An “artist’s book” is a work of art, not just a vehicle to contain a story and communicate non-visual ideas. Different media are used in a unique way to create a book-like object. These books are puzzles. They are undefined. The viewer and the artist make up their own story using clues from the book-like structure. Image, text and structure are equally important. It’s a book!

This book is titled ‘Library Selection’

I took apart a case of wine and assembled the pieces in a new way. The wood dividers became the pages holding words pertaining to wine, A to Z.  The definitions of the words are on the back each page. By reassembling the original cutout wood that cradled  the bottle, I created a round hole for the bottle of wine.

Library Selection  1998

Stamped wood wine shipping container

1987 Trefethen Chardonnay

12 x 13 x 12 inches size

(click on the image to make it bigger)

Behind the Veteran’s Building  2001

Handmade paper using plant life from Napa, CA. pen and ink, watercolor,

Parchment paper, ink jet print, stamps, raffia, plastic

7 x 5 inches

It’s really easy to make your own paper. All you need is some scraps of paper, a blender from the kitchen and a framed screen. You’ll need some felt to sop up the excess water. After collecting leaves and tiny flowers I made the pulp. Before the new piece of paper was dry I inserted straw for a tie.  One day when my husband and I went on a hike, I jotted down some notes along the way. When I made this book I just just left the notes the way they were, made the font really tiny and printed it. The grasses and tiny flowers were collected during the hike. This kind of handmade book is called a single signature book, an Artist’s book.

I remember thirty nine forty Maryland Road

where, upstairs,  I played my favorite record, “ Fire, fire, fire

put the fire out. Here come the firemen to put the fire out!”

The sweet scent of acacia trees filled my room.

“Thirty nine forty,” where on Sunday morning I’d wake up to Bing,

our canary singing with music coming from the living room,

“Rum and Coca-Cola,”  “Deep in the Heart of Texas,”

and “ Cement Mixer Put-Ti, Put-Ti.”

Where Mother Kitty, the homeless neighborhood cat,

wouldn’t let me get into my bed, we moved the newborn kittens

onto some old clothes in my closet, using an eyedropper

I fed the scrawny one.  In the backyard, Sweetheart my white swan,

floated in a galvanized washtub. He, or was it a she?  kept an eye out

for Bumpie our black cocker spaniel. Wearing a two piece sunsuit,

I was unselfconsciously happy, round and soft like the bunnies

in a wire cage beneath the gnarled apricot tree. I would climb that tree

to pick the sweetest fruit, the taste I have not been able to match.

I wonder if my grandchildren will ever know the taste of a tree ripened apricot

or feel the sticky juice dribble down their chin to land on their bare tummy

warmed by the sun. The Oakland Hills fire took the house, leaving our  brick

chimney standing alone except for a white cement front step. A tree is so solid,

so stable, that’s what puzzled me, the trees of my childhood were gone.

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(click on drawing)

I love going to Yoshi’s with my son

We listen to jazz while I sketch

in the smoke and cell free zone.

The chairs are so high and small I slip off.

My feet hang.

The man in front of us has a coffee

bean printed on his cap.

The room goes dark as the waitress

brings a beer and a scotch.

Wearing a light weight summer suit

the pianist walks out on stage.

Three other musicians follow.

The pianist begins to play.

Look at the line of the piano.

How tall the string bass is.

The bass player’s fine line

fingers work the strings

into peppermint strokes.

His body moves back and forth

He plucks the strings.

Coffee bean head starts bobbing.

Fingers are tapping.  I’m drawing.

The sax player presses the brass

buttons of his saxophone

as he leans into his song.

His body filled with intuitive

spontaneous feeling

moves back and forth

up and down.

A familiar tune is playing.

Wrapped in the rhythm of the moment

I’m in there

dancing alone

in between

inside outside.

Loose ink glides over

the paper.

My eyes, hands and the music are one.

The players pour out their stories

Drums join in.

It gets going

changes direction.

Sounds play off each other.

Now a full easy tune

yellow daffodils become

a thundering herd of mustangs.

Heads are bobbin. Feet are tappin.

Everyone is gone

completely entranced.

Fresh silver stars stretch out.

A meadow of blossoms folds over into peach.

The music textures down to

sunset tones.

Applause follows quiet.

The set is over.

But I sat down only a moment ago.

I understand how I could

learn about the workings of

a computer or build

a painting or dissect a frog but

how to build jazz

I do not know.

This was the actual view from our apartment. I have a series of photographs taken at this time. This one was shot at 1/500 sec at f 5.5 ISO 400. We had a friend who was a pilot for these boats. He would tell us about his mornings out on the water before the San Francisco area woke up and started the activities of the day,

Friday morning the fog crept under the Golden Gate bridge and quietly moved along the water over to Coit Tower. Sts Peter and Paul Church in North Beach/ Telegraph Hill peaked through the frothy shape.  Joe DiMaggio, who grew up in the neighborhood, returned to live there with his wife Marilyn Monroe during the 1950s.

January 27, 2012 1/160 sec at f/29 ISO 400 8:28 AM

This was the view we had from our apartment. We looked at a picture that was always changing. Besides making drawings and paintings for my Artists Book, I made photographs. This photograph was taken at 5:34 in the morning.1.3 sec at f/4.0 The focal length was 28mm ISO 200. I didn’t have a tripod so I set up my Canon EOS Digital rebel XTI  on a pile of books on a table. Then, I put the camera on  timer and experimented with different settings. A bit crazy, too, it was dark, I’m trying to see the dials with a flashlight – I have to remember where they are on the camera!  I’m trying to be quiet so I don’t wake up my husband, then of course when I do try that, I usually crash something.There’s not a lot of time to fiddle around because the light changes rapidly.

I’m working on how to show bigger images on my WordPress site here but so far all I can say it click on the image to see it bigger. It makes a difference. If anyone has a suggestion on a better layout for my blog, I’d love to hear about it.

This is an Artists’ Book

An Artists’ Book is a work of art. It is not just a vehicle to contain a story and communicate non-visual ideas.

Different media are used in a unique way to create a book-like object.

These books are puzzles.

They are undefined.

The viewer and the artist make up their own story using clues from the book-like structure.

Text, image and structure are equally important in an Artists’ Book.

In The Bay Bridge my cover and spine is the steel box. The pages can be taken out of the box and looked at indvidually.

For a few years we lived in an apartment looking right out at the Oakland- San Francisco Bay Bridge. In a drawer near the window I kept a supply of the same  size  ’pages’  for my Artists’ Book. I’d record what was going on outside my window. What happens is you have the same size  paper for each drawing and painting so you start to think of different ways to fill that piece of paper. The book is chuck full now. Included in the steel box are stories about connections I have had with the bridge.

For many of my trips I have taken with me a  Canson 8.5×11 sketch book. Made up of acid free paper with a durable black cover and binding, this sketchbook has about 200 pages of a good quality paper. My goal is always to try to fill up the book before I go home. After the trip I paint about the experience and then have an exhibit every few years.The Egypt paintings were shown at Robert Mondavi winery.  The painting above is based upon a sketch I did of some birds that were drawn in 2450 BC. I found the images in the tomb of Teti.

For this body of work my paintings introduce large scale light boxes set within canvas structures. The light boxes highlight artwork inspired by sketches done during my trip to Egypt.  Size: 54″ x 84″ wax and acrylic on canvas, sumi ink, watercolor on two layers of mulberry paper.

Fragments, Fadings and Feelings

Mills College Art Museum

When I was in China the abstract beauty of calligraphy intrigued me. I bought some children’s textbooks on how to write Chinese script. For centuries the children have learned how to write by copying characters within boxes in order to understand their structure and proportions.

I started to copy the lessons.  Soon my strokes freed themselves from the grid. The “correct” version of the letters was replaced by the “wrong” solution.  Using sumi ink, wax and acrylic paint on xuan paper I put down marks. The shapes and colors mixed and spread into new compositions and brushstrokes. The biomorphic forms of nature took over.

As I painted I thought of the world’s largest hydroelectric dam on the Yangtze River. The Three Gorges Dam transformed the river into a deep reservoir flooding farmland, cities, villages and archaeological sites. People were relocated to new structures of mass produced design, buildings with slick, cold, white tile.

Today’s mass production and permanency of materials is replacing an intuitive expression of life. These paintings are made of materials that are vulnerable to the effects of weathering and our touch. The sun will fade some of the brilliant colors into muddy earth tones.  Fragile paper will tear. But the way xuan paper transmits light, the way people carried out their everyday life on the Yangtze. These memories will stay in my heart.