ex libro - Lisa Kokin

LISA KOKIN EX LIBRO
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LISA KOKIN EX LIBRO
Exhibition organized by Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA
February 3 — March 15, 2009
www.donnaseagergallery.com
Cover: Detail of Room for Improvement, 2008
Pulped self-help books, PVA glue, dimensions variable
Published by Lisa Kokin and Donna Seager Gallery
Works of art © 2009 Lisa Kokin. All rights reserved.
No written portion of this publication may be reproduced, for any reason, by any means, including any method of
photographic reproduction, without the written permission of the author. All inquiries regarding the text should be directed to
the author. Essay © 2008 Paul Liberatore.
No artwork may be reproduced in part or in whole without the written permission of the publisher.
Design by Lia Roozendaal/Jagwire Design, Richmond, CA
Printed by Hunza Graphics, Oakland, CA
Photography © 2009 Lia Roozendaal
www.jagwiredesign.com
LISA KOKIN EX LIBRO
ESSAY BY
PAUL LIBERATORE
Lisa Kokin
Paul Liberatore
Lisa Kokin once called one of her exhibitions Relative Obscurity. While she is
Since artist’s books have been recognized as a distinct genre only since the
charmingly self-effacing, she was referring to the pieces she created for that
early 1970s, even the most ardent art lovers can be forgiven for not knowing
show out of family photos she’d found in flea markets, not to herself.
exactly what they are. They are not books about artists or books depicting
artists’ work. In the absence of a better description, they have been defined
At this mature point in her career, the 54-year-old Bay Area artist has
by Stephen Bury, head of European and American collections at the British
achieved a level of prominence in the contemporary art world that invites
Library, as “books or book-like objects whose appearance is determined by
comparisons in aesthetics, content and use of materials to Louise Bourgeois
the artist.” In other words, the book itself, in its altered form, is the work of art.
and Kiki Smith. For the past two decades, Kokin has been in the forefront
Kokin calls hers “reassembled books.”
of an emerging new art form: the artist’s book. This is reflected in the title
of the exhibition at Donna Seager Gallery: Ex Libro, meaning not only “from
“My definition of an artist’s book is open-ended, a freedom that may in many
the book,” but in Lisa Kokin’s mischievous world of layered puns, “formerly
ways be attributed to my lack of formal book art training,” she explains. “I am
a book.”
blissfully unaware of all the rules I am breaking as I go about my routine of
sewing, stapling, riveting and otherwise reconstituting objects to transform
“Lisa Kokin alters books and text through a complex system of destruction
them.” Kokin left out shredding and pulping and gluing and mashing. Her
and preservation,” Seager says. “There is as much meaning in what has been
studio looks like a depot where books go to die, only to be magically reborn
taken away as in what remains. The look and feel of books, papers, texts, and
as pieces of art that are wonderfully fascinating and endlessly varied in their
photographs blend to form a unified structure, whole unto itself even before
imagination and creativity.
you begin to mine it for the rich content.”
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On a recent visit to her studio before the exhibition, shredded pages in mounds
and against censorship. “Her aesthetic in these meanderings is consistently
on a table immediately brought to mind images of Monet’s haystacks. She
refined and appealing.” And, in this show, funny. The woman has a sense
explained how she takes each and every one of these shredded pages and
of humor to go along with her social conscience. “It’s very important that
painstakingly pulps and molds them with white glue into balls of various
people laugh,” she says with a sly smile.
sizes, from bonbons to boulders. “It’s very difficult physically,” she says with
a slight grimace. “There’s a lot of repetitive motion.”
Like a Native American using every part of an animal, wasting nothing,
Kokin has taken the variously-colored spines from the self-help rocks and
In one corner of the floor was a cluster of what appeared to be stones, the
fashioned them with burlap and twine into what looks like a Venetian blind.
smooth, round ones found on river bottoms. She’d molded them from
She calls the piece Treatment, a play on both psychotherapy and window
pulped self-help books. Their colors are watery reds, earthy greens, browns
coverings. In this context, the titles are as risible as they are readable: Eat
and grays, and on many of them you can glimpse the titles: Fit for Life, How
More, Weigh Less, How to Clean Everything, How to Manage Your Mother,
to Live on Your Income, Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office. Arranged
The Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude, and the presciently ironic The
together on the gallery floor, they form an installation she calls Room for
401(k) Millionaire.
Improvement.
“I like to work within limitations,” she says. “I ask myself, ‘How can I take a
“Through her process of art making, she explores cultural and personal issues
book and make it look completely different, but only use the materials from
of conformity and gender, the ambiguities of society and human behavior,”
the book and very little else? Those are the parameters of my challenge. I
Seager says, referring to Kokin’s frequent investigations of her bisexuality,
sometimes use thread or wire, but I don’t want to use extra color or doodads
her Jewish heritage, her devotion to universal struggles for social justice
or tchotchkes.’”
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Kokin has several reassembled dictionaries in this collection. Her favorite,
“I pulped each page and saved only the banned words,” Kokin explains. “I then
Abridged, has recently been featured in Banned and Recovered, an exhibit
reconstituted the pages and pressed the ‘bad’ words into their respective
sponsored by the San Francisco Center for the Book and the African
pages. Then I baked the book to darken the pages and give them a burnt
American Museum and Library at Oakland.
aroma. The pages are held together by a strap made from the spine of the
dictionary, with an anagram for “American Heritage” (“Ream Again Heretic”)
“Each artist was asked to pick a book that had been banned,” Kokin recalls.
sewn onto the bottom. I used the entire dictionary except for the covers, with
“I originally thought to do a gay-themed book, but when I searched the
only glue, snaps and thread to hold it together.”
Internet for banned books and found that the American Heritage Dictionary
had been banned in at least two states, I thought, ‘That’s my book.’” It
struck her as beyond the pale that anyone would
ban a dictionary because some bluenose
found 39 “objectionable” words in it. But
there’s no underestimating the dictatorial
righteousness of the Texas Society of the
Daughters of the American Revolution, who
were “shocked” by “debasing” words like
“brain” (denotes violence), “bucket” (slang for
buttocks) and “across-the-board,” (betting on
horse racing in Texas is illegal).
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Like many of her baby boom generation, Kokin was taught to wash her hands
when handling books, to treat them with the utmost respect. So she’s had
to wrestle with conflicted feelings about her sometimes ruthless artistic
process. “Every time I take my X-Acto blade to the tender page of a book,
I see my long deceased grandfather’s face before me,” she says. “He is not
happy. I am committing the Jewish equivalent of a mortal sin, and, believe
me, I feel guilty. So powerful is my drive to rearrange and juxtapose, however,
that I am willing to risk the wrath of my ancestors to accomplish my mission.”
It was especially painful when she was faced with a handsome atlas that had
been in the Indian Consulate library in the 1950s.
“It was such a beautiful book,” she sighs. “The maps were just gorgeous.
It hurt to have to shred them, but I did.” The result is a striking piece that
consists of pyramids of shredded pages stacked symmetrically in colorful
balls between the book’s covers. The old atlas ended up exacting its own bit
of good-humored revenge. After she’d shredded all the pages, she discovered
that there weren’t quite enough to finish the piece, hence the title, Four Balls
Short. “I had to take some pages from another book,” she admits.
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Conversely, Kokin made the most of a tragedy, salvaging a priceless first
edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, subtitled, Or, Life Among the Lowly. “A friend
gave it to me after her friend’s dog chewed it up,” she says. In its new form, the
pulped balls grow like Topsy on twisted wire out of the remains of the book. All
that was left of the title was Un Life, which is what Kokin decided to call it.
She has always been a political artist, from her beginnings making batiks to
protest the Vietnam War and to support solidarity movements in Chile and
Latin America. Later, she designed posters for leftwing causes in a graphics
collective and built apartment houses in Cuba. While studying at California
College of the Arts, she began working with found materials: photographs,
buttons and other common objects from flea markets that used to belong to
real people, and now only represent their discarded memories.
“My work is about memory and history, both personal and collective, and
the areas where the two intersect,” she says. “I’m interested in representing
the human condition by using the objects we leave behind.” Some of her
most powerful work deals with the horrors of the Holocaust and the plight
of marginalized people everywhere. She has never been afraid to tackle the
largest socio-political issues: racism, censorship, violence, genocide.
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On a recent search at a recycling center, Kokin came upon a batch of Western
novels, Louis Lamour-style macho tales with titles like Blood Reckoning and
Night of Vengeance. In the past, she would not have been attracted to this
kind of book, but she saw them as particularly relevant now, at the end of two
terms under the swaggering George W. Bush.
“For the Ex Libro exhibition, she shredded these shoot-’em up novels to create
a long, quilt-like piece she calls Shroud. It hangs in the gallery as both a
death knell for the past and a victory banner for the future. “It’s about the
end of an era,” she says. “I see it as a comment on the last eight years. Now
that I’m older, I still have political consciousness, but my work is not as black
and white as it was when I was in my twenties. I had very strong opinions then,
and I still do, but they have grown more subtle.”
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“I believe in Lisa Kokin’s work,” says Seager, “She has an individual approach
to her materials and medium. With humor, content, unerring instincts and
meticulous craftsmanship she is able to deliver a unique aesthetic sensibility.
When I see her work, I am reminded of the first time I saw an exhibition by
Eva Hesse in which my idea of art was instantly expanded and I was able to
imagine new forms of self-expression.”
With this extraordinary show, we’re seeing an artist at the height of her
powers, serious in purpose but light in touch. She presents her view of the
world with the consummate skill of an artist whose work will be remembered,
and whose contributions are destined to take their place in the history of art
in the new millennium.
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List of Works
Front Cover
Room for Improvement (detail)
Pulped self-help books, PVA glue
Dimensions variable
2008
Pages 1, 2
Still, Life (detail)
Still, Life
in collaboration with Lia Roozendaal
Shredded nature and animal books,
wire, PVA glue, epoxy, wood
55 x 93.5 x 16 inches
2009
5
Room for Improvement (detail)
Pulped self-help books, PVA glue
Dimensions variable
2008
10, 11
Verbiage
Pulped dictionary, PVA glue, wire,
polymer clay
10.5 x 12.25 x 1.5 inches
2008
16, 17
Psychoanalysis of the Total Personality
Book cover, Davey board, shredded
pages, PVA glue
24 x 26 x 1.5 inches
2008
Un Life
Pulped Uncle Tom’s Cabin, PVA glue,
wire,
18 x 8 x 6.5 inches
2008
Psychoanalysis of the Total Personality
(detail)
12, 13
Stitch-’em-up Series
Book covers, Davey board, acrylic paint,
shredded and pulped pages, PVA glue,
imitation sinew
2009
Treatment
Self-help book spines (double-sided),
burlap, thread, balsa wood, hemp, PVA
glue
86 x 30 x .25 inches
2008
The Man Who Shot Quantrill
8.5 x 7 x 1 inches
Treatment (detail)
6, 7
Abridged (detail)
Abridged
Pulped dictionary, PVA glue, thread,
snaps, mull
7.5 x 9.5 x 7.5 inches
2008
Maverick
8.5 x 6.75 x .75 inches
Abridged (open)
The Hangmen of Sleepy Valley
8.25 x 7 x .75 inches
8, 9
Four Balls Short (detail)
Four Balls Short
Shredded atlas, PVA glue, wire
15.25 x 15 x 10 inches
2008
Branded
7 x 5.25 x 1 inches
The Utah Kid
7.75 x 6.5 x .75 inches
14, 15
Shroud (detail)
Shroud
Book covers, mull, shredded pages, PVA
glue, thread
110 x 38 x 1.5 inches
2009
18, 19
Treatment (detail)
20, 21
Repressed Emotions
Pulped book, PVA glue, imitation sinew
7.75 x 8 x 6 inches
2007
Recapitulation
Pulped books, PVA glue, wooden shelf
10 x 72 x 10.25 inches
2008
22, 23
Sew Not in Anger
Book, acrylic paint, waxed linen
8.5 x 5.75 x 1.5 inches
2008
Sew Not in Anger (alternate view)
The Bride’s Dowry
Shredded book, PVA glue, acrylic paint,
imitation sinew
7.5 x 4.75 x 3.75 inches
2008
The Bride’s Dowry (alternate view)
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The Secret of Gold
Pulped book, PVA glue, wire
15.5 x 8 x 1 inches
2007
The Secret of Gold (detail)
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Tricks Anyone Can Do
Book cover, cut and folded pages, PVA
glue, wire
45 x 7 x 2.5 inches
2007
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The Cat in the Hat
Book cover, shredded pages, PVA glue
12 x 14 x .5 inches
2008
Inside Back Cover
How to Think
Pulped book, PVA glue, wire
22.5 x 16 x 20 inches
2008
Back Cover
Room for Improvement (detail)
Pulped self-help books, PVA glue
Dimensions variable
2008
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Lisa Kokin
Selected Solo Exhibitions
Selected Group Exhibitions
2009
Ex Libro, Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA
2009
The Dorothy Saxe Invitational, The .Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
2007
Fruit of the Broom, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York, NY
2008
Banned and Recovered, African American Museum and Library at Oakland, Oakland, CA
2004
Attachments, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
The Art of the Book, Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA
Secondhand Memories: Sewn Found Photographs, Gallery Connexion,
(Un)common: Art of Altered Objects, Department of Art and Art History,
Fredericton, NB, Canada
Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA
2002
Domestic Intelligence: Books by Lisa Kokin, San Francisco Public Library,
Artists as Collectors, Oakland Museum Exhibits at the Oakland Airport, Oakland, CA
San Francisco, CA
2007
Women’s Work, Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA
2001
Relative Obscurity, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Gathering, Oakland Museum off-site exhibition at 500 12th Street, Oakland, CA
2000
Salvaged Histories, Nine Gallery, Portland, OR
Singularity in the Communal Tide: Culture and Identity in the Moment,
Sew to Speak, Kennedy Art Center, Holy Names University, Oakland, CA
Pierro Gallery of South Orange, South Orange, NJ
1999
Lost and Found, Island Mountain Arts, Wells, BC, Canada
2006
Menagerie: Artists Look at Animals, Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco, CA
Bookmaking Is Not a Crime, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC
Eighth Annual Realism Invitational, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York, NY
Flea Market Economy, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
The 9th International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition, University of Hawaii Art Gallery, Honolulu, HI
The Art of the Book, Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA
2005
Inaugural Group Exhibition, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York, NY
Scents of Purpose: Artists Interpret the Spice Box, The Contemporary Jewish Museum,
San Francisco, CA
Needle Art: a Postmodern Sewing Circle, Gallery 210, St. Louis, MO and Texarkana Regional Center For Visual Art, Texarkana, TX
2004
Needle Art: a Postmodern Sewing Circle, McColl Center for Visual Art, Charlotte, NC
Blanden Memorial Art Museum, Fort Dodge, IA, Brevard Museum of Art and Science, Melbourne, FL, and Milton Hershey School Art Museum, Hershey, PA
Inner Workings, Oakland Art Gallery, Oakland, CA
Biography
1997
Art Book Art, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Circumstances Beyond Our Control, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1996
Remembrance, Buchenwald Memorial, Weimar-Buchenwald, Germany
1995
Fond Objects, Morphos Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1994
Tome Is Where the Art Is, Gallery Connexion, Fredericton, NB, Canada
1992
Tales of a Nice Jewish Girl and Unearthing, Definitely Superior, Thunder Bay,
Ont., Canada and Artcite, Windsor, Ont., Canada
Remembrance, Judah Magnes Museum, Berkeley, CA
1991
Persistent Memory, The Lab, San Francisco, CA
1989
Award of Excellence Show, Surface Design National Conference, Gatlinburg, TN
1988
Vestiges: Work in Fiber by Lisa Kokin, Pitt International Galleries, Vancouver, BC, Canada
1986
Batiks and Drawings of Lisa Kokin, The Women’s Building, San Francisco, CA
2003 Needle Art: a Postmodern Sewing Circle, Ellen Noel Art Museum, Odessa, TX and
1985
The Batiks of Lisa Kokin, Centro Cultural Vergueiro, São Paulo, Brazil
J. Wayne Stark University Center Galleries, College Station, TX
Daybreak: Nicaragua/El Salvador, Galerie Franz Mehring, Berlin, Germany
Show Me the Money: the Dollar as Art, Fresno Metropolitan Museum, Fresno, CA and
The Past Will Not Return, Exploratorium, California State University, Los Angeles, CA
Blanden Memorial Art Museum, Fort Dodge, IA
Lisa Kokin’s Studio at Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, CA
Is Money Money?, Palo Alto Cultural Center, Palo Alto, CA
Fabric of the Peoples of the Americas, Casa Fernando Gordillo, Managua, Nicaragua
2002
Ex Libris, Frumkin/Duval Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
1982
Latin America in Batik, Museum voor Land-en Volkenkunde, Rotterdam, Holland,
Show Me the Money: the Dollar as Art, Naples Museum of Art, Naples, FL and
Sheffield Town Hall, Sheffield, England, and Transnational Institute,
Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA
Amsterdam, Holland
Refuse/Reuse/Redux, The Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz, CA
1980
Lisa Kokin: Batiks, Laney College, Oakland, CA
2001
Books as Art, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA
1979
Batiks of Lisa Kokin, Santa Fe Armory for the Arts, Santa Fe, NM
1010, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Batik Banners, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
Eureka Fellowship Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA
1984
1983
1976
2000
Piecing it Together: A Visual Journal, Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz, CA
1991
Site: Western Union, Haines Annex, San Francisco, CA
Snapshot, Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD
Fiberarts International ’91, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA
Eureka, Too! Fellowship Awards 1999-2001, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA
New Ends, Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Staten Island, NY
Eureka Fellowship Exhibition, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA
1990
Fiber Progressions, Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York, NY
1999
The 7th International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition, University of Hawaii Art Gallery, Honolulu, HI
On Fiber: Human Conditions, UNL Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
Making Change: 100 Artists Interpret the Tzedakah Box, The Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
Batik: The Dyeing Art Today, Southern Ohio Museum and Cultural Center, Portsmouth, OH
Piecing it Together: a Visual Journal, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA
1989
Works on Paper, Claudia Chapline Gallery, Stinston Beach, CA
1998
Alternativity: the Other Side of Christmas, The Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
Paper/Fiber XII, Johnson City Arts Council, Iowa City, IA
Out West: the Artist’s Book in California, New York Center for Book Arts, New York, NY
Pro Arts Juried Annual, juried by Mary Jane Jacob, Pro Arts, Oakland, CA
On the Money, Sherry Frumkin Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
1988
Art of the Refugee Experience, Euphrat Gallery, Cupertino, CA
Hello Again! A New Wave of Recycled Art and Design, McAllen International Museum,
Personal Mythologies, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
McAllen, TX and Vancouver Museum, Vancouver, BC, Canada
1987 Punto Común/On Common Ground, Pro Arts, Oakland, CA
Women’s Foundation Awards Exhibition, San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum, San Francisco, CA
Viva La Vida: An Homage to Frida Kahlo, The Women’s Building, Los Angeles, CA
1997
Talent 1997, Allan Stone Gallery, New York, NY
Fahrenheit 451, San Francisco Art Commission Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Commemorative Textiles, Textile Arts Centre, Chicago, IL
1986
South Africa: State of Emergency, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, CA
Hello Again! A New Wave of Recycled Art and Design, Oakland Museum of California,
1985
Art Against Apartheid, Heller Gallery, Berkeley, CA
Oakland, CA and Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1983-5 The Other America, traveling exhibition, Stockholm, Sweden; Hamburg, Germany; Rome, Italy
Codified Desires, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1982
In Progress, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, CA
1978
Homage to Frida Kahlo, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, CA
1996
Science Imagined, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
Text/Context, Arts Benicia Center, Benicia, CA
CCAC: Past, Present, and Future, Oliver Art Center, Oakland, CA
Codified Desires, In Khan Gallery, New York, NY
2008
Purchase Award, Richmond Civic Center Public Art Interior Acquisitions Project, Richmond, CA
1995
Representations of Auschwitz, Gauforum Weimar, Weimar, Germany
2007
Commission, Castro Valley Library Small Scale Works Commission Program,
The Medicine Show, Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts, Chicago, IL
Alameda County Arts Commission, Oakland, CA
A Foot in the Door, The Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
2006
Purchase Award, Alameda County Arts Commission, Oakland, CA
1994
Redefining the Book, Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2005
Alameda County Arts Commission Juvenile Justice Center Rotational Works Award, Oakland, CA
Rooms for the Dead, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
1998
Eureka Fellowship, Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco, CA
Book as Art VII, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
California Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowship, Sacramento, CA
Making Sense: Story in Contemporary Bay Area Art,
California College of Arts and Crafts Recent Graduate of Distinction Award, Oakland, CA
San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum, San Francisco, CA
1996
Puffin Foundation Grant for Remembrance, Buchenwald Memorial,
Books and Bookishness, DePaul University Art Gallery, Chicago, IL
Weimar-Buchenwald, Germany
1993
Hybridization: Contemporary Northern California Craft, 1975-Present,
1995
WESTAF/NEA Regional Fellowship, Denver, CO
Oliver Art Center, Oakland, CA
1991
Jeanne Brenholts Award, Most Innovative Use of Materials, Fiberarts ’91, Pittsburgh, PA
Beyond the Written Word, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA
1989
Surface Design Award of Excellence, Surface Design Association, Marina del Rey, CA
1987
Women’s Hearts and Hands Award, The Women’s Foundation, San Francisco, CA
1992
History: Truth or Consequences, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA
Domestic Ontogeny, Oliver Art Center, Oakland, CA
Form and Object, juried by John Perreault, University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, WY
Awards
Education
1991
Master of Fine Arts with High Distinction, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA
1989
Bachelor of Fine Arts with High Distinction, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This catalogue was a collaborative effort.
I am indebted to Donna Seager for her commitment to my work in all its
manifestations. Her intelligence, enthusiasm and integrity are beyond
compare. I am honored to consider her my friend as well as my representative.
When Paul Liberatore graciously agreed to write the catalogue essay, I had
an intuitive feeling that he understood my work, and his writing confirmed
my intuition. It is gratifying to find a writer who has honed his craft to such a
fine degree, and who writes about art in language that is both sophisticated
and accessible.
Many thanks to Kato Jaworski for her invaluable aesthetic and graphic
feedback, meticulous proofreading, as well as for the delicious meals she
provided to the nutritionally challenged.
My partner Lia Roozendaal helps me in ways too numerous to mention. She
has the uncanny ability to use an elegant and understated design aesthetic
to complement an artist’s work. And that’s just what she does professionally.
Her other hats include that of art photographer, sculpture collaborator,
editor and woodworker.
This exhibition and catalogue are dedicated to the memory of Jean Miller
(1944-2008), best friend and lover of books in all their incarnations.