Sunset on the Library as Incubator Project

Photo by: Commander John Bortniak, NOAA Corps. Public Domain image.

If you haven’t heard via social media already, the Library as Incubator Project team has bittersweet news to share: it is time to sunset the LAIP.

We’ve had an amazing time working with many contributors to keep this community relevant and meaningful, but the time has come to make space for new and different projects.

Over the course of our time curating the LAIP, we’ve witnessed a sea change in the ways libraries and librarians think about the fundamental exchange libraries represent: that of connecting people and information. 

The idea that freely accessible hands-on learning opportunities and in-person connections are as valuable to communities as access to books and other materials has become standard in our professional conversations. The idea that a programming calendar represents a legitimate library collection and that programming librarians are essentially collection development librarians curating an ephemeral, responsive, and highly collaborative collection, now represents library business as usual. 

We are grateful to have had a hand in bringing these ideas to the fore by sharing stories and thinking deeply about what information is, what it means to be an artist and to create new information, and what it means to be a librarian whose job is to get that information into people’s hands.

Special thanks and shoutout to all of our various LAIP team members over the years: Christina Jones (co-founder!), Katie Behrens, and Angela Terrab! Y’all are the best!

What will happen with the site / Book to Art Club / @IArtLibraries

The University Archives at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have graciously offered to capture the site as it stands today. This will be archived in the UW’s ArchiveIt account. We also intend to keep the site accessible for the general public, although no new content will be added. WiLS is providing outstanding support for the LAIP by hosting the website. We are really pleased to be collaborating with them on this and appreciate their enthusiasm and support.

Ann Miller, Makerspace coordinator for Mead Public Library in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, will continue her role as Book to Art Club coordinator. You can visit that project at http://ift.tt/2zDog4k.

As for our social media platforms, the @IArtLibraries accounts will remain online for a while as an archive, but we won’t be adding new content after November. Recently we’ve been tagging posts with #IArtLibraries; we invite you to share those posts and continue the discussion via #IArtLibraries

What we’re up to

As of this writing, Erinn is an adult services librarian at Northland Public Library in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is the library where she learned to read and where she had her first job as a shelver. She is also a writer, and is at work on a variety of projects including a poetry collection and a novel, and she crochets, paints, sews, and regularly teaches herself other creative stuff.

Erinn’s professional website is here: http://ift.tt/2hqoeCR; reach out to her via that contact page, or find her on Twitter at @erinnbatykefer

Laura is a Community Engagement Librarian for the Central Library at Madison Public Library in Madison, Wisconsin. She identifies and facilitates opportunities for creative engagement with library space, resources, and services. These include things like the Volunteer Toolbox, a cross-agency volunteer training series, and Library Takeover, an event-planning bootcamp for teams of community members who want to learn how to plan and host great large-scale events. On a personal note, she’s upping her running game and perfecting her read-aloud technique with her kiddo.

Please feel free to visit Laura’s professional website; there is a contact form on that page where you can send her a note. You can follow her on Twitter at @LauraDM08.

Holly is a youth services librarian at the Madison Public Library. She loves working with the youngest kiddos and their families, and baby storytime is her favorite. Holly is always working on ways to bring library services out of the building to reach more families. Follow Holly on Twitter at @hollystorckpost.

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Thank you again for your support and partnership over the last seven years. It’s been a pleasure working with you!

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#IArtLibraries | Featuring: Ellen Ziegler

This post originally appeared on the Library as Incubator Project in September 2016.

Ellen Ziegler’s extraordinary book art was what made us reach out, but her wonderful collaborative projects truly embody the library-as-incubator philosophy. Enjoy! ~Erinn

Library as Incubator Project (LAIP): Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Ellen Ziegler (EZ): I went to Antioch College; some of my professors there were students at Black Mountain College with John Cage, Josef and Anni Albers, Jacob Lawrence, Merce Cunningham, Robert Motherwell, and many other seminal avant-garde artists of the 20th century. Their experimental methods influenced me deeply. I am self-taught as a graphic designer, artist, and book artist as a result of the anarchic and fearless approaches that I was exposed to. I’ve been lucky to have had a successful design practice in Seattle, followed by a shift to art and book arts in 2000.

My work investigates the psychological and physical properties of materials through drawing. I work with pigments, tar paper, mirror silvering, burned paper, obsolete industrial tools, and light-sensitive surfaces, as well as the changing effects of light and shadow.

“The beautiful couple is beautiful.” John Green, The Fault In Our Stars Silver mylar on tracing paper, ink on tulle netting, 30” x 48”, 2014

LAIP: What are you working on right now that you’re excited about?

EZ: I’m leading a group of artists in participating in an international exhibit here in Seattle in October 2016. 9e2 is a reprise of Nine Evenings, the first event where artists and scientists/engineers collaborated in public. This event was held in 1966 in New York over a period of nine evenings and included the think tank Bell Laboratories and, among many others, Robert Rauschenberg, Lucinda Childs, Deborah Hay, Steve Paxton, and Yvonne Rainer.

Fifty years later, artists are collaborating with 21st century concepts of technology and science to present experimental work. This will lead to “documentation” of an experimental form in an artist’s book.

I’m also working on a book about an eccentric museum in Mexico City that features both antique toys and street art. Stay tuned!

LAIP: How do you see your work interacting with narrative or story?  What does working in books allow you to do that you can’t pull off with other media?

EZ: I have always loved the sequencing that takes place in books. In the folio form, the left-to-right procession that is so much a part of our Western culture takes me on a storytelling journey that can be altered and played with infinitely. It’s this starting point that inspires me, even though many of my books are not in that form. An example:

My first artist’s book, 

“El Torero y la Bailarina”, was the love story of a young ballerina (my mother) from New York’s Ballet Theatre, in residence at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. She fell in love with Cantinflas, Mexico’s most famous actor and comedian (and a bullfighter). The story is told with photos, telegrams, and anecdotes. The book is written in Spanish and English. The Spanish language pages overlay the English pages and are hand-typed on onionskin — letter writing paper of the period. They were typed by a Mexico City mecanografico, a typist-for-hire who writes letters and documents for clients in one of Mexico City’s main squares. Funded by Kickstarter!

Another example: The Book of Knowledge is a series of forty original paintings, sequenced and bound into a single volume. The book format allows me to tell this story in images without miles of walls.

LAIP: How have libraries informed your creative work? Tell us about the first library you remember playing a part in your artistic development.

EZ: My father’s best friend had a private library of limited edition books, illustrated with tipped-in lithographs and etchings. This began my love for printing, typography, printmaking, and books in general. I also tried to read every book in the elementary school library in alphabetical order.

I also tried to read every book in the elementary school library in alphabetical order.

LAIP: Can you describe a particular library-incubated project for us?

 

EZ: I’ve always loved alphabets and languages. Access to books with the alphabets of the world at the University of Washington library fostered a piece called “Counting in Tongues”: numbers from Southeast Asia inscribed on adding machine tape.

 

LAIP: As an artist, what would your ideal library be like?  What kinds of stuff would you be able to check out, and what could you do there?

 

EZ: Not a direct answer, but: I want to make a library. I was deeply inspired by Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence (both an actual museum and a novel) that he built in Istanbul. (Readers: look it up! amazing.) Just think of making a library not only of books that have deep personal meaning, but objects, book-like objects, collections to be “read”, ephemera…this is one of my dreams.

 

 

Ellen Ziegler sources the immaterial through the material. Her practice includes drawing, sculpture, assemblage, and artist’s books. She works with mirrored glass, tar paper, cyanotype, and draw with an electrode on a copper table. These arcane materials, with their sometimes unpredictable outcome, allow for accident and serendipity as well as ongoing refinement of technique: chemistry is the emotion of matter. Connect with Ellen on her website. 

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Mel Kolstad in Residence at Appleton Public Library

It’s our pleasure to welcome back Mel Kolstad to the Library as Incubator Project. Today Mel fills us in on what she’s been up to during her artist residency at the Appleton Public Library in Appleton, Wisconsin. We love that Mel’s work continues to be deeply inspired by libraries and the “detritus” that comes into the library via returned library books. Enjoy! ~Laura

by Mel Kolstad

Back in 2012, I had the pleasure of creating a 7-part series called The Detritus Project for Library as Incubator Project.  In a conversation with Laura and Erinn, I thought it would be neat to find out what happened when I had the circulation department at the Fond du Lac Public Library save every bit of “detritus” that came back in from returned library books.  

WOWIE!

We were SHOCKED by how much came back to us.  It didn’t take long to fill a medium-sized box, and in tandem with those seven blog posts, I created this multi-media piece with the “detritus” that was found, which I donated to the library.

I had so much fun with this project that I knew I wanted to continue it in other iterations.  So in 2016, I curated a community-wide project where participants created art with even MORE saved detritus.  It was a huge hit, with over 25 artists participating.

But I STILL wanted more.  When the opportunity arose to apply for the artist-in-residence program at the Appleton Public Library, I jumped at it, and I used my Detritus Project idea for my application.  Very luckily, I was accepted, and for the months of September and October of 2017, I was the resident.  My approach was fourfold – I created a 40-piece exhibit made entirely of the “detritus” that the APL saved for me;

I gave a lecture about how the Library as Incubator project did indeed serve as an incubator for this ongoing project;

I taught a collage class using the detritus;

and I gave a demonstration about how I used the detritus in my own work.

People were fascinated by the things that come back in returned library books (it’s really the most amazing thing about the entire process!) and working with these materials really opened their eyes to myriad possibilities when it comes to making art with recycled materials.  It is my hope that some folks also visited their library with new eyes and a renewed sense of the fantastic resources available to them.

Many thanks must go to the entire staff of the Appleton Public Library, but especially Kristi Helmkamp, who served as my “mentor” for the entire residency.  I am so honored to be a part of the residency program and to utilize library detritus once again!

Mel Kolstad is an artist, speaker, instructor and arts advocate who makes her home in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. She is a printmaker, collagist, fiber artist, and papermaker. She is also delighted to be a Certified Papermaker for Arnold Grummer, Inc.; the membership chair of Wisconsin Visual Artists – Northeast Chapter; and curator for the Langdon Divers Gallery, located inside the Fond du Lac Public Library.

Mel has participated in many artist residencies throughout Wisconsin and also teaches various classes all over the state. You can view her artwork and find a listing of her upcoming classes on her website, melkolstad.com.

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#IArtLibraries | The Library Card Project at the American Craft Council

This post originally appeared on the Library as Incubator Project in April 2013.

When posts about the Library Card Project, facilitated by the American Craft Council, started to crop up on Twitter we naturally couldn’t wait to reach out to ACC organizers and find out more about this ephemera inspired handmade project. Today we ask project organizers Elizabeth Ryan and Jessica Shaykett to talk about the American Craft Council, the Library Card Project, and what it is about those little cards (and other types of library ephemera) that make them so appealing to crafters and makers. ~ Laura

Can you tell us a bit about the American Craft Council – the organizers, members, where the group “lives”, its mission, etc.

Located in the former Grain Belt brewery in Northeast Minneapolis, the American Craft Council (ACC) is a national nonprofit, educational organization founded in 1943 to promote the understanding and appreciation of contemporary American craft. We are a community of more than 25,000 members who believe in the value of things made by hand, the people who create them, and the meaning that creativity brings to everyday life.

Sandra Muzzy, “Dewey’s Decimal Dilemma”.

Can you give us some background information about the Library Card Project – what was the inspiration for the project?

We have a one-of-a-kind research library that is open to the public, and although we’ve had an electronic catalog since the late ’90s, we recently uncovered several boxes of library cards hidden in the stacks. We thought it would be a shame to just throw them away, so we decided to see if we could convince our creative audience to repurpose them into new works of art.

Vanessa Walilko, drum farthingale and corset (detail).

How did you go about identifying/recruiting artists, and what guidelines were they provided?

We posted a call for submissions on our blog and promoted the project through our social networks. We simply asked anyone who was interested to send us their project proposal and how many cards they would need. The only caveats were that we wanted them to complete a short set of questions about their process and send us photos of their finished piece (or pieces) by a certain deadline. The response was tremendous. We went through all the submissions, divided up the cards, and sent them out to as many people as we could. Since then, we’ve been completely blown away by work that has been created, and we’re already planning to do another version of this (using a different library item) this fall.

 

 

 

 

Library ephemera is very popular with crafters and handmakers. In your opinion(s), what is it about these objects that makes them so compelling?

There’s a certain nostalgia for items such as library cards – especially if you grew up using a card catalog, and we think that was reflected in the enthusiasm of the participants. You can’t readily buy library ephemera like this at a store. It’s infused with a great sense of history, and that’s really appealing – especially to makers.

As craftspeople and “umbrella group” organizers yourselves, what do you see as being the role of libraries in the crafting world – currently, and potentially?

Most art libraries contain a plethora of resources – from how-to books to exhibition catalogs – on a range of mediums, and craftspeople are particularly interested in what artists in other media are working on, so we continually have people browsing our collection for inspiration. It’s also fun to see things like macrame and leather – which were very popular and well-documented back in the ’70s – having a resurgence, and you can’t find that sort of information on the Internet. So in this sense, libraries can serve as a bridge between the past and future of contemporary craft.

Keep up with all of the Library Card Project posts on the American Craft Council’s website. We also really enjoy following the ACC on Twitter at @craftcouncil.

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#IArtLibraries | Featuring: Coralie Bickford-Smith

This post originally appeared on the Library as Incubator Project in March 2013.

Today’s featured artist is book cover designer Coralie Bickford-Smith. Coralie is the talent and hard work behind Penguin’s revamped classics covers and we are really thrilled to talk with her about her relationship to libraries! ~ Laura

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and the work you do?

I am a pattern obsessed book cover designer who has been working at Penguin for 10 years or so. I have been very lucky at Penguin because I get to work on the books I love for which I have gained a reputation as a designer.

Clothbound series, designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.

Can you tell us about your relationship to libraries – growing up, and now – as a reader and as an artist?

I remember my first trip to the library I was a small child and it was a big deal. I could not believe the choice of books to take home and read. I lovingly kept the chosen books by my bed and took extra special care of them. I was hooked and regular visits became an important part of my early life.

As I grew up I found solace in libraries where ever I was. They would be my place of choice to get away from it all.

I find that a library is the best  place to disappear and hide from the world and make new friends from between the pages of a book.

You design covers for new works, but also for reprints of many works of classic literature. Can you talk generally about your process for designing a book cover, discussing how the process differs (if at all) between a new book and a classic work?

The process begins with getting hold of what ever I can about the book, be it a manuscript, a summary, or the actual book. I read and research who the author is or was; when the book was written; and the social background to the period or the visual trends of that era. It varies on whether the book is modern or an older classic. I love to immerse myself in the visual identity of that period or the period in which the book is set. I enjoy digging up new visual odds and ends that I can play on in the work. I might disappear out of the office to a library or a museum or a second hand book shop. It all depends on the time I have and the style of book. But one thing is for certain: London has a whole heap of things to see and do to get inspiration.

I then start to lay down ideas and make a general mess. I let the information I find mix around in my brain. Something usually appears out of nowhere at a strange moment and I have to work on it straight away or write it down in one of my note books for later. I love that surge of ideas that leads to the ‘I must work now’ feeling. It’s important, and when it’s not there I let my creative side alone and work on the more mundane tasks which are needed to keep things ticking along.

Where do you look for inspiration for your cover designs? Do you have favourite books, websites, collections, illustrators, etc. that you find you turn to for reference and/or inspiration?

In my study I have three big bookshelves full of books that I use for inspiration and I am always adding to them. I love having a huge collection of material to turn to when seeking ideas. I am always trawling bookshops to add to my collection. Every so often I find the ultimate book – the forgotten lettering book. It hides in dark corners in second hand bookshops. I love the hunting down those rare beasts. The web plays a big part also but it never is as rewarding as finding incredible things that exisit as ink on paper that you can take home.

As an artist, what would your ideal library look or be like?

Now that I have my own place to live I am enjoying creating my own library. The fiction side of things is very organised and tidy, colourfully arranged. My design library is a mass of over sized books that constantly move around on the shelf as I pull them out and put them back out of order. My current reading library in my bedroom shifts constantly; it grows and shrinks weekly. These personal collections of literature are each like a living thing that reflect the different moments of my life, depending on what I am working on or if I am taking a break from cover design. I love my book collections and I suppose now I have created my own space I am going to libraries less as I have my own place to hide away.

Read more and see more of Coralie’s work on her website, cb-smith.com.

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#IArtLibraries | Featuring: Erico Ortiz and “Making It Speak: Poets & Artists in Cahoots!”

This post originally appeared on the Library as Incubator Project in March 2015.

Today we’re thrilled to present an interview with Erico Ortiz, a creative artist in Wisconsin, who tells us today about his relationship to libraries and a wonderful poetry + visual art project he produced with other poets and artists last year. Enjoy! ~ Laura

Library as Incubator Project (LAIP): Introduce yourself! Who are you, and what sort of creative work do you do?

Erico Ortiz (EO): My name is Erico Ortiz.  I taught Spanish in the Milwaukee Public Schools for ten years. Eventually, I moved into a supervisory role with the district and became a school administrator. After 33 years in the system, I retired to a life of art-making. I began to paint and found that people were interested in my art. I exhibit throughout Southeastern Wisconsin and am active with the Riverwest Artists Association. 

During my teaching years, I was drama director at my school, producing and directing musicals and straight plays for five years. I directed a dance troupe whose focus was the folk dances of Puerto Rico, Mexico and Spain. I play folk guitar and direct a Spanish church choir.

I am also very active with the Village Playhouse, acting on stage and doing behind-the-scenes work: program design and set construction. Most recently, I purchased an old funeral home and converted it (with the help of over 100 friends and family members!) into an art gallery and theatre performance space.  Inspiration Studios opened its doors on March 1, 2014, and is now home to the Village Playhouse and other theatre companies, producing approximately ten different theatre productions throughout the year. Inspiration Studios has become a vibrant part of the West Allis community in Wisconsin.

LAIP: What is / has been your relationship to libraries – in the past/present, as a reader, an artist, a community member…however you feel like responding to the question.

Erico Ortiz.

EO: As a college student, I used library resources to research topics for individual papers and for my Master’s thesis.  During some of that time, I was hired to translate technical documents into Spanish for a manufacturing firm whose products were partially created in Mexico.  I found the dictionaries that I never knew existed prior to having that consulting job.  

As a teacher, school librarians helped me to develop packets of materials that students could use to research their projects and to write comprehensive papers.  As a school administrator, I worked closely with the school librarian in various ways.  Together we created budgets to ensure that the library and school was properly equipped with needed resources for use in the classroom and in the library.  We ordered computers and SmartBoards, laptops and software.  We created presentations for staff on the usefulness of a lot of the technology available to them.  New teacher orientations, which I coordinated, always included a tour of the library and presentation by the librarian to orient the new teachers on how the library could help them to prepare for units of study.  

LAIP: Tell us about your book project, Making It Speak: Poets & Artists in Cahoots! How did this project come to be? What was the inspiration for the project? 

EO: As the Coordinator of the Final Friday events of the Sheboygan Visual Artists, I attended a poetry reading of the Mead Library Poetry Circle at EBCO (home to the SVA), in Sheboygan the summer of 2013.  During that event, I was asked about the possibility of creating an event where artists and poets would collaborate on an art exhibit that would also function as a poetry reading.  Working with two representatives from the Mead Library Poetry Circle (Marilyn Windau and Georgia Ressmeyer), we decided it would be interesting to have artists create new art based on poems that were supplied to them and also have poets create new writings based on previous artworks of the SVA.  

Poets and Artists were asked to indicate their interest in the project.  They would each receive an envelope, assigned randomly, with 3 pieces of paper.  Each envelope given to the artist contained 3 poems by a poet.  Each of the envelopes given to the poets contained 3 works of art.  All participants were instructed to select only one piece to serve as inspiration for their new creation.  The envelopes were distributed in November of 2013 to sixteen poets and seventeen artists who accepted the challenge.  They had several months to complete their new works and the final reveal of the new and inspirational pieces would take place on March 31, 2014, as the Sheboygan Visual Artists Final Friday event for March.  The new poems were printed, matted and hung alongside the artwork that inspired them.  The new works of art were hung alongside the poems that inspired their creation.  

The evening of March 31 was filled with art and poetry and music and snacks.  Poets read their poems (old and new) as the artists stood by the displayed counterparts.  Participants shared the struggles and achievements of addressing each others’ work with integrity and creativity.

I had offered to create a book to commemorate this collaborative art event.  Originally, I hoped to have the book available at the March Final Friday, but it took a while to get quality photos of all the art.  So the final book wasn’t published until October 2014.  

LAIP: From your perspective, how can libraries enhance their support of creative artists and their work?

EO: Occasionally, I see that a library has art on display to coincide with a specific theme (e.g., Black History month).  I would like that to be a regular practice and not only featuring established artists, but also local and emerging artists.  Artwalks and Gallery Nights are becoming a norm in Milwaukee, but I don’t know that libraries are open during those events.  I believe there would be some mutual benefit by opening their doors to local artists during such events, allowing them to display their works during these extended days.  I also think the library halls or entrance lobbies would make for great display areas for extended exhibits.  It might take a bit more coordination as the librarian or administrator becomes a curator of sorts, but I can imagine all sorts of possible collaborations if there were local artists displaying in the libraries. 

LAIP: As an artist, what would your ideal library look or be like? What would it have in it?

Mead Library Poetry Circle.

EO: Maybe it defies the definition of a library, but I would love to see a creative center housed in each library… a place where students can explore art and poetry and other mediums by creating it themselves.  Maybe a library becomes defined as a creative center.  Maybe it becomes an outlet for children (and adults!) to put their creative energy to work.  

Interested in snagging your own copy of Making It Speak: Poets and Artists in Cahoots? Click to view the book on Amazon.

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#IArtLibraries | Featuring: Kevin Weir

This post originally appeared on the Library as Incubator Project in October 2014.

A vaguely creepy project by Kevin Weir, Flux Machine, came across my social media feeds a few weeks ago. The gifs that Kevin creates from historic photos from the Library of Congress put me in mind of Terry Gilliam’s work for Monty Python, compelling the viewer to dig into the digital collections of historic photos and see old images in a new way. Enjoy! ~ Laura

Library as Incubator Project (LAIP): Please introduce yourself. Who are you, and what kind of creative work do you do?

Kevin Weir (KW): My name is Kevin Weir, and I’m a designer/animator based in Brooklyn, NY. I work full time as an art director at an ad agency called Droga5 in NYC, and in my spare time I do some animation. I’m not really a great animator, by any means, but I’m learning as I go. I’ve been kind of pleasantly surprised at the attention that my one GIF project, Flux Machine, has been getting. Pretty exciting to have the internet spreading my work around.

Gif created by Kevin Weir.

LAIP: What is/has been your relationship to libraries (of any kind, at any point in your life you’d like to talk about!)?

KW: I grew up in upstate NY and was a card-carrying library member of a small library in an adjacent town. In my youth, I used to take out huge stacks of books at a time. Lots of fantasy, science fiction and nature facts/photography. More recently, I’ve found the Library of Congress to be an incredible online resource for the animated works that I make.

LAIP: Your animated gifs, collected at The Flux Machine, are delightfully weird. Can you tell us a bit about the process you go through to create one of those projects? How do you pick the photos to use, for example?

KW: Thanks! I go on the Library of Congress Flickr page and look through hundreds of their recent uploads. I’ll make a few selects just based on what catches my eye, and then I’ll sit with those for a while before choosing one that I want to animate. I typically look for really interesting compositions and characters.

Gif created by Kevin Weir.

LAIP: Do you have a recommended gif maker for people looking to make their own gifs? Any how-to’s or instructions you’d recommend checking out?

KW: I use photoshop and after effects. Used to only use photoshop, back when I made everything frame by frame. To learn photoshop, I think you just need to mess around with the program for hours and hours on end. I’m self-taught, so I don’t really know where the good tutorials are there. For after effects, there’s a site called Video Copilot (videocopilot.net) which is an incredible resource for learning the technical parts of the program. Again, though, I wouldn’t consider myself a great animator (yet). I think in general to learn animation you just have to do a lot of it.

 

Gif created by Kevin Weir.

 

LAIP: As an art-maker, what would your ideal library look or be like? What would it have in it?

KW: I’ve been thinking that I should really take some books out on animation! I think that as a fledgling animator, everything I do can benefit from learning more about technique. So maybe that.

Also maybe just a book on reptiles or something. With lots of glossy photos. Nature is the best.

See Kevin’s work on his website, http://kevinjweir.com, and explore his animated historic photo collection at The Flux Machine.

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#IArtLibraries | Featuring: Patricia Dahlman and “Big Open Book”

This post originally appeared on the Library as Incubator Project in April, 2015.

Today I’m pleased to welcome artist Patricia Dahlman to the Library as Incubator Project. Patricia is the creator of a new site-specific sculpture that is on exhibit at the Mid-Manhattan Library in New York City. Today she tells us a bit about her relationship to libraries, especially the art book collections that inspired Big Open Book. Enjoy! ~ Laura

Patricia Dahlman is an artist that lives in the New York City area. She works with fabric and thread to make both two dimensional and three dimensional art work. Her website is http://ift.tt/1CdNoVd

“Big Open Book” sculpture by Patricia Dahlman, on view at Mid Manhattan Public Library.

 

Big Open Book is a site-specific art work made by the artist Patricia Dahlman. It is a sculpture of an art history book and is made from canvas, fabric, ribbon, thread, wire, and stuffing. The sculpture contains reproductions of the painting Just in Time by Elizabeth Murray and the painting Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso. Big Open Book was created in appreciation of public art libraries and of two very influential artists. The exhibition is also a celebration of the beauty and vitality of Artists’ Books on a large scale.

 

Visit the exhibition page on the NYPL website to learn more.

Writes Patricia,

My intimate relationship to libraries goes back to when I was in college. I went to college in Dayton, Ohio and had wonderful teachers but there was not a lot of actual art to see. I basically lived in the library looking at reproductions in art books, trying to figure out what to do in art as well as how to be an artist. After college I moved to the New York City area and looked around for a good circulating art book library. I found the downtown Newark Public Library in Newark, New Jersey to be the best circulating library in the area. There were wonderful small scale exhibitions there as well made from actual art from the Newark Library Art Collections. I also learned that libraries have archives on artists. The art librarian at Newark Public Library, William Dane showed me archives on the artist and writer Anne Ryan. I had no idea Anne Ryan was a writer as well as an artist.

I recently made a large site-specific sewn sculpture, “Big Open Book” for an exhibition at Art Wall on Third at the Mid-Manhattan Library in New York City. I was asked by the curator of Art Wall on Third, Arezoo Moseni to make a large sewn book for this space. “Big Open Book” is a sculpture of a book about art history. The open book depicts two artists’ works, Elizabeth Murray’s “Just In Time” and Pablo Picasso’s “Weeping Woman.” I have spent many hours researching, looking and now copying Murray’s and Picasso’s work and they both have had a big impact on my own work.

My ideal library would be two different libraries. One library would be what Newark Public Library was like back in the 1970’s. Newark Public Library had a wonderful large sunlit room full of windows that was just for books on art and music. It was never crowded back then and had a fantastic circulating art book collection with an incredible art librarian, William Dane. The other ideal library would be the direction the Mid-Manhattan Library in New York City is taking. Art work is exhibited in different places within the library. There is something wonderful to see actual art work there as well as books. What an inspiration.

Patricia Dahlman at work on a sculpture.

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Featuring: Katie Herzog

Today we are pleased to feature a recent exhibition by visual artist Katie Herzog. Katie is also the director of the Molesworth Institute, a special library devoted to the playful side of libraries and archives. Enjoy this write-up of Katie’s recent project, from the KLOWDEN MANN gallery.

“There is no way to perform architecture in a book. Words and drawings can only produce paper space, not the experience of real space. By definition, paper space is imaginary: it is an image”
– Bernard Tschumi

Rubbings by Katie Herzog. Image from KLOWDEN MANN exhibition page.

Rubbings by Katie Herzog. Image from KLOWDEN MANN exhibition page.

Rubbings by Katie Herzog. Image from KLOWDEN MANN exhibition page.

 

KLOWDEN MANN is proud to present Los Angeles-based artist Katie Herzog’s second solo exhibition at the gallery, Rubbing the Internet Archive. The exhibition will be on view from September 9th through October 14th, with an opening reception on September 9th from 6-8pm.

Rubbing the Internet Archive consists of a 10 foot high by 84 foot wide rubbing of the exterior of the Internet Archive building in San Francisco that Herzog made using rubbing wax on non-fusible interfacing. Created in pieces on-site in San Francisco’s Richmond district in July of 2017, the drawing will be adhered to the walls of the gallery’s main exhibition space, allowing the to-scale exterior of the Internet Archive to form the interior built-environment of the gallery.

The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library founded by Brewster Kahle in 1996 with the stated mission of “Universal Access to All Knowledge”. The archive provides free public access to extensive collections of digitized materials including websites (a large portion of which are no longer live), public-domain books, music, software applications, television, and movies. Currently housing over 30 petabytes of data in one copy of the full archive, the Internet Archive has partial backup sites in locations such as Canada, Egypt and the Netherlands.

For a full exhibition description, visit the KLOWDEN MANN website.

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#IArtLibraries | In Motion: American Sign Language Poetry

This post originally appeared on the Library as Incubator Project in April 2012.

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re celebrating National Poetry Month in a big way here at the Library as Incubator Project. Throughout the month of April we’ll be posting a couple of times a week about innovative, interesting, and inspiring poetry projects. Some of them take place in or are inspired by libraries, some aren’t – but could be!

I’m taking a class with the wonderful cartoonist/graphic novelist/playwright/educator Lynda Barry. She shared with us the preview for a very cool documentary about young people who participate in deaf poetry jams, also known as deaf poetry slams or American Sign Language (ASL) poetry. It’s a given that poetry comes in spoken (oral) and written forms, but what about forms that are solely based on movement/motion?

From the deafjam.org website:

ASL POETRY is a vibrant three-dimensional art form where body movements convey meaning.

There is no paper or text. Rhymes are measured in hand shapes and meter in movements. Images cut and dissolve as its verses transcend all spoken word. In relation to literary poetry, the similarity of hand-shapes can act as alliteration, and using the same hand-shape repetitively works as rhyme. Visual Vernacular (a term originated by Bernard Bragg) involves cinematic concepts. The technique involves references to close-ups, wide shots, images dissolving into other images as well as “cutting” back and forth between characters to show different points of view on a scene.

The website points out that American Sign Language is not a derivative of English – a point I found out the hard way when I learned my lines for a scene in a play both in spoken English and in ASL. And, because of the nature of the performance/piece – “In ASL poetry the body is the text” – it’s impossible to translate the work faithfully into oral or written form.

Check out the documentary’s preview:

The deafjam.org website includes a fabulous collection of resources, including ASL artists and performances. Have you ever participated in or attended an ASL poetry jam, slam, or other performance? We’d love to connect with you. Send us a note: libraryasincubatorproject@gmail.com, find us on Twitter @IArtLibraries, or check us out on Facebook. – Laura

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#IArtLibraries | Featuring: Bobby Sayers

This post originally appeared on the Library as Incubator Project in January 2015.

Today it’s my pleasure to welcome Bobby Sayers to the Library as Incubator Project. Bobby’s “We Make New” sculpture created for the Artworks in Libraries program for Scottish Book Week caught my eye and I knew he’d have some interesting perspectives to share about libraries. Enjoy! ~ Laura

Library as Incubator Project (LAIP): Please introduce yourself! Who are you, and what sort of creative work do you do?

Bobby Sayers (BS): Hi I’m Bobby Sayers an artist based in Glasgow but was born in sunny sunny Romford, Essex, the land of the pie and mash and pearly kings and queens. I have been practicing professionally since 2012 after graduating from Nottingham Trent University. I feel I am a sculptor at heart but I use many mediums to portray ideas that I feel passion about. Past work has involved performance, video, gifting of small sculptures and creation of large colourful sculptures. My interest is in the transformation of things that are not seen as beautiful on the peripherals of our everyday lives. We often think of the top of the mountain as the place that hold an essence of the sublime but I believe that it is all around us, especially in cities which contain mechanisms and objects that allow complex systems to function so effortlessly.

LAIP: What is or has been your relationship to libraries – as a user, as an artist, however you feel like answering the question…?

BS: I would love to be the person to say that I have connected with libraries my whole life but it has only been of recent years and when studying that I really saw the value of libraries. While participating in the Artworks for Libraries commissioned by Scottish Book Trust for Book Week Scotland 2014, I saw an even greater use of the library, as it was the first time I had also seen a library as a community hub. The people that worked at Lennoxtown Library were so helpful to everyone and library users that I worked with were positive and passionate.

Libraries are where you can become someone new, where you can transform, through the books that you read. The library is extremely important.

LAIP: Tell us about the “We Make New” project you created for Scottish Book Week. How did you come to be involved in that event, and what was your process like for creating “We Make New”?

BS: Pidgin Perfect selected me after an application process in which I proposed something very similar to my outcome. Which was to explore the library itself, engage with the people that use the library and the community around the library. It was a new experience and one that I value very much, as this was my first permanent public artwork. The workshops undertaken as part of the project allowed me to meet many people of all ages that lived around the library. My work is very much about the ‘now’ and transforming what is there already through slight shifts in perspective, thinking or adding a narrative.

“We Make New” by Bobby Sayers.

For Lennoxtown I had many trips to the library in which I would simple photograph small elements within the library, finding things that intrigued me, whether I felt they held an inherent beauty or resonated with feelings and stories that the people of Lennoxtown had communicated. I decided to display 8 images I had taken as part of the artwork and each image would have a short poem connected to it, all poems read from left to right to create a whole (loose) narrative, taking the viewer on a journey. For me this artwork spoke about how you can be whatever you want to be, it is up to you but also that there is such beauty within what is here already (in Lennoxtown). Another challenge for me was creating an artwork related and used Jackie Kay’s poem ‘Dear Library’ in way that added more and created a visual narrative. This came about as Jackie’s poem functioned as the foundations for the artworks narrative allowing my outcome to follow parallel to Jackie’s, which if I do say so myself is definitely worth a gander.

“Krásné Svět (beautiful world)” by Bobby Sayers.

LAIP: Tell me about what we’d find on your inspiration book shelf – what are some of your favorite titles and/or authors for inspiration or reference?

BS: My bookshelf currently only has objects and artworks collected over recent years. As I have never been much of a bookworm more the person that reads chunks of text online and forgets who they were by. Though in regards to art I would recommend Inside the White Cube by Brain O’Doherty, this appealed to the anarchist within me as it takes fire at the current white cube gallery system. For non-artists I would read Patti Smith’s book as it really allows you into the mind of an artist and why they make such strange life choices and scarifies for the passions in their lives. Paulo Coelho’s Alchemist was a pivotal book for me as I felt it was parallel to my positive outlook of the now and what could be considered the ‘gold’ that we are all looking for. I am now looking forward reading Grayson Perry’s new book Playing to the Gallery and seeing what Russell Brand in his book Revolution is saying especially as the general elections are fast approaching it is always good to survey all ideas on the future of politics. Something needs to change in society!

LAIP: As an artist, what would your ideal library look or be like? What would it have in it? What would it offer for its users?

BS: My ideal library… that is a good question. For me it would be much more than a library in a traditional sense, it would be a cultural and community hub. A extremely relaxed atmosphere, where you are encouraged to sit and enjoy time reading or writing or even socialising over a cup of tea. There would be theatre and talks that related to different books and loads of beanbags! Loads of natural light to make you feel warm and connected to nature, perhaps throw in some plants too. I think when I was younger I needed a place that engaged with unruly teens, showing them that there is more to books than squiggles on paper, especially if they are dyslexics, which most creatives are. Perhaps films and other outlets could be played in libraries too and groups read short manageable passages together and discuss ideas around them, engaging people in different ways, as we all learn differently.

See more of Bobby’s work at his website, www.bobbysayers.com.

Check out this video about the library artwork.

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Partners in Art: Wells Public Library and the Ogunquit Museum of American Art

Today I am thrilled to share a conversation with Andrea Kazilionis from the Wells Public Library in Wells, Maine. Andrea fills us in on a partnership with the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, a local art museum. This is a great example of a library working closely with an arts institution to offer high-quality, expert cultural and educational programming. Enjoy! ~Laura

Library as Incubator Project (LAIP): Can you give us the elevator speech for the Wells Library / OMAA programming partnership? What kinds of events or resources make up this partnership, and what outcomes are you hoping to see as the result?

Andrea Kazilionis (AK): The Wells Public Library partnered with the Ogunquit Museum of American Art in order to offer a four-part “Arts and Education” program series. This series features two art history lectures at the library followed by two site visits to the museum. We hope that this program series will allow library patrons to indulge their artistic interests and gain some in-depth insight into the current exhibits at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art. We also hope to raise community awareness about the museum and its stunning collections.

LAIP: What was the impetus for forming this partnership / program?

AK: This partnership began as I explored ways to develop cultural education programming at the library. I know from conversing with patrons that the greater Wells region is home to many artists and art enthusiasts. That caused me to take a closer look at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art. I had never had the chance to visit, knowing it only as one of the area museums for which the library provided day passes. I navigated my way to the OMAA website and found that the museum was already working with several other area non-profits. This prompted me to reach out to the museum’s education director, Jill Burke. Jill and I met at the museum to discuss a collaboration. Not only was I wowed by the museum’s phenomenal ocean side setting, but equally impressed by Ms. Burke’s suggestions for partnership programming. We combined the library’s monthly lunch and learn program with the museum’s guided tours to come up with the series we’re currently running.

LAIP: What has the response been like so far from the community to the program?

AK: The community response to this program series has been enormous. The first program in the series filled nearly every spare chair in the library, and the follow-up site visit to the museum was big enough to merit two tour groups! There were many familiar faces at the events, but plenty of new patrons as well. The program series has been promoted in our local newspapers, so it seems we’ve caught the attention of individuals who don’t necessarily come to the library on a regular basis. Folks who have attended programs in the series have been asking that I provide more adult arts programs in the future.

LAIP: Every program and collaboration encounters challenges at some point. What are some that have come up for Wells Library / OMAA?

AK: Luckily, the challenges that we’ve faced in the planning and implementation of this program series have been quite manageable. Our biggest issue was having to scramble to make room for an unexpectedly large number of attendees at our first lecture. The other difficulty was communicating the program details to patrons. We wanted to make it clear through our marketing that two of the programs were held at the library and two were held at the museum. Luckily, patrons asked questions when they had them and we were able to clarify details without any problems.

LAIP: What advice do you have for libraries who are interested in approaching arts institutions about potential partnerships?

AK: Librarians looking to partner with art institutions should start by exploring what type of arts programming has worked for their library in the past. I’m fairly new to the Wells Public Library, so when I wanted to put together some type of arts program I first looked at library scrapbooks from years past to see if my library had ever worked with any galleries or museums. Next, I considered the museum passes that we circulate at the library. I knew that our day passes for the Ogunquit Museum of American Art were always being signed out, so I knew my patrons had an interest in that particular institution. After that, it was all about communication! I recommend that librarians dive in by contacting the education or outreach coordinators at nearby arts institutions and start inquiring about potential partnerships. If you approach potential collaborators with a warm smile and an open mind, I think they’ll be more than willing to work with you.

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