Feature Artist: KAREN HARDY

KAREN HARDY

is a visual artist currently living in San Antonio, Texas.

She works primarily with innovative hand paper making techniques in a variety of forms, including artist books, sculpture and installation.  Her practice is centered on an experimental approach to materials, influenced by her background in the natural sciences.

A graduate of the book arts & printmaking MFA program at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Karen's work is part of prominent national collections and is widely exhibited both nationally and internationally.  Her artists books have recently received awards in exhibitions at the Northern Arizona University Art Museum and the University of Utah's J. Willard Marriott Library.

Karen has been awarded a Denbo Fellowship by Pyramid Atlantic Art Center and a College Book Art Association Project Assistance grant.  She has also recently been artist-in-residence at the Picante Paper and Book Arts Studio at the Southwest School of Art.

Curiosity about materials is my primary motivation as an artist. My creative process involves intuitive experimentation with the expressive properties of materials and the associations that they carry. My artist books, sculpture, and two-dimensional work often begin with paper that I make by hand, and their meaning is inseparable from their physical materials.  I am fascinated by biological forms and systems. Consciously or not, my selection and manipulation of materials often yields work that is vaguely evocative of living organisms and bodily processes. I am especially drawn to paper pulp made from overbeaten abaca and flax for its organic, corporeal effect. This material layers and interacts with light in compelling ways, capable of being beautifully luminous and uncomfortably grotesque at once. Its translucent, membrane-like quality suggests a blurred boundary between interior and exterior, private and public, protected and vulnerable. Much of my work explores this liminal state, inviting the viewer into a realm of duality and ambiguity.

Two of Karen's works have been part of the Personal Histories project:

SEPARATE

focuses on the various roles we fill throughout our lives as both caregiver and dependant.  My intent is to highlight the conflict between the instinct to nurture and the desire to be unencumbered, the push and pull between dependence and independence, and our vacillation between vulnerability and strength.  In this book, the paper itself becomes a vehicle for exploring the variety of emotion encompassed in these relationships.  

The handmade flax pages contain egg-shaped openings partially filled with delicate abaca membrane, echoing the longing present in the text.

MIS-DIRECT-ION RE-DIRECT-IVE

is a journey through progressive stages from passivity to action.  The text and imagery describe a struggle to overcome a state of apathy and indecision caused by fear and regret.  Because the handmade abaca paper is translucent, as many as three or four sheets can be visible simultaneously when layered, creating an evolving visual narrative that comes in and out of focus much as mental clarity may wax and wane.  

The book is composed of twelve double-sided 4" x 11" (10cm x 28cm) prints, bound with a modified long stitch in a variable edition of five.

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT OF THE ARTIST KAREN HARDY

Feature Artist: JOHN RETALLACK

JOHN RETALLACK

is a photographic artist from Rochester, New York.

John has an extensive and varied career in the photographic arts.   Since working in arts education at The School of Visual Arts NYC and Rochester Institute of Technology, School of Photographic Arts & Sciences, John now devotes his time and talents to his own freelance commercial and fine art photography projects.   John has participated consistently in  public exhibitions since 1973 with works in numerous publications and private and public collections including Wallace Memorial Library Archives, George Eastman House, Monroe Community Hospital, Russian Fine Art Photographers Union and Iron County Museum.

John explains himself on his website in 10 points:

1. Born in Michigan's Upper Peninsular:  Became a Yooper.

2. Got his first camera, age 10

3. Joined a MASH unit (US Army) and was trained as an X-Ray technician

4. Stationed in Germany during the Cold War

5. Studied photography at Rochester Institute of Technology, BFA Degree

6. Freelanced in New York City shooting magazines & ad agencies

7. Began teaching career at the School of Visual Arts in NYC

8. Accepted a teaching position at RIT which led to Tenure in the 

School of Photographic Arts & Sciences

9. Quit working at RIT (early retirement)

10. Continues freelancing in photography, doing things he's always wanted to do.

John's contribution to the Personal Histories exhibition is a touching and intriguing entry entitled 

"All My Love, Mike".

It is a collection of images and text on loose pages housed in a hand made clam-shell box.

"Dad was drafted in 1942.  He was a surgeon.  First he was sent to Texas to train with other doctors in an Army Hospital unit.  Mom followed him there.  When he was sent to the South Pacific she went back home to Michigan.  For Christmas in 1944 she traveled to Denver to stay with relatives for a few months.  Every day, as much as possible, they exchanged letters.  Mom would enclose pictures, mostly of their new son, me, which he was eager to see.

After their deaths, within a few months of each other, I found Dad's letters and Mom's pictures hidden in separate places.  The pictures I examined immediately but held the letters for years before I was able to read them.  This book is a tribute to the love, respect and longing I witnessed in the letters.

This book was created in 2014 over a period of about 3 months.  I am responsible for all scanning, photography and assembly.  After some deliberation I decided that the pages should be loose and in a box as the original letters and pictures were.

The text was scanned from letters to my mother (70 total) covering dates from September 1944 to February 1945 (the only ones I have).  The pictures were scanned from snapshots found in a book where Dad had kept them.  The backgrounds used in some of the pages were created in the studio.  Text, pictures and backgrounds were assembled and printed from InDesign and printed to archival standards.  The box was created with Canapetta Bookcloth and Flanders British Tan bonded leather, also to archival standards."

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT OF THE ARTIST - JOHN RETALLACK

Feature Artist: ILZE DILANE

ILZE DILANE

is a Latvian artist who currently specialises in paper making and pulp paintings. 

 She is based in Latvia's capital city of Riga.

Ilze attended Riga College of Applied Arts from 1985-1989 and in 1999 received a BA from the Latvian Academy of Art in restoration and painting.  In 2001 she received a Postgraduate Master's Workshop Diploma in painting.

Ilze has participated in many Latvian and international art events, received public art commissions in Latvia and Denmark and has had numerous solo exhibitions.  She has attended encaustic painting classes at Stamp Antonio as well as paper making, book arts, printmaking, letterpress and mosaic classes at the Southwest School of Art & Craft, with paper making and pulp painting becoming her primary interests.

In 2006 Ilze became a member of SAVA (San Antonio Visual Artists) and, in 2010, a member of Texas Wax San Antonio.  In 2009, one of her hand made paper works was awarded 2nd place in a juried group show Art and Archaeology at SAVA gallery, San Antonio.  In 2008 she was awarded the opportunity to participate in the Creative Capital Professional Development Retreat for Artists, the Cultural Collaborative Office of Cultural Affairs, City of San Antonio.

Ilze's submission for the Personal Histories exhibition is a family collaboration entitled "The Winter of My Gratitude".

The book was written by her eldest daughter, Nora Dilane,  and tells the story of how Nora picked the name for her younger sister, Sara.  The design and paper for the book were created by Ilze, the text edited by Gatis Dilans and the drawings provided by Sara Dilane.

The paper is made from jeans, text is letterpress and the drawings were solar plate printed at the Southwest School of Art, San Antonio, Texas in 2010.

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT OF THE ARTIST - ILZE DILANE

Feature Artist: Dana LeMoine

Dana LeMoine

is an artist and teacher from Minneapolis, USA,

working in printmaking, paper making, bookmaking, drawing and collage.  

Dana was born and raised in Wisconsin and earned her Master of Fine Arts-Printmaking from Arizona State University and  her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Emphasis on Printmaking) from the University of Wisconsin.  She is currently Education and Community Programs Manager at the Highpoint Centre for Printmaking, Minneapolis.

Dana's submission for the Personal Histories exhibition is 

December 24, 1443 East Harriet Street

"It is an exploration of my family on Christmas Eve through many years.  It looks at how we treat this holiday very different from the rest of the year, even though many of us do not believe in the holiday itself.  I am unsure of how Christmas traditions began in our family, but I believe they need to be examined in order to understand how our family can make positive changes in the future."

The book is printed using Xerox transfers, screen printing and letterpress.  It is a variant edition of 10 with each version hand-bound in different fabric.

Dana's artworks show a continuing interest and exploration of family history and interpersonal relationships which extends across her drawing/collage, printmaking and bookmaking practises.

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT OF THE ARTIST - DANA LEMOINE

Redland Museum - Over and Out

The Personal Histories Exhibition at Redland Museum has drawn to a close, 

with the last day of viewing being Sunday November 30.

I send a huge thanks and congratulations to all artists 

who have been involved with this first stage of the project.

The exhibition has been a huge success with a great deal of interest being shown in each and every artwork, the overall concept of artists' books, the variety of constructs and mediums employed by artist book makers and also the personal stories contained within the artworks.  There have been a well attended opening, a large number of visitors throughout the run, private group viewings, curator talks, a one-day workshop and visits from participating artists from both Australia and overseas (notably Sara & Theresa from Michigan, USA and Kyoung from Busan, Korea).

The exhibition will remain permanently online on the Personal Histories Website for all to view.

(The online catalogue is still a work in progress due to a file problem, and lack of time to sort it out properly, but hopefully this will be fixed shortly.  Apologies if this has caused anyone inconvenience.)

The exhibition has been dismantled and now comes the huge task of packaging and posting artworks back to artists, approaching institutions to house donated artworks, and/or storing artworks for the Personal Histories exhibition in Canberra in late 2015. 

One contingency I didn't factor in is that parcels being returned may get caught up in the Christmas post deluge.  Hopefully this doesn't impact negatively upon anyone.

Of course, the story is far from over with the next Personal Histories exhibition (with a working subtitle of 100book) opening at Redland Art Gallery on 27 March 2015.

I will be emailing gallery forms to be completed by those participating in this next leg of the project shortly, with a reminder that works are to be delivered by Friday 13 March 2015 at the latest.

Feature Artist - SARA BAKKER

SARA BAKKER

is a gallery coordinator, curator and artist living in Grand Rapids Michigan.

Sara holds a BFA in Studio Art from Calvin College.  She works in a variety of media including drawing, painting, collage and embroidery.  She has recently been managing the (106) Gallery in the downtown Avenue for the Arts district of Grand Rapids where she coordinated monthly exhibitions and events at the gallery as well as hosting a weekly studio night for local artists.  She has been a contributing member of the Avenue for the Arts and Grand Rapids Comic Society and is a collector of zines.

In 2013, Sara took a 3 week bookmaking course at Calvin and fell in love with the book as an art form.  She appreciates how bookmaking lends itself so well to the merging of text, imagery, mixed media and experimental process, much like zines, comics and printmaking. 

In 2014, Sara was invited back as a guest artist in Calvin's bookmaking course, facilitating critiques and working on more content-driven books inspired by struggle and growth in personal journeys.  This past February, she curated the book show "Ancient Grains", which highlighted artists' works from the course.  This spring she has curated and participated in a book arts exhibition titled "Landmarked", involving the ways in which we map journeys, in both literal geographies and personal landscapes.  She is currently working on a series of artist books of meditations, which incorporate a mix of collage, text, print, stitching and embroidery.  The pages of these books are a collection of struggles, questions, and affirmations that mingle visually with running threads and other recurring patterns.

Sara is currently travelling in Australia and New Zealand.

Sara has made time in her busy travel programme for a two day Brisbane stop over, with her friend Teresa, in order to view the  Personal Histories exhibition.

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT OF THE ARTIST - SARA BAKKER

Feature Artist - IRMARI NACHT

IRMARI NACHT

is an artist from Englewood, New Jersey, USA.

For the Personal Histories exhibition Irmari has created two small accordion books:

Books: 105 Hair Today 

This 4" book chronicles (in photographs) a year of growing my hair - from 2" at the shortest to 11" a year later."

Elements

"This 4", 40 page accordion book is a personal history of how I made (and my motivation for) a sculptural work in the round of 4 encyclopedia britannicas comprising the elements: fire, water, air, and earth."

Irmari has made artist books throughout the years, but in 2007 she began working steadily on a recycled book series -  "Saved".   This series utilises books that otherwise might be discarded and transforms them into artworks.  

The books are cut, sometimes into slivers which curl and undulate and return to the tree-like shape from which the paper was made.  Lately, the books have exploded from their spines.  

A 4" book has grown to 24" through a series of cuts and spirals reaching out to the viewer with subliminal messages.  The words on the pages of the books are sliced, slivered or torn and become interwoven with other slivers and slices to make the original meaning no longer clear, but the words are still there - creating new information, now obtained by reading only the letters that are visually available.  Or, as the words of the book extend beyond the surface of the covers, by means of the outreaching slivers, the ideas and concepts of the book move out to the viewer, perhaps generating new ideas.  The reality of the book is questioned: is it no longer a book, or is it a container for concepts?  Is it now a sculpture? Must a book have pages and words, has it changed the basic integrity of a book and become an art object capable of many interpretations?  Does it now please the aesthetic senses as well as the intellectual senses?  

This artwork, using the book as a metaphor, addresses environmental concerns, change and transformation, information received and denied, altered reality, as well as the concept of multiple imagery, which highlights the strength and energy of repeated elements.

Irmari's art has been exhibited in every major museum in New Jersey, including the Newark Museum, NJ State Museum, and Montclair Art Museum.  Her work is also in several corporate and public collections including AT&T, PSE&G, ADP, Newark Museum, International Museum of Collage, Mexico, Rutgers University, Cleveland Institute of Art, Bowdoin College, Jimmy Carter Museum and Yale Art Museum.

She has exhibited internationally, as well as nationally, and received two New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowships in Sculpture.  She received a second Puffin Foundation Grant for "Who Am I?", an interactive project where the viewer becomes part of the artwork.

These bookworks are in several collections and have been recently been shown at the Belskie Museum,NJ,

Lichtenstein Center for the Arts,MA,Doverodde BookArts Festival,Denmark, Westport Library, Conn,NJ State Museum,Newark Museum,WAH Centre, NY, June Fitzpatrick Gallery, ME,Univ of Northampton, UK, Wiener Library, London, UK, and in solo shows at the Atrium Gallery, Bard College at Simon's Rock, MA and the Intermezzo Gallery, BergenPAC, NJ.

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT OF THE ARTIST - IRMARI NACHT

Feature Artist - AMY PIRKLE

AMY PIRKLE

is a book artist and letterpress printer from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. 

Amy received her M.F.A. in Book Arts from the University of Alabama in 2007.  During her time in graduate school, she established Perkolator Press.  As a printer and book artist, her primary medium is letterpress and reduction relief, but she often employs other printmaking techniques as well.  Although her work stems from long-standing craft tradition of fine press and fine binding, she also enjoys integrating newer forms of technology into her books.  Familial relationships and memory are the major inspirations for her work.

A REAL FIGHTING MAN (2012)
is Amy's submission work for Personal Histories.

I printed A REAL FIGHTING MAN after spending a few days with my grandfather in south Georgia and looking through some snapshots of him serving in Korea in the early 1950's.  The photos instantly inspired me, mostly because of the descriptions my grandfather had written on the backs of the photos, including the phrase "A real fighting man".  The cover images are reduction linocuts based on two of these snapshots, while the spine image and flags are archival inkjet prints.  I created photopolymer plates of his cursive handwriting from the photos, and letterpress printed them along with a narrative he wrote about his time in Korea 50 years later.  The book attempts to convey my grandfather's struggle to regain a sense of normalcy after facing the horrors of war.

Kiyoko

Amy has enjoyed an active exhibition record and her work resides in Permanent Special Collections in almost 50 universities across the United States including the Art Institute of Chicago, Brown, RISD, Vanderbilt and Yale.  Amy currently teaches book arts, drawing, and design at The University of Alabama for the Department of Art, University Honors, and New College.

When You Are Old

The River

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT OF THE ARTIST - AMY PIRKLE

Feature Artist - LESLEY HAAS

LESLEY HAAS

is an artist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA.

Lesley spent many of the years between 1988 -2000 living in Heidelberg, Germany. She is currently  back living in  Philadelphia.

Lesley developed an interest in handmade paper after viewing a comprehensive exhibit in New York City in which the artworks were made with paper.  Her technique and style have been influenced over the years by ongoing studio work and by course work with well known paper artists.  She is an active member of the International Association of Hand Paper Makers and Paper Artists (IAPMA).  

 In recent years she has re-used packaging materials, magazines and all types of paper to create her works and scrolls.  Individual collage work is custom made and printed with archival inks and paper.

The signature of my work is the use of natural fibres and pigments from various parts of the world to blend the characteristics of the fibres with different elements of style.  A rough deckled edge exposes the raw textured beauty of what has always drawn me to using paper as my main art medium.  As an extension of my paper making I have also created objects from vegetable papyrus.  Dresses and recycled paper art can also be found among my artworks.

 Lesley has exhibited her works widely in the United States as well as in numerous international exhibitions including in Italy, Germany, Korea, the Netherlands, France, Australia, England, Switzerland, Canada, Sweden, and Denmark.

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT OF THE ARTIST LESLEY HAAS