For those heading to Door County over Labor Day weekend or in September, put Fish Creek's Peninsula School of Art on your to-visit list. Their exhibition in the Guenzel Gallery “The Book As Sculpture” opened August 13 and continues until September 25, displaying intricate and intriguing artwork for any age. This current show focuses on books intended to accentuate shape and form regardless of content to create sophisticated visual sculptures. Directly connected to this are two similar art forms: the altered book that reuses and reinterprets already printed books, or the handmade book, which depends significantly on the entire book as art, including the content. These three divisions to book art contributed to the rise of multiple academic programs at the MA and MFA level founded over the past twenty years to validate that creating handmade books could be definitively termed fine art and fine craft.
Fascinating surprises await in this exhibition that portrays the complex artistry, craft and context to book sculpture. Through very individualistic expressions, eight national artists concecptualize the book through various mediums. Two were mentioned in an August 6 New York Times article when it referred to fresh, creative uses for books. One of the artist's named in the article, Brian Dettmer, also recently appeared in the New York Museum of Art and Design's exhibition “Slash.” This word describes exactly what this artist does to found books when he seals the covers together. After doing so, his skillful exacto knife carves or carefully cuts words and pictures from the book, one page at a time revealing new elements that generate a completely different content and concept, a form of both sculpture and the altered book. One work in the Door County exhibition titled Yellow Pages puts together four functional recycled yellow pages and exposes their cartoons, phone numbers, photos, and text that eventually remain inside a shadow box frame to delight the viewer. Dettmer's 'slashing' yields extraordinary sculptures.
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Melissa Joy Craig covers three walls in the gallery with her installation (S)Edition. The 2009 National Endowment for the Arts papermaking resident created over 60 hand shaped amanita mushrooms formed from abaca paper, their organic red with white polka dot tops resembling an overturned book. These fairytale like mushrooms retain hallucinogenic and poisonous properties documented by the Federal Drug Administration and occurs naturally. Viewing the gallery wall reads like walking through the dream inducing field of poppies in Oz with Dorothy and Toto, highly pleasurable.
Using both her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry and a love of jewelry, Francesca Vitali recently won the 2009 Craft Council Award for Excellence. Her frequently beaded, sterling silver, steel and folded paper bracelets, cufflinks, earrings, necklaces and rings feature a varnish finish so when completed they may be admired and worn. The full-time professor enjoys the overlay these two passions bring to her life with obvious successful results.
A master in 4th century Ethiopian Coptic bookbinding came to Door County for participation in the exhibition and to teach a week long class at Peninsula School of Art. Daniel Essig exhibits his three primal looking sculptures that contain miniature books hinged with his signature Coptic binding. A recent work tiled Book Of Nails was purchased by Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian Institution to honor Essig, who has spent the last 20 years perfecting his art in this ancient technique.
Essig's artwork, which can be small charms, handmade books or large sculptural forms, incorporates the versatile binding while featuring his collections of fossils, small insect skeletons, shells, and miniature objects from the natural world. These are often visible through a window in his wooden book covers, or on his primal sculptures derived from from the Kongo culture in Africa. Several of these figures reuse old nails that adorn the sculpture, a healing symbol that reflects when a decision has been made after dissension within the tribe. When the nail is hammered into the hand carved sculpture, usually an animal form, the decision in finalized and over, to be forgotten. Essig poetically merges this primitive iconography and historical reference into all his artwork.
These names represent only half the artists in the exhibition, with the remaining four (Thomas Allen, Andrew Hayes, Shawn Sheely and Michael Stilkey) equally exceptional. Peninsula School of Art possesses an innate ability to select national artists renowned in their particular art medium. The opportunities to view their work and inspiration would be well worth taking advantage of while in the area. A clear emphasis to every exhibition remains on education and aesthtic process, as well as grasping an understanding for the finished piece. One walks away from the exhibition with a greater appreciation for books, especially as sculpture, with a distinct admiration for these imaginative and gifted individuals who devote their lives to this uncommon art. (For more information on classes. lectures or upcoming events at the school, or to view exhibition artwork, go to www.peninsulaartschool.com)