Southside Library Show Is Up!

Here are some pics of the installation.

The newest piece is a scroll that re-tells a koan. Full text:
1. The goddess attained complete and perfect enlightenment.
2. She felt pretty good.
3. This Bodhisattva dude said: hey baby, if you are enlightened how come you still have a female form?
4. The goddess said: Are you talking to me? She said: Don’t cut off my legs and call me short. She turned into a piece of cold lava, a potsherd, a medium-sized crow.
5. She was as green as a veined leaf and trembled in the breeze at the edge of the garden. She turned into a moss-covered stone.
6. She said: Breathing in, I smile. Breathing out…well, that’s your problem now.
7. She hears the cry of our world, the goddess of compassion.

INVITATION!

Lending Library of the Invisible—a book arts show
Maternal Mitochondria—Miriam Sagan & Isabel Winson-Sagan
Southside Library
6599 Jaguar Drive
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Opening—May 6, 4-6 pm
Show up till May 31, 2022
Artists will be in residence 11 am-1 pm on May 17 and May 24, 2022.

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We hope to see you, even if Southside seems far away!
Come say hi, and help add to our interactive artwork,“What Am I Hiding and What Do I Hope For?,” which asks visitors to hang their own answers on sculptural trees or put them in slot boxes.

There will be grab and go snacks. And you can visit Southside’s Seed Library, bookstore, or even return those overdue books!
The show will up all of May, and we will be in residence two Tuesday mornings as well.

New Poetry Posts

These wonderful images are from students in last semester’s Color Theory class at SFCC with Sudeshna Sengupta. They are on six of the campus poetry posts: two in central courtyard, two at west entrance (upper & lower) and two in smoking area towards west of bookstore and cafeteria. I’ll be documenting the rest of the posts next–done by book artists. Enjoy this beautiful melding of words and color.

New from Dale Harris

Albuquerque writer and book artist Dale Harris says:

Had a wonderful time making my version of a Kamishibai storytelling box for our Paper Dolls exhibit. I plan to use it for my 2 fairy tales at the Oct. 1st Artist Reception Story Hour.

Kamishibai is a portable theatre invented and used in Japan about 200 years ago. The word Kamishibai means to provide drama with paper. It is a simple way of telling stories using pictures drawn on cards or sheets of paper, to small groups of people. The theatre is made from a flat wooden or cardboard box. The front opens out to form a small theatre, with a side opening for putting the pictures in and out. In Japan Kamishibai was traditionally used by storytellers who would travel from village to village on their bicycles, entertaining people with stories in return for payment. Performances were announced by vigorously clapping wooden sticks called hyoshigi together.

“Paper Dolls: Evolution & Articulation” group exhibit September 3 – October 29, 2021 featuring Louisa Barkalow, Vicki Bolen, Terry Garrett, Dale Harris, Esther Feske, Margy O’Brien and Ginger RiceRemarque/New Grounds Print Workshop & Gallery3281 Central Ave Se, Albuquerque, NM 87108(505) 268-8952www.remarqueprintshop.com Please join us for the exciting opening of “Paper Dolls”- a collective show featuring the work of local Albuquerque artists who explore the boundaries of work in and on paper. Get ready to meet the “sheeple” dolls, fairy tales revisited, handmade books, surprising shadow boxes, unexpected collaborations and more. 
Virtual Reception & Artist Talk September 1, 5 pmregister via Face Book https://fb.me/e/1EadKIYpTFirst Friday IN PERSON Opening Reception September 3, 5 pm                                      Harp music Michele Buchanan                                                                Opening Reception: PAPER DOLLS-Evolution and Articulation
First Friday IN PERSON Artist Reception & Story HourOctober 1, 5 pm

Catching Up With Gail Rieke

Miriam’s Well asks Santa Fe artist Gail Rieke a few questions.

1. What are you working on these days–themes, materials, projects?

2. How has the pandemic affected your art and process? Or maybe it hasn’t?

3. I’m thinking about book arts…I know you do some book arts that isn’t bound in a traditional fashion. How do you understand and execute the idea of book arts? Can it be words in a deconstructed container?

4. Anything else on your mind you’d like to share?

1 & 2
I am thinking about…
and responding to…
the dialectic between containment and explosion.

I feel strongly that while I am contained
within my home and garden most of the time
because of the corona crisis,
this is a time of explosion of energy
directed against so many aspects
of social, political, economic repression.

Hermeticism: that which is contained
revealed only at certain times
for specific purposes
continues to be central to my work.

Here’s a recently completed travel journal:
Islands and Coastlines: Japan 2019

It feels poignant now that my future travel plans
are mysterious.

It seems as if I am in suspension…
viewing the world through screens and book pages…
a time almost out of time…

If I were to compare it to a computer,
I would say that there are no more defaults settings
and that all the preferences need to be considered and reset.

3.
Categories: book… collage… assemblage… journal
are not so distinct in the work.

I think that the concept of revelation is central to my sense of “book”…
bound or unbound…

Here’s a visual that relates to the conundrum you ponder…
This journal is called The Shape of Time 2018-2019

Is it a book with separate stacked pages?
Is it a collage when they are mounted simultaneously?

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Editor’s note:
Thank you, Gail! I’m delighted to find out what one of my favorite artists is thinking.