Visit us also for First Tuesday Art Walk, Nov. 7, 5:30-7:30 pm

Artist Statement:

In the Bibliomuse series, several discarded library books serve as muses for pieces that incorporate repurposed textiles, stitching, bookcloth and imagery from the covers and pages of the muses. Bibliomuse is a subseries of KEEP: Modern Library. They are both ongoing explorations about what we keep and the different way we keep things, thoughts, and emotions.

All of the stitching is machine done and the work is very time intensive, repetitive, and meditative. The time spent on these pieces is also time spent honoring the service rendered by these books that had been in circulation for decades, checked out dozens of times, and have educated hundreds of students as they spent time in their homes, their hands, and traveled with them in cars, on buses, and bicycles. These books shaped lives.

The Bibliomuse pieces honor lives well spent. These books have now been discarded because they are damaged, considered obsolete, out of date, unused, incorrect, or are simply exhausted from excessive use and need to be replaced.

I chose the muses for very subjective reasons: usually a cover design or illustration that has caught my fancy. The bookskins are chosen for their breadth and depth of color, for the coffee rings left on them, and the ombre fading effect created from being moved around the shelves over the years.