its author, then every book is in some sense a little bit—at least—like a book of shadows, having recorded the brief synaptic lightning that courses through our brains, and runs scarring across the pages of the book’s paper, ready to be read by another ocular orb and magickally create more lightning in someone’s else’s head.  It’s wondrous, really.  I ran into someone last week who speculated on the sentience of books… wondering perhaps that books really did represent a lifeform—with a longer lifespan than humans, and were just using humans (kind of like a symbiotic biological relationship) in order to, or as a means to, progenerate and perpetuate themselves.  An interesting philosophy.  Are we the creators of books?  Or are books using us to create more books? If this is heresy to you, I beg your indulgence… but as most of us know and believe as artists, creativity has no bounds.

 

Some recent books that have arrived in my mailbox include a Trashpo sandbook from Katerina in the ancient lands…

 

From Cheryl, a deconstructed, palimpsest, ancient wax tablet from the ancient continent…

 

And as long as I’ve broadened your views on what books might be, let me introduce the concept that a book doesn’t [necessarily] have to be bound at the spine.  Many people consider the tarot deck to be a looseleaf book.  In that same principle, the Human Artist Vending Machine sent me several little pages, or things that could be included within other pages.  Even his chosen moniker—Human Artist Vending Machine—evokes the concept of someone who “produces” items from which we glean meaning…

Thanks to all three, and to others who have been sending me their synaptic lightning strikes through the mail.  You’re all encouraging my fetishes for books and for mail art in groovy ways.  There seems to be a limit to posting pictures in blogs, so I'll try Diane's trick of posting more in the comments field, or perhaps on my page's picture file for everyone to delight in...

[Nancy Bell Scott]

"Media-strangled civilization"--you said it. And it is dark, but also heartening to find people still in love with the feel, smell, and who knows what else of books and art--ones that already exist and ones they make for and receive from other artists. It went on today, and it will tomorrow. We have amazing art/book makers right here, and new kinds seem to be popping up all the time. May it go on and on and on. Ok, time to go check on how the pressing of my latest (only third!) trashbook is going. Beautiful work in this post!

[cheryl penn]

They're Continuous Historic Artifacts :-) - is there such a term - why not? One minute ago, while your message was raging through Ether, THAT was history. I observed someone 'reading' one of those electronic slabs - its almost going back to the roman wax tablet... codex - block of wood - I was thinking - MAN!!! NO WAY could I do that - no smell of ink, no paper texture, no NOTHING - just words caged behind glass. I'll be ecstatic to be a Dark Ages archivist.  It looks pretty dark already :-( X

[Thom Courcelle]

Of course, Cheryl! And, thank YOU!  I only feel penitent for being so tardy in exhibiting your wondrous stuff! Work has been kinda overwhelming lately... sometimes makes me wanna abandon everything, retreat to a sandy beach and create a new life making art out of seashells or something.

The book thing... a minion for sure--great term since I sometimes feel like a slave to the walls and piles of them. And the changing world--ack!!!--whatever with those electronic book pads! Here in the land of Microsoft, there are great debates about where the literary world is going with that technology, and the sales reports seemingly back up the rumors.  I fear [real] book lovers like us will be considered the dark age archivists and monk scribes in the history notations of the not-too-distant-future media-strangled civilization. (Except people will have to google us on their iphones instead of reading about us in the history books!)  Hopefully, we'll have the last laugh when the energy grid fails them, and we can snuggle into our candle-lit corner with our tomes of Shakespeare, or Melville, or Tolstoy, etc.  (LOL!!!... of course, I type all of this into my handy computer expecting this missive to electronically zip into your hemisphere in moments thanks to the world wide web!  I'm such a hypocrite!!) It is rather funny to think of books as historical objects, though, isn't it, when they have been such a centric thing in our contemporary lives?

[cheryl penn]

Hey Thom - thanks for posting :-) - I am a CONFIRMED die-hard bibliophile.  Very little matches the touch of a book, the rustle of the turning page, the new revealings, new worlds to fill empty spaces. Books breed books - for sure! I go with that. Once one falls in their sway, and heeds the siren call - forget trying to escape - you're a minion for life - and not an unhappy at that. The rewards are too great - FAB blog!

[Thom Courcelle]

more photos of Cheryl's book:

...and groovy envelope:

[Thom Courcelle]

More photos of Katerina's book: