Chapbooks

our lives have gone through some serious change over the past year. our daughter arrived in december, and since then we've been pretty well occupied, time, thought, and temperament, with her. it has certainly taken a toll on our online presence, since we are reluctant to share much about her on social media. but it's time to get back to talking about art, studio, and life in the midwest.

while we've been sitting at home during the fourth trimester, i've been carving blocks in the garage studio, then going to the freezing studio uptown to print. in thinking through the experience of art, i've been enamored with the way the public consumes art and ideas. so instead of making prints to display on a wall, i've been making books. there is an intimate connection with creating art that requires touch and time, and books are probably the most basic 4D media. mindy and i are both kind of bibliophiles and our bookcase is a huge aesthetic feature of our home. we visit used book stores when we travel and usually return from art exhibits with the show catalog or some other giant art book.  with that in mind, i've begun producing my own series of book called Chapbook.

here is a short video of the first book entitled 'landscapes, volume 1.' this book features 8 different prints of contemporary midwestern landscapes, and was more or less the tester for this project.

Chapbook #2 is entitled 'this past year' and is a quick view of what our 2015 was like. there were a lot of changes in our lives last year, from mindy finishing her PhD to painting murals to having the baby in december. our journey is depicted across 14 different prints in this book.

here is the linoblock mid-carve. i draw everything in pencil, then go over the lines in sharpie to help define the darks and lights that i want to pull out of the image.

stupid small details on a linoblock. singapore food we miss you.

first pull of the full page

here's a short flick of me folding cutting and assembling the book. it is one print on one page that becomes a 16 page book with a few folds and a few cuts.