Words as Spiritual Armor: The Art of Lesley Dill

Word Messengers (A Single Screw of Flesh is All That Pins the Soul), 2006, organza, ribbon, silk, glue

The current exhibit at The Columbia Museum of Art features the work of the contemporary American artist Lesley Dill.

The show, I Heard a Voice: The Art of Lesley Dill, consists of 34 pieces and is "the first retrospective exhibition of the artist of this scale."

A Word Made Flesh...Throat, 1994, photolithograph, mixed intaglio, thread, with text by Emily Dickinson

From the press release:

Her pieces give visual form to poetic texts by Emily Dickinson, Salvador Espriu, Franz Kafka and others. For Dill, words are her ‘spiritual armor’ and she freely stitches and weaves them across the surfaces of her multi-layered works. "Language is the touchstone, the pivot point of all my work," Dill said.

Dill’s spectacular new installations are quite a departure for the artist and are the highlights of the exhibition. With these dramatic pieces, Dill delves into an exploration of language and its integration with the human form.

 Word Queen of Laughter, 2007, foil, organza, wire, paint, steel

Here is Part 1 of a gallery tour of the exhibit when it was being shown at The Hunter Museum of American Art:

Part 2 is here

More multimedia featuring podcasts about the works in the exhibition and a documentary on Dill and her process, We are Animals of Language.

A McDonalds Book Sandwich

This ad campaign was created for McDonalds in Hungary by the advertising agency DDB in Budapest and "i'm lovin' it"



Thanks to Every Book Its Reader for the lead

Happy Holidays!

via Real Simple

Book Patrol would like to thank everyone for their support and readership over the past year and we wish everyone a happy holiday season..... 

Photo by Aga Inés

and only the best in the coming year!

You can see a few more examples of xmas book trees at Booklicious

Best Independent Bookshops in Seattle with additions

Photo by Josh Trujillo/Seattle P-I

Earlier this month CBS Seattle released a list of Seattle's Best Independent Bookshops.

They begin their story::

A bigger book isn’t necessarily a better book — and so too a bigger bookstore isn’t necessarily a better bookstore. While Barnes & Noble, Borders and online retailers may have thousands of copies for that latest best seller, Seattle also is home to many smaller independent shops which cater to readers with finer tastes. Besides Elliott Bay, there’s also the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, Left Bank Books, Wessel & Lieberman and others putting a unique stamp on Seattle’s reading scene.

Beside the shops mentioned above, Third Place Books, East West Bookshop and Queen Anne Books round out the list.

While  we are delighted to have made the cut I thought it worth mentioning a few others that also help put a "a unique stamp on Seattle’s reading scene."

Pilot Books- whose tag line is "100% indie Lit"

Fantagraphics Bookstore- the center of the comic and graphic novel universe

Seaocean Book Berth - As the name implies this one is for the mariner in you

Mercer Street Books - a perfect neighborhood used bookstore located at the bottom of Queen Anne 

Seattle, a perennial contender for America's most literate city, has not been immune to the wave of change that has swept over the bookselling world. We have lost plenty of quality bookshops over the last few years - Bailey Coy, M. Coy Books, Square One Books to name a few- and many that still exist continue to struggle to stay relevant and profitable. But as for bookselling in Seattle, with all due respect to Mr. Sinatra,  If you can make it anywhere, you can make it here. It's up to you Seattle, it's up to you!

Image above from a previous Book Patrol post Potterpalooza, on the the festivities held at Seattle's University Book Store to celebrate the release of Harry Potter 7 back in July of 2007. The University Book Store didn't make the list because it is technically not an independent but it's damn close.

UPDATE: Thanks to Anna at University Book Store for letting me know that indeed the University Book Store is "100% an independent bookstore! We are part of PNBA and ABA, and we are a company run separately from University of Washington."

Before you buy a book for your kids this Christmas

watch this little video.

Oouch!

Illuminating Poetry

The folks at the amazing Spanish art collective Luzinterruptus, who are known for their illuminated installations in public places, are at it again. Back in March we covered their "literature vs. traffic" piece, where they covered a street in lower Manhattan with 800 lighted books. Now they have landed in Madrid.

This past October, to celebrate a poetry festival, Luzinterruptus filled 1000 envelopes with poems by some of the participants, added some tiny lights, and proceeded to hang the envelopes in the garden outside the building where the festival took place. At the conclusion of the festival 100 of these envelopes were distributed to attendees with the hope they would send them through the mail.

More photos at the Luzinterruptus website.

Previously on Book Patrol"
Books in the Street: 'literature versus traffic'

In the Stacks: Los Angeles Public Library

For this installment of In the Stacks we visit the vast online archive of the Los Angeles Public Library. Enjoy!

A couple of Bookmobiles:

 Decorated Los Angeles Public Library Bookmobile, 1974. Photo by Joe Friezer

Bookmobile at Stonehurst School, 1957. Photo by Milton Martinez 

A few for the political crowd:

 Books for freedom, 1964. Photo by George Brich

 American Nazi party pickets bookshop, 1962

Books for a Strong America" a right leaning display in a Northridge Hughes Market. 1962

Some general book treats:

 Caption for this one:  "Wrapped in Thought. Four-year-old Philip Ross finds "ABC Easter Bunny" more interesting than his guns and spurs, 1960

 Mark Twain Branch book march and rally, 1971

 Books and a cake at Panorama City Branch ca. 1960

and of course since it is LA:

 Bette Davis signs books, 1988. Photo by Leo Jarzomb

 Vanna White at book signing, 1987. Photo by Tom Zimmerman

Jay Leno book signing, 1991. Photo by Tom Zimmerman

Previously on Book Patrol:

In The Stacks: Boston Public Library

The Library Photos of Massimo Listri Grace the Morgan

To coincide with the recently completed renovation of its interior The Morgan Library is hosting an exhibit of the library photographs of Massimo Listri.

The monster photographs, each about five feet in width and four feet in height, depict the grand libraries of Europe which served as an inspiration for Charles Follen McKim, the architect commissioned by Pierpont Morgan to build the library in 1902.

Some of the libraries represented include:
The Malatestiana Library in Cesena, Italy, which was completed in 1454, 
The St. Gall Monastery Library in Switzerland, 
Trinity College Library at the University of Dublin, 
The Laurentian Library in Florence, which was designed by Michelangelo,
and the Vatican Library.

Many of the photographs first appeared in his book Il Fascino Delle Biblioteche [The Charm of Libraries] which featured text by Umberto Eco. The exhibit runs through January 9, 2011.

Obama visits elementary school to read from his new book

 SAUL LOEB, AFP/Getty Image

President Barak Obama made a surprise appearance at Long Branch Elementary School in Arlington, VA today.

Obama read to about 90 kids from his new children's book  Of Thee I Sing a book comprised of illustrated letters written to his daughters describing the lives of 13 great Americans. He also read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Clement Moore and like author's at most readings took questions from the crowd.

Of Thee I Sing has sold 50,000 copies in the first five days making it the fastest-selling picture book in history for the publisher, Random House Children's Books.

The Oval, at USA Today, has more on what he read and the questions that were asked

The Book Chainsaw Massacre

Warning! Real Books Were Harmed in the Making of This Video is how this trailer begins and boy they ain't kidding.

For his latest book, BLANK, published by the exciting new Seattle-based publisher Jaded Ibis Press, artist Davis Schneiderman and friends broke out the hardware and annihilated a bunch of books (and almost a Kindle).

Though a bit over the top; the shock factor is sure to send quivers down the spines of the some book lovers,  the reality of modern-day publishing is one of waste and destruction. As the publisher points out:

Each year in the U.S. alone hundreds of thousands of new titles are published by traditional printing methods; that is, in bulk quantities. An average of 150,000 multiplied by an average print run of 5,000, multiplied by an average of 200 pages per book equals nearly 150 Billion (150,000,000,000) pages annually, plus book covers and jackets. 

Half of these books will be returned to their publisher and destroyed or liquidated. Those that cannot be liquidated will also be destroyed.  

In the video one sees the resulting pulp from the massacre being used to make the paper for the book.

The tag line for Jaded Ibis Press reads: sustainable literature by digital means. They are aiming to be the cream of the Print on Demand crop.

Each publication is offered in three editions: a quality paperback, a digital edition, and a fine art limited edition. Their mission is to "facilitate the convergence of diverse media and art forms, and give wide exposure to literary, visual and musical artists of exceptional talent"  The writers, artists and musician's are all compensated well above the industry norm. For this book the author  is donating 50% of his proceeds to The Vanuatu Pacifica Project and Tanna Center for The Arts, an artist colony on the island of Tanna in the South Pacific.

Here is a page form the limited edition. It features an embedded bamboo flash drive containing DJ Spooky's remix of Bach's Goldberg Variations 1 & 3, written especially for the book.

For more on the Press and its founder Debra Di Blasi see Paul Constant's worthy profile Show Me Something New: Jaded Ibis Press is Dragging the Book Into the Future  which appeared in the Stranger earlier this month.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is back on the loose

Warning poster produced by Ken Sanders and sent to rare-book dealers when convicted book thief John Gilkey was released from prison in 2005.

(click to enlarge)

UPDATE - Richard Gilkey was arrested earlier this afternoon (12/15) in San Francisco. Details to follow


The infamous Richard Gilkey, the subject of Allison Hoover Bartlett's 2009 book, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, seems to be back in action.

An antiquarian bookseller in San Francisco was paid a visit by a police officer, who also happens to be a book collector, and notified that Gilkey has apparently struck again, this time robbing two maps of the San Francisco waterfront from a local stamp dealer.

Gilkey was jailed for passing bad checks and using stolen credit card numbers to buy rare books and was released from prison in 2005.

The photo above is Gilkey's mug shot from a August 2010 arrest in Miami, Florida on an out-of-state warrant.

Here is a recounting of Gilkey's escapades from Ken "Bibliodick" Sanders who was also featured prominently in Bartlett's book.

Review with audio of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much at NPR

Smells Like Book Spirit

Photo: Michael Schmelling

Artist Rachel Morrison is spending her lunch breaks these days at the Museum of Modern Art. Her goal: to sniff her way through their entire library and live to tell about it.

As a recent study concluded she will encounter “a combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness” in many of the books. She will also encounter many that will make her sneeze and feel nauseas. 

Her plan is to begin with the first book in the Library of Congress classification system, which in this case is AC5.S4 a 1934 publication titled Sermons by Artists and she will end with ZN3.R45 Bibliography of the History of Art.  Morrison is also recording her impressions of each sniff in a journal.

 

Page from Morrison's journal

(click to enlarge)

A friend and MoMA bibliographer David Senior says of her undertaking “It’s a daring idea...because some of our books smell really bad.”

To date Morrison has nosed through 150 books. She has 299,850 left! I hope she survives.

Article in New York magazine

Books and Fire: A New App and a Fiery Bookshelf

The folks at Snarky Apps have created an app that allows you to burn a book on the privacy of your own iPhone.

from the description:
“Have you ever had the urge to burn a book? Well there’s never been a better time to exercise your freedom of expression with a nice and toasty bonfire and a good book! Choose from The Bible, The Koran, the Baha’i Writings and many more!

Fortunately, the app is more of an attention getter then a tool of biblioclasm. Yes, you get to choose what book you would like burn, mostly from the religious texts of the world,

but the burn stops there. You never do get to see the books actually burning. Instead you get some background crackling and this message pops up:

Don't burn books

Instead, "Let your heart burn with loving kindness for all who may cross your path!"

Oh, and the app was designed by 14 year old!

If you prefer to have your books closer to a real fire than this contraption from CosiHome might be for you.

The Bio "Helios" fireplace. A stainless steel shelf with a built-in chimney-free fireplace.

In the Stacks: Boston Public Library

This is the first installment of a new series on Book Patrol. For In the Stacks we will scour the internets to bring you choice book-related images from the digital archives of leading libraries, institutions and organizations from around the world.  

First up is the Boston Public Library who recently released over 15,000 images from their archive through Flickr.

1895 advertising poster for Houghton Mifflin’s holiday books

Got to love this shot of kids learning "the right use of books"

South Boston's class in the right use of books

BPL is the home of a tremendous collection of books designed by Sarah Wyman Whitman, the first major American professional book designer.

Dorchester Branch, Summer reading club

 Hospital Library service

Who knew this is where the girls who use ink hung out

Memorial Branch Library, Roxbury, Miss Flanagan & high school pupils

Also of note at BPL is the current exhibition The Public Life of Poetry: Whitman, Dickinson, Longfellow, and Their Contemporaries on view in the Rare Books lobby at the Central Library.

The Book Piles of Ephraim Rubenstein

Book Pile XXXIII. Oil on linen. 36 x 28 inches

They've been using books in still life painting for a long time. From the rise of the genre in the Netherlands in the the early 17th century  to Van Gogh's Still Life with Bible to Mattise's Still Life, Bouquet of Dahlias and White Book the book has always had a prominent place in the artist's imagination. 

A solid contemporary example is Used and Discarded Books, a new series of paintings by Ephraim Rubenstein.

These biblio-portraits breathe grace and beauty into books that have seen better days. Here the value transcends the monetary, and the seemingly unsteady, teetering piles mirror the fragile nature of the printed book in today's culture.

Book Pile XXVI. Oil on linen.  16 x 14 inches

Selections from the series are currently part of the Small Works exhibit on view at Davidson Galleries in Seattle.

Book Pile XXX.  Oil on linen. 8 x 20 inches

Rubenstein also is in the midst of a series of painting and drawings based on the poetry of Rilke.

Confessions of a Book Fiend

"Confessions of a Book Fiend," 2010 by Grant Snider

(click to enlarge)

11"x17" color prints are available for $15 plus shipping. Ordering info here

Thanks to @luxmentis for the lead

Typography and the Album Cover

Enoch Light. Discotheque, 1964. Designed by George Giusti.

Book design is not the only casualty in the rush toward digitization. Cover design in the music world has been  pretty much relegated to a thumbnail image for a digital download or an image for a CD case but back in the heyday of the LP the cover design was a vital component to the accompanying music.

Over at psd tuts+ Sonali Vora takes on a trip through 50 Years of Typography in Album Covers. With examples from the 1960's up to the present we get a vivid reminder of what we are losing in the switch to digital formats.

Designed by Alex Steinweiss

In 1978 the band XTC used the cover of their album Go 2  for a typographic rant on design and selling records. It begins:

"This is a RECORD COVER. This writing is the DESIGN upon the record cover. The DESIGN is to help SELL the record. We hope to draw your attention to it and pick up."

XTC. Go 2, 1978. Created by the design group Hipgnosis

Clearly this mantra is applicable to the book world.

Students take over library to protest tuition hikes and education cuts

Students at Goldsmiths University in southeast London have taken control of the campus library. As many as 150 students entered the library on Monday night to begin their peaceful occupation. The occupation comes days before tomorrow's scheduled national protest on the massive cuts.

Here is the official statement from the students:

We have occupied the university library in opposition to the increase in university fees and cuts in education as a whole. We act in solidarity with all those facing cuts across the social sphere.

We oppose the proposed change in fees structure and the cuts to teaching subsidy across education in the UK – which will include a 100 percent cut to funding for teaching in arts, humanities and social sciences. 

We have taken over Goldsmiths’ Library, the most publicly visible and accessible physical space in the college. We are opening it as a centre for organisation, available 24 hours a day to students and all those on the receiving end of the government’s assault in the Lewisham community. We offer our support to recipients of the EMA grant, benefits and services, all of which are being attacked by local and national government. We support library staff at Goldsmiths and public libraries across Lewisham. 

The proposed changes in Higher Education represent a historically unprecedented attack on society. In response, we have taken the exceptional step of deciding that no staff shall work in the library building, although students are welcome to come and join us. Until our demands are met, there will be no business as usual at the college.

and here is their list of demands:

• Immediately make a public statement opposing fees and the vote for their increase due in parliament on December 9.

We refuse all current and further cuts at Goldsmiths.

• Implement no further cuts to departments and budgets at Goldsmiths, nor any further redundancies.

• Steps forward to defend all those from Goldsmiths arrested or in other ways victimised during the current struggles against the cuts.

We condemn the police’s violent and heavy-handed tactics used against students, staff and their supporters.

• Do not penalise library staff in any way, nor dock their pay during the occupation • Ceases its campaign of cuts against the Goldsmiths Nursery.

• Retract their threat to charge Goldsmiths’ Student Union £15,000 in response to the occupation of Deptford Town Hall.

This occupation, like that one, is independent of the Student Union.

• Do not take any disciplinary actions whatsoever against those involved in this occupation.”

Last month students staged similar protests at universities in Manchester and Sussex.

Man, it would be nice to see this kind of passion for the struggling schools and libraries on this side of the pond.

Article, with updates, in the News Shopper

Line of Sight: The World of Timothy Ely

Photo: Young Kwak for The Pacific Northwest Inlander

Now on view at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture is the largest exhibition of the work of Timothy C. Ely ever assembled under one roof.

Since the early 1970's Ely has been creating unique, one-of-a-kind mind-bending bookworks. On the form of his work Ely says “I became really aware that the atlas form would be the springboard — the point of departure — for everything I needed to deal with.” Using few, if any, words and drawing heavily from science, geometry, and religion one can spend a lifetime reading and comprehending each complex work.

'Polar Projections' Timothy Ely, 1986.

Ely's work is held in many of the world's leading private and public Book Art collections including the Library of Congress, the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C.; and  the Museum of Modern Art.   

TIMOTHY ELY    The Open Hand Discovers

The centerpiece of the current exhibition is an enormous graphic work – up to 25 feet wide and 10 feet tall – that Ely will paint and draw directly onto the gallery’s south wall with a variety of projected forms, with pigments, beautiful metal armatures, wire, and thread. This work, in essence an animated, open book, will exist only for the life of the exhibition.

Dreamweaver, A profile of Ely at The Pacific Northwest Inlander
Ely's website