Loose Leaf: Writers and Artists Make Books Together

I organized this show at SOIL Gallery in Seattle. Three artists worked with four writers to make "books" that stretch the definition of "book" to the paper-thin. The exhibit runs through November 26, Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 5 pm, or by appointment with me.

Daniel R. Smith collaborated with performance poet Karen Finneyfrock on a marketing concept for the poem "What Lot's Wife Would Have Said (if she wasn't a pillar of salt)".

Julia Freeman and Stacey Levine made "A Book of the Future (A Maze)", a hieroglyphic/rebus maze that the reader walks through, reliving what it is like to learn to read.

I distilled, as best I could, the recent loss of my boyfriend Ian Rodihan by making two books. One: a structure that can be entered, surrounded by Patti Smith's "Auguries of Innocence". The second: a paged book made of cyanotypes inscribed by hand with the poetry of Patti Smith and the brilliant Frances McCue. Both poets lost their husbands suddenly, and wrote about it transcendentally.

Daniel R. Smith | Karen Finneyfrock, What Lot's Wife Would Have Said...

Ellen Ziegler | Patti Smith | Frances McCue, Imbue, cyanotype and hand-lettering, 52" x 32", 30 pages, hand-bound with leather cover.

Julia Freeman | Stacey Levine, A Book of the Future: A Maze,  found and painted objects, lettering, mudding compound, wood.

Detail from A Book of the Future: A Maze

Ellen Ziegler | Patti Smith, On "Auguries of Innocence", found umbrella, inkjet printed and stained rice paper, bookbinder's gauze.

On "Auguries of Innocence, detail.