Suffers the Wear of Time!
MEDIUM:
Assemblage, collage, bookbinding tools, marbled paper, ink, graphics, antique car case binding, boards, acrylic paint.
ARTWORK:
18½” x 23½” x 1¾”
FRAME:
Satin black finished wood.
20″ x 25″ x 2″
RESERVED FOR DONATION OR AUCTION
A BOOK IS A FRAGILE CREATURE 1. DRAFT
Suffers the wear of time.
Artist Statement: Like bookends, the skills of a book’s author and the binder of the book are dependent on each other. The purpose of the author’s words will reside in the reader’s mind and actions. The purpose of the binder’s skills will determine how well the book survives the reader’s care of it. The stewards of books and bibliophiles agree, 1. “A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements, clumsy hands … the librarian protects them not only against mankind but also against nature, and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion, the enemy of truth.” 1. In life we are fortunate if we have, 2. “… a few friends and many books …”
Selected Exhibitions: New England Chapter Guild of Book Workers, 10th Anniversary Exhibition, Museum of Our National Heritage, Lexington, MA. & Round Top Center for the Arts, Damariscotta, Maine, 1992. Other GBW exhibitions: Grolier Club, 1981, Folger Shakespeare Library, 1986, Yale University Library, 1975.
Quote Sources: 1. Eco, Umberto. “The Name of the Rose,” Helen and Kurt Wolff Book, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, San Diego, New York, London, p. 38, 1980. 2. Abraham Cowley (1618-1667), The Wish, 1647, Bartlett Familiar Quotations, Little & Brown Co., 1980, no. 295:4
Origins: The antecedents for this book artwork begins with my introduction and training in fine printing, bookmaking and publishing when a student (1963-1967) at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bookmaking materials saved from that period are incorporated within the artwork i.e. marbled paper, tools, verso book case boards, etc.
Robert Hauser