I’ll admit, I didn’t have particularly high expectations for this trip. I assumed it would be very history focused and sort of dry, and though it had a definite focus in history it was probably the highlight of my week. All of the artist books were amazing! Expect a gallery within this post as soon as I’ve processed all the pictures I took.
That aside, I’m sort of at a loss for what to write. There were so many interesting things I’m not sure I can properly condense them into a blog post. A major takeaway, though, is that this has drastically changed my view of what “book” means, which I imagine was sort of the point. One of my favorite books in the selection we looked through looked more like a little wooden cabinet than a book, and had very little text. Instead, the reader was invited to move around sections of the book and see how they interacted with the magnets within. I wanted to just sit there and play with it all day, it reminded me of my favorite book from elementary school (the title unfortunately escapes me), an elaborate pop up book about mice that almost turned into a playset. It had lots of little papercraft figures that weren’t actually attached to the book, but were instead meant to interact with the pop up elements like dolls. (Note to self: track down this book on the internet later.)
Another highlight was the book “Interluceo”, a collection of paper cut outs in geometric forms. Though simple in subject matter, you could tell from the attention paid to each shape, as well as the attention paid to the handmade paper, that this was a love letter to form and the process of paper making. It was beautiful, and I’m going to have to visit the Rose again to look at more of their collection.
