Artists Books

The Artist�s Book as Inspiration

I want what I do on the web to be art. ART! I shout it. I demand it. Every new medium needs its artists � people who can exploit a newfound playground and say something original. To my distress, I�m not a breakthrough genius. I need inspiration and examples. And then I need the language. Without a language to describe a new artform, it�s difficult to have a conversation about it or to write a textbook (which I � non-genius � can then learn from).

What I�ll call a �webwork� is a non-commercial website that exists to tell a story or make a statement � the author-designer�s statement, not someone else�s. The webwork combines writing, graphics, and behind-the-page technical skills to create a new visual literature. Okay, my shelves are full of books on writing, books on layout and typography, books on html and javascript, but they don�t add up. A century ago people realized that photography could be more than the mechanical recording of lovely scenes. Likewise, the webwork is more than a passive container for good art (a showcase or gallery site) or good writing (a site for self-publishing stories or diaries).

I�d like to think that somewhere in the poorly mapped frontiers of the Worldwide Web there exists a Picasso�s Paris, a Stieglitz Salon � a place of intellectual ferment where the canons of a new aesthetic are being argued and refined � but I can�t find it. It�s early still: the webform is barely five years old and its potential artists distracted by the dotcom goldrush and the sudden tyranny of e-commerce clich�s (navigation bar down the left, please).

And so, for inspiration and guidance, I went off-line and discovered the world of �artists� books.� The Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester NY offered a weeklong course in the topic. In the offering, teacher Joan Lyons wrote:

The experience of the individual and the clan have formed the basis of art-making since men and women began recording on cave walls. We are hungry for stories � telling them, viewing them, reading them. Artists� books, functioning as both personal and public sites, have become an important venue for new narratives that weave text and image within a physical structure to tell a story� Where does personal disclosure intersect with cultural significance; how can the form and structure of a book intensify its content?

Sounds applicable to a webwork, doesn�t it? I decided to examine artists� books as a source for principles and language.

The Visual Studies Workshop has a public archive of 7000 artist�s books and Joan Lyons has nurtured many artists through the book-making process. I could have spent the week browsing through the archive at creations that were funny, poignant, angry, polemic, bizarre, and beautiful. But looking is only the first step in learning. I had to create my own book. In paper. With razor and straight-edge and glue.

I showed up for class thinking I�d build on what I do on the web � write an essay, plop in some pictures. I had my text � the Babes in Boyland essays about Maria and me learning to fish � and I�d worked up a few interesting visuals. Quickly, I saw this wouldn�t do. The artist�s book is not an illustrated narrative. It�s better integrated than that. It�s the juxtaposition of words and visuals across the turning of pages that tells the story. Damn.

Determined not to produce a book where each page was a stiff story-and-a-picture, I scraped my original idea. Back home that night, in a panic, thrashing around for something both visual and storyful, I pulled out a box of necklaces made from ancient African beads and started throwing them on the scanner. A great subject: beautiful, magical, historical and rich with meaning, from a little girl�s first flirtations with seductive adornment to the plunder of ancient gravesites to satisfy a collector�s greed.

Did I produce a great artist�s book? No way. My paper was pretty, my photos were pretty, my sentences were pretty, my fonts were pretty, but it didn�t add up. I don't know how often I'll tackle creating a book, but reviewing what went right and what went wrong may help me the next time I set out to do a webwork. The principles are much the same.

I got a look from the teacher when I sewed together my 16-page signature before I had anything really composed. Form should emerge from the meaning. Strands of beads are liquid, shapeshifting, multi-faceted things and I had locked myself into stiff, blocky pages. And because I like the visual impact of �small multiples� (repetition with variation bringing order and clarity), I had chopped my photos into one-inch squares, which I began lining up on the pages. Another look from the teacher told me I was being a stiff.

I tried to redeem myself by making this the story of a bead collector (and don�t collectors like to pluck things out of their natural settings and put them into compartmentalized boxes?). Ok, fine, but then I started hedging by having the beads break out of their boxes, be seen on strands and then having strands break apart. (A attempt to create movement.) Now I see that the story of a bead collector might be better served by moving from individual beads, to strands, and then into collector�s boxes. It would have created a stronger sequence across the pages.

An artistic work about beads should certainly be strung together in some strong visual way. As I flipped from page to page in my book and became aware of its disconnectedness, I layered on a little narrative series. I drew in a string of beads tracing the route of a single carnelian bead from the stone's being mined and shaped in India a thousand years ago, its transit to Timbuctu, its burial and excavation, all the way to its place in my collection. I tried to make the string between the beads representative of the time and distance involved in the bead's journey. Not the most original device, but it did show potential for creating better cohesion in my book.

My website has not yet been transformed into webwork � it�s still too easy to plop a photo into a text (check out the online adaptation of my bead opus) � but at least now I�ve begun to strategize about turning my illustrated narratives into visual literature through better juxtaposition of images and words on a page and with more exciting pacing and movement between pages.

Resources: If you think you might be interested in artist's books as inspiration, visit the Visual Studies Workshop (they have an online bookstore), Keith Smith Books (his Structure of the Visual Book is full of provocative analysis), or the Women's Studio Workshop (their archive is available online, though under reconstruction at the time of this writing).