Exhibit explores physicality of books

Students and faculty alike constantly analyze and dissect the contents of books—but rarely do they look not at the words on the page, but the page itself. The Thompson Memorial Library seeks to change that with its exhibit of book art produced by the Women's Studio Workshop, in Rosendale, N.Y., in the Hudson Valley.

These artist books are hand-printed multi-media projects that include hand-made paper, letterpress, silkscreen, photography, intaglio and ceramics. The Women's Studio Workshop was founded in 1974 by artists Ann Kalmbach, Tatana Kellner, Anita Wetzel and Barbara Leoff Burge. They aimed to develop an alternative space for artists hoping to create new work and share skills. Today, it is not only the largest publisher of hand-printed artist's books in the United States, but also the only visual arts residency in the United States solely for women. Since 1974, the artists at the Workshop have produced over 180 artist's books.

Special Collections has aquired copies of all the works produced by the Workshop. "The exhibit, and the larger collection, is interesting because it focuses on book art—that is, it shows a lot of different physical structures and illustrates various artistic expression," Head of Special Collections Ron Patkus said. "But it also addresses issues—both personal and social—that women face."

The exhibit, entitled Hand, Voice, Vision: Artist's Books from the Women's Studio Workshop, features only a portion of Vassar's collection and will last until March 12. Its title addresses three facets that characterize the books published by the workshop: hand, representing the maker of the book and their impact; voice, acknowledging the recurring themes addressed in the books, like personal and cultural narrative, self-image, and political observation; and vision, celebrating the artists' influence on new directions in the medium of artist books.

By the display cases in the Library is a film on the Women's Studio Workshop created by Vassar students to complement the exhibit. On Feb. 1, Associate Professor of Art and co-Director of Africana Studies Lisa Collins delivered a lecture for the exhibit, "Hands on Books," alongside two students— Joanna Hamer '12 and Carly Attman '12—who took a seminar taught on the Workshop last semester. The lecture hoped to encourage students and faculty to utilize the books in Vassar's possession, which are accessible to all in the community. While one may appreciate and study the books visually from afar, they are only fully appreciated when physically handled.

The seminar itself, cross-listed in the American Culture, Art, and Women's Studies Departments, met in the Special Collections classroom to work directly with the artist books. They studied the rare books' range of media, subject matter and aesthetic sensibilities, as well as their context and meaning.

Collins and her students also traveled to the Women's Studio Workshop itself to experience firsthand the artistic process in an alternative space. The workshop is a converted space; it was formerly the Rosendale Cement Company Store and Post Office, and is a short distance away from the Studio's "ArtFarm," a field-based program that grows fiber for the workshop's hand-papermaking program. The workshop founders taught the students paper-making. And although they didn't create books in the class, the class inspired students to be creative in other aspects of their studies. Specifically Hamer and Attman, who are both English majors, crafted books for a Verse Writing class, and Hamer is working on an artist book for her thesis.

"For me, the class was the equivalent of being let loose in a place like the White House," Hamer said. "The class was really unique in that we got to handle the rare books—pass them around, open them up, and read them, virtually unsupervised."

Attman noted the best way to define the term "art book." "One of the key definitions of an artist book," Attman said, "is that you have to interact with it." Attman talked about one book, 71125 Fifty Years of Silence. "Opening the book is akin to the experience of opening a coffin. You hear the wood scraping, and then, upon opening the book, which is like a box, see a tattooed hand inside of it," Attman said. The tattoo emulates tattoos from a concentration camp. "The sound, the touch and the smell all added to the experience."