Artist’s Book Publishing
As the director of Women Studio Workshop’s publishing imprint since 2017, I have overseen the production and distribution of 25 artist’s book titles to date. Below I have selected 3 books to highlight. A full listing of WSW titles is available here: https://wsworkshop.org/collection/
Parts of a Body house Book by Carolee Schneemann, 2020
Parts of a Body House Book was originally published in 1972 by Beau Geste Press, which was run by Felipe Ehrenberg in Devon, England. This reprinting is a facsimile of Carolee’s personal copy from the first edition. Her intentions were to paint the back cover of each book and create a new set of hand interventions for the present day. This publication was in production at the time of her death in 2019. All hand interventions including corrections, stamping, staining, drawing, and highlighting were recreated to the artist’s exact wishes. Each copy in this edition is signed by Carolee’s beloved feline, La Niña, using a pigment mixed from beet juice and dirt gathered from the grounds of Carolee’s eighteenth century farmhouse in New Paltz, NY.
This book includes the first publishing of an excerpt from Schneemann’s Sexual Parameters Chart, Americana I Ching Apple Pie, film positives from two of Carolee’s films, notes and sketches on Kinetic Painting, a very special menstrual-blood-blotted paper work, and more.
In the exhibition catalog for her retrospective Kinetic Painting, Schneemann writes, “Parts of a Body House Book (1972) is a prototype for my big book. Each element in this edition was culled from mounds of related material. It is a releasing of the recent past into the present. A unitary life view – all about the same thing… and I can’t say what IT IS. But see it, live it.”
Virtual Book Releases:
Women’s Studio Workshop: https://vimeo.com/448546083
Carolee Schneemann Foundation: https://youtu.be/SaPxtTWNqb4?si=EZK00xmzWCPGspBm
Full Catalog Listing:
https://wsworkshop.org/collection/parts-of-a-body-house-book/
where are we now by Kyung Eun You, 2018
where are we now is based on the artist’s memories in the aftermath of her mother’s passing in Los Angeles in 2009. Her family had immigrated from Korea a few years before. Images in the book depict moments in her struggle with grief, depression, and her father’s alcohol abuse. Repeated imagery reflect the recurrence of events – how the artist dealt with the frequency of her dad’s alcoholic behaviors; and the cyclical return of the memories after moving away from home.
Full Catalog Listing:
https://wsworkshop.org/collection/where-are-we-now/
11033 by Ibe bulinda crawley
11033 is the artist’s meditation on the feelings and experiences of Mary Morst, a black woman in the Virginia State Penitentiary in 1921. Imprisoned behind the black bars of the book’s cover, 11033 centers Mary’s complex life and shares her story as an imprisoned murderer and the mother of twin children born ‘behind bars.’ This sculptural artist’s book incorporates embedded copies of archival documents, including newspaper clippings, letters, and pardon applications alongside a fictional text woven poetically throughout the historical narrative.
The inspiration for this project grew from IBe’ Crawley’s research into the untold stories of women and girls impacted by oppressive Virginia laws and continued enslavement. Unlike most black women and girls, Mary Morst’s story is recorded because of her relationship to the penal system. IBe’ Crawley conducted research at Virginia State Library, where all the prison records for Morst are publically available.
11033 is constructed using handmade flax and abaca paper, with shaped pages that present the silhouette of a pregnant body. The textblock incorporates a central clay figure providing structural support for the book to stand upright, mirroring the enclosure of a prison cell.
Full Catalog Listing:
https://wsworkshop.org/collection/11033/