May was something. I graduated, my sister got married, my other sister graduated from high school, I ended one job and am trying to close out several projects at another, and I began packing for my move to Asheville, NC in June. There was a lot of traveling, a lot of joy, and a lot of anxiety.
I also had the opportunity to attend an excellent panel discussion, Women in a Golden Age of Artists’ Books, which was presented at the Center for Book Arts in conjunction with Rare Book School. This panel brought together Cynthia Marsh, Rebecca Michaels, and Patty (not Patti) Smith, women who were influential in the world of specifically offset-printed artists’ books. Offset printing is one printmaking technique that I’m not really familiar with as an artistic medium, since my undergraduate printmaking & book arts classes at UGA was more focused on, well, oddly, everything else—from letterpress and intaglio to serigraphy, lithography, and digital printing. It was engaging and illuminating to hear about the connections, playful experimentation, and just plain hard work that went into transforming offset printing from a method for reproducing images to an artistic mode of producing new art objects. (Panel moderator Tony White’s Production, Not Reproduction exhibition highlighted offset artists’ books as a genre in 2007.)
And, of course, the audience heard about the extra hurdles that women went through to prove that they were capable in printshops composed of mostly men. “Me Too was very much alive in those days,” one panelist noted, obliquely referring to an environment of harassment. Cynthia Marsh described balancing work and family, strapping her babies’ bodies to hers in a pouch while operating the press. Nonetheless, they all forged their paths through the various opportunities and connections that they made, creatively drawn to offset’s capacity for producing flat images, for the multiplicity that made it possible to forgo traditional publishing channels and then surreptitiously plant a piece on public transportation for a stranger to find, for its relevance to its particular time (though nowadays it may have taken on a vintage feel).
Maybe it’s because balancing different parts of my own life has been such a struggle lately, but I was really moved by Patty Smith’s The Book of Neglects: Highlights of a Week, a double-sided accordion-fold book with pop-up elements color-coding the relative levels that the artist felt she neglected her job, art, home, friends, husband, and children each day. Simple visual representation, big mood. And I love the cyan-magenta-yellow color palette, keeping it connected to the offset method.
Where is “MY SELF” in all this? I’m often wary of “self care” because it’s been so effectively and swiftly repackaged to fit a consumer mindset, but self care has politically radical origins. It is self-preservation, Audre Lorde wrote, and that’s a political act of resistance for those who are taught to feel subordinate. In this book’s context, its omission feels important, and gives the whole thing a wry feminist undertone. At the very least, it’s a gently humorous critique of the Catholic upbringing that Smith says inspired it.
Also in the world of books, and along the theme of not neglecting family, a few more fun facts: my youngest sibling’s high school art portfolio includes a series of absolutely lovely artist books and book-like objects made with found materials, which she’s included on her portfolio website. A very different aesthetic from offset printing! She’s heading off to college in a few months. I’m thrilled to see what she’ll create there.
My other sister (the one who just got married) held her wedding rehearsal in what used to be literary scholar Hugh Kenner’s house. Who knew you could AirBnb it? There were shelves upon shelves of Modernist poetry and books reflecting his other (widely ranging!) interests—and the library turned out to be the perfect setting for giving my sister this little handmade book with personal notes from the bridal party. We Sisterhood-of-the-Traveling-Pantsed this book in the months before the wedding. It’s just a single gathering of thick paper, sewn onto a scrap piece of bookcloth, and then attached to boards. I haven’t bound anything in a while, but I think it turned out all right.
This post neglects a lot. No apologies. A blog is a completely fine thing to neglect, all things considered, and after all, I don’t know what or whom I’m blogging for anyway. So I think these slivers are plenty.
Patty Smith’s artist’s statement says: “I address courage, fear, confidence, and self-doubt in my drawings, prints and animations. The images are layered landscapes, strewn with obstacles. The work calls up the fear and the allure of the unknown, the possible consequences and potential rewards of navigating unfamiliar territory.” In contrast to The Book of Neglects, her more recent work is darker: long, foreboding landscapes that simultaneously imply a mysterious beyond and and impenetrable barrier.
The next time I log on here I’ll be living in a new city. That mix of confidence and fear is palpable. I’ll be closer to family, but sadly far away from so many of the things I’ve grown to love these past few years in New York, and it’ll be the first time I’ve moved to a new place without a job lined up. So—wish me luck. We’ll see what gets neglected.
Carissa Pfeiffer 