Debra Disman

FORMATION

September 17, 2018 By Debra Disman

I am beyond honored to be a part of Formation, the Guild of Book Workers triennial members’ exhibition, which has begun a two year national tour.
The GBW says it best:

Simply defined by Merriam Webster as “an act of giving form or shape to something,” formation can insinuate process, history, creation, change, beginnings, an arrangement, botany and landscape, personal narratives and impersonal storytelling. What makes us into the artists we are? How does our creative process influence the final product? What pushes us to continue to create? People, events, memories all combine to influence the art we make about the world around us, even if our work isn’t explicitly autobiographical. The Guild of Book Workers’ 2018-2019 exhibition encouraged members to consider how the act of formation spoke to their artistic process.

An accompanying printed exhibition catalog, published this year as a special edition of the Guild of Book Workers’ Journal, will be available for sale at the venues and online at guildofbookworkers.org. The catalog features full color photographs and complete descriptions of each work; biographies of the artists; remarks from jurors Coleen Curry, Graham Patten, and Sarah Smith; and essays by Formation curator Jackie Scott and Guild of Book Workers President Bexx Caswell.

The Formation Exhibition honors the legacy of the book workers’ craft and celebrates some of the finest examples of book arts today. Founded in 1906, the Guild of Book Workers has over 900 members today and is the only national organization dedicated to all of the book arts, including bookbinding, conservation, printing, papermaking, calligraphy, marbling, and artists’ books. At a time when the masses are considering the materiality of the book and its presence or absence as a physical object, it is exciting to showcase the many hand crafts of the book form. The work presented in the Formation Exhibition is a vibrant and dynamic collection of Artists’ Books, Fine Bindings, Fine Press Printing, Calligraphy, and Sculptural Book Works that showcase both the history of the Book Worker’s craft, as well as contemporary interpretations of the book form. The Guild of Book Workers promotes interest in and awareness of the tradition of the book and paper arts by maintaining high standards of workmanship, hosting educational opportunities, and sponsoring exhibits.

Exhibition Schedule:

Minnesota Center for Book Arts
Minneapolis, MN
June 15–October 21, 2018

Robert C. Williams Papermaking Museum
Atlanta, GA
November 1, 2018–March 7, 2019

University of California, Los Angeles
Charles E. Young Research Library Lobby Gallery
Los Angeles, CA
March 15–May 25, 2019

North Bennet Street School
Boston, MA
June 5–July 27, 2019

University of the Arts
Philadelphia, PA
August 1–October 30, 2019

The Formation Exhibition features 51 works from 46 members that will travel across the U.S. from June 2018 through October 2019. The show opens at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It will be held at MCBA until the Guild of Book Workers’ annual Standards of Excellence Seminar in October 2018. Formation will tour the country, stopping at the Robert C. Williams Papermaking Museum in Atlanta, GA, UCLA’s Charles E. Young Research Library, the North Bennet Street School in Boston, MA, and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA. A complete tour schedule is online at guildofbookworkers.org.

It was thrilling to see FORMATION featured in The COLOR Issue of American Craft magazine.

I am looking forward to seeing FORMATION in LA:

University of California, Los Angeles
Charles E. Young Research Library Lobby Gallery
Los Angeles, CA
March 15–May 25, 2019

Please join us, in FORMATION!

PRAIRIE

September 10, 2018 By Debra Disman

“Prairie”, 2018

Inspired, I guess, by the Midwest landscape I was raised in…once all prairie lands, now leafy and not so leafy suburbs reaching to Chicago.

I began the piece, then realized what it was about, as pure a way of working as I can think of at this moment.

The color.

Illinois.
The Chicago suburbs.
Iowa.
Iowa City.

The fields.

The rolling hills.

The endless vistas with no water to speak of.

The place.

Texture.

The texture of a place.

Book board covers. Covers covered in torn strips of tissue paper.

Accordion-fold watercolor paper spine, covered with the same.

Jute cord sewn, stitched and falling.

Board pages become landscape.

Cover stitching.

Spine and page stitching.

Falling cord…

Other side.

“Prairie”, 2018
Book board, board, watercolor paper, tissue paper, jute cord

“The Book as Art 2018: PULP”

September 6, 2018 By Debra Disman

The Book as Art 2018 is an exhibition organized by the Decatur Arts Alliance, the Georgia Center for the Book and the DeKalb Library Foundation.

This sixth year of “The Book as Art” is called:
Book as Art v6: Pulp
Juried by Lisa Beth Robinson, Stephanie Smith and Cynthia Nourse Thompson,
the show runs August 10–September 28 and is open during library hours.
It is held in The Periodicals Gallery of the Decatur Library,
215 Sycamore St., Decatur, Ga.

“A book begins as a small mass of material, formed and pressed into life by ideas, words, and machines. Pulp becomes paper, becomes thought, becomes word, becomes book, becomes sculpture.

Pulp is the impetus and endgame of these physical book objects. From the tactile complexity of handmade paper, to the sensational tabloid tales of pulp fiction, these objects, in an increasingly digital world, stubbornly survive.

These objects interpret the concept of the book and invite the viewer to look beyond the printed page to where word has become form.

Book As Art: Pulp is the sixth edition of this critically acclaimed artist book exhibition established by the Decatur Arts Alliance in 2013. Entries hail from across the United States and around the world, and from emerging artists as well as recognized masters in the genre. The Book As Art is pleased to present these examples from the finest in the field.” — The Book As Art 2018

I am honored to have two pieces in the show:

Profusion
Artists’ Book/Sculpture
2018, 8.75″ x 24.5″ x 7.75″, book board, paper, hemp cord, canvas

Inside

Detail

Outside

and

Burning Bush
Artists’ Book/Sculpture
2018, 7.5″ x 11″ x 5.5″, book board, paper, hemp cord, canvas

Inside

Detail

Outside

I wish I could see the show.
Los Angeles is just too far away from Georgia!

If You can, please do!
And don’t miss the
Closing Reception | white glove night
Friday, Sept. 27 | 6-8 pm
Join us for one last look at these works of book art. And we’re putting away the “do not touch” signs. Volunteers will provide participants with white gloves to allow firsthand exploration of the books in the exhibition. ––The Book as Art 2018

Sounds like black tie optional, white gloves required.

I hope many view and enjoy before that time.

Kudos to the jurors and organizers on what looks to be a sublime effort.

GrAtItUdEs

Creating in Compton

August 31, 2018 By Debra Disman

It was wonderful to work with families to create books at the Compton Library.

Participants worked together to create the fun and versatile “flag book” structure.

Community members got to know each other in the library, through the work of their hands.

Siblings and Moms created in community.

Even the Staff got into the creative act.

Creating together brought smiles…

perhaps the greatest gift of all.

LACMA LOVE: The Art of the Book 3: The Flag Book

August 21, 2018 By Debra Disman

We started off our Family Bookmaking Workshop series at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art with the Accordion Fold Book, then moved onto “The Folded Fan” book (my own nomenclature) which also employed the accordion/concertina fold to great effect.

We completed our series with The Flag Book, a fun, versatile and quite kinetic structure “invented” by German-born and noted book artist Hedi Kyle.

We visited the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (“BCAM“), and looked at artist Barbara Kruger‘s monumental elevator piece, “Shafted“.

Students chose what view they wished to draw (or, sketch). then returned to the Park View Studio to look at our drawings, learn the Flag Book structure, create our books, then develop and embellish them! (This last the reward, some might say, of the effort that went before).

Participants were encouraged to use text to develop their books, and see how this “found writing” technique could be read in different ways up and down and across their books. They had been able to observe the power of graphical text first hand viewing the Kruger piece.

Mother and daughter working together.

She came to our workshop with her grandmother…not pictured!

Summer teacher (all the way from Chicago!) and student, taking advantage of LACMA‘s educational offerings!

This wonderful duo attended all three workshops!

The grown-ups need an art-making break too!

Such a lovely group to work with.

We love you, LACMA!

2018 California OPENing

August 16, 2018 By Debra Disman

I am thrilled and honored to be part of the 2018 California Open Exhibition held this year at the beautiful Tag Gallery in Los Angeles, near LACMA (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art) August 8-24, with an opening reception Saturday August 11th, 5PM – 8PM.

Beloved and acclaimed LA-based artist Kim Abeles juried this show, and her statement about it in the Press Release is telling.

Gallery Director, Rakeem Cunningham, sent out these installation images as well as a great inventory of Works in the Show. Thanks to Rakeem and Kim for their devoted work and ongoing efforts to make this show a great one, as well as to the wonderful Tag Gallery artists who opened their gallery “home” and their hearts to all of us who exhibited, made the Opening Reception a gala, and supported the cause with such heart and generosity.

This is an engaging and eclectic show. I was thrilled to see the work of three other (WOMEN!!!) artists that I know and have worked with in the show: photographer Marta Feinstein, printmaker and fellow LACMA teaching artist Brooke Sauer, and sculptor Karena Massengill. I share their work below as well as my own, and some images of the Opening. Really fun.

Throngs of beautiful souls crowd the gallery.