recomp (2013-23) Cathryn Miller Hinged and clasped diptych, housing an altered book, explanatory booklet, and loose colophon. Unique. Acquired from Vamp & Tramp Booksellers, 2025. Photos: Books On Books Collection.
Recomp (2013-2023) is a collaboration with a colony of bald-faced hornets. Having reviewed Stephen Collis and Jordan Scott’s decomp (2013), their artists’ book devised by exposing several copies of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species to the elements, Cathryn Miller followed suit and hung her reviewer’s copy of decomp in a tree. Over time, the wind, rain, and snow sent the book to the forest floor where it fell apart. Hornets had done their part in its decomposition, nibbling away at its edges and weakening the structure. Their conversion of the book into cellulose for their nest was also the start of their artistic partnership with Miller. Eventually the nest, too, became prey to the elements or marauders and fell and broke apart on the ground. Miller and photographer husband David recorded all this and gathered up the book fragments and broken nest.
The Negro Is Still Not Free (2022) Elaina Brown-Spence, Meera Mittari, Erica Honson, Jingnan Cheng, Xue’er Goo, Bryn Ziegler, Grace Johnson, Amanda D’Amico, and Sarah Matthews Double-sided single-page book in a pants fold. 152 x 152 mm. Acquired from Sarah Mathews, 6 August 2024. Photos: Books On Books Collection
The Negro is Still Not Free was created by Elaina Brown-Spence, Meera Mittari, Erica Honson, Jingnan Cheng, Xue’er Goo, Bryn Ziegler, Grace Johnson, Amanda D’Amico, and Sarah Matthews at the Borowsky Center for Publication Arts at the University of Arts in Philadelphia, PA during the month of February 2022. In its color and style, it reflects the influence of Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. Its double-sided single-sheet pants-fold book structure, cleverly fuses the traditions of poster and book (or zine).
Inspired by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s celebrated “I Have A Dream” speech from August 28, 1963, the work was created to support the Youth Art & Self Empowerment Project in Philadelphia, PA. Their mission is to “provide space for incarcerated young people to express themselves creatively and to develop as leaders both within and beyond prison walls.”
SPACE: Known/Unknown (2022)
SPACE: Known / Unknown Lauren Emeritz & Sarah Matthews Box with pastedown title enclosing softcover book. Box: 237 x W157 x D50 mm. Book: H230 x W150 x D25 mm. 48 pages and loose 4-page colophon in envelope attached to inside back cover. Edition of 15, of which this is #5. Acquired from Sarah Mathews, 6 August 2024. Photos: Books On Books Collection.
A collaborative project between Lauren Emeritz & Sarah Matthews, SPACE: Known/Unknown features three telling quotations:
“Open a book, open the universe”– Unknown “We are made whole by books, as by great space and the stars” — Mary Carolyn Davies “The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you” — Neil deGrasse Tyson
The universe of this artist’s book is that of letterpress, handcarved letters, wood and metal type, embossed printer labels, multiple inks and foil stamping, die cuts, paper engineering, and multiple binding structures. This and its crazy quilt imposition make it a lively universe to explore, and it certainly lives up to deGrasse Tyson’s quip.
Does this book subscribe to the “argument by design” made by Socrates and St. Thomas Aquinas?
A universe in which page layout turns one way and then another is under no obligation to make sense.
A Turkish fold of constellations.
The artists must have traveled back in time to include one of these embossed sticky labels.
The universe and title page can appear in multiple places — even in the middle.
A sunburst — and then star label in case we missed it?
A multi-color galaxy of ink leads to die-cut black stars (or holes?).
Not exactly a dwarf red star, but it’s the artists’ universe, they get to decide.
B is for Box (2014) David A. Carter Pop-up book, printed paper over boards. H187 x W184 x D28 mm. [14] pages. Acquired from Type Punch Matrix, 17 September 2024. Photos: Books On Books Collection.
“The Happy Little Yellow Box” was first introduced in a pop-up book of opposites by that name in 2012. For the Books On Books Collection, the box’s return in this pop-up alphabet makes it the one to add to all the other abecedaries here. The box is also a happy reminder of the items under Further Reading (below).
Le sculture da viaggio di Munari (2019)
Carter’s Le sculture da viaggio di Munari brings the spirit of Munari’s “travel sculptures” into the collection. His homage carries the blessing of Corraini Edizioni, further justifying its inclusion.
Travel sculptures started off as small sculptures (some even pocket-sized) to carry with you, so you could take part of your own culture to an anonymous hotel room. Later they were turned into ‘travel sculptures’, five or six metres tall and made of steel. One of these was seen for a few months in Cesenatico, another one in Naples. Others are sleeping among huge trees in the Alto Adige region.’ This is how Italian designer Bruno Munari (1907-1998) described his ‘travel sculptures’, which in turn inspired American illustrator and designer David A. Carter for this pop-up book. –Corraini Edizioni website. Accessed 3 August 2021.
Munari’s travel sculptures also recall works in the collection like Cumer’s scultura da viaggio dipinta n.2(2017), Komagata’s「Ichigu」(2015) and, albeit less portable, Ioana Stoian’s Nous Sommes (2015).
Rubin, Ellen. 2019. Ellen Rubin – The Popuplady. For her definition of the “spider web” form of pop up (Within a circle, a spiral is cut either by hand or laser. A ribbon or pull is attached to the center area. When pulled up, a ‘spider web’ pop-up is created.), Rubin illustrates it with an example from Carter.
In July this year, a video was posted as if in response to the conclusion of Kyle Olmon’s “Movable Book Artists” in Parenthesis 31 (2020):
There is little in the way of scholarship and criticism in regard to pop-up and movable books. Part of this is the stigma of being represented as a commercial novelty product or kiddie book by twentieth-century publishers. The explosion of artists’ books in the 1970’s gave rise to a subset of book artists that moved beyond the standard textblock to explore the book form in ways that surpassed commercial novelty publishing efforts. To date there is no consensus within the community on the classification of the types of book formats or even the terminology used when describing pop-up and movable elements in a work. Hopefully this will change when articles about pop-up artists’ books appear with more frequency and more scholarship is undertaken.
The Newberry Library’s Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts Suzanne Karr Schmidt gave the Book Club of Washington a reprise of her 2023 exhibition “Pop-Up Books through the Ages”:
Plunge (2010) Chisato Tamabayashi Casebound, cloth over boards. Pop-up book. H193 x W152 mm. [12] pages. Collinge & Clark, 6 August 2024. Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with permission from Chisato Tamabayashi.
“This book begins with a dive into the sea, down into the deep and back again, encountering various creatures on the way. The pages are designed to be held and angled in different ways so that the reader can explore the depths and the two sides of the sea’s surface.”–Artist’s statement
It is a pleasure to touch and turn the pages forming the surface and bed of the sea on which the pop-ups and movable elements rise, fall and move. The screen printing with TW graphics ink (pigment ink) enrich the book’s freshness and vibrancy. These photos and very brief video further below do little justice to Plunge and only hint at the sheer fun of manipulating it.
Pages: Simili Japon paper 225gsm. Pop-ups, hand cut by scalpel from Murano pastel paper 160gsm and Colorplan paper 175gsm.
As the double-page spread below shows, Tamabayashi thinks and crafts “in the round” to position his paper sculpture to suggest a sea turtle’s motion through the water.
The Paris-based publishers Les Trois Ourses announced that Katsumi Komagata died on 29 March 2024. Although the Bologna Children’s Book Fair responded quickly with a memorial on 8 April, it is strange that no significant obituary has yet appeared for such a major figure in the book arts, children’s books and artists’ books. Fortunately there is extensive biographical information on the site of his publishing firm One Stroke.
Piece of Mind (2022), one of his last limited edition works, becomes all the more treasured.
Piece of Mind (2022) Katsumi Komagata Casebound, card around perfect bound block of lighter card stock. H300 x W196 mm. [30] pages. Edition of 100, of which this #67. Acquired from One Stroke, 7 August 2023. Photos: Books On Books Collection.
Land Forms and Air Currents (2014) Carol Barton Leporello (with 11 pop-ups) fixed to inside cover of case, cloth over board, debossed with fitted, pastedown artwork on front cover and spine. Cover: H292 x W192 x D50 mm. Leporello: H275 x W175 mm. 37 panels. Edition of 25, of which this is #21. Acquired from the artist, 27 October 2023. Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with artist’s permission.
Carol Barton’s reputation for paper-engineering, supported by her well-received multi-volume The Pocket Paper Engineer, should not overshadow appreciation of her talents with watercolor and words. With its poems of free verse, scanned watercolors and pop-up structures all by the same author/artist, Land Forms and Air Currents (2014) qualifies as a champion of the Blakean tradition in artists’ books.
ABC of Bugs and Plants in a Northern Garden (2012)
ABC of Bugs and Plants in a Northern Garden(2012) Judy Fairclough Sgantas and Claire Van Vliet Clamshell box, softcover, open spine, paper-tab-sewn binding. Box: H188 x W192 x D65 mm. Book: H167 x W171 x D35 mm. 27 f&gs, 1 folded pastedown at end. Edition of 120, of which this is #45. Acquired from Vamp & Tramp, 15 September 2023. Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with artists’ permission.
I think that the root of the wind is water (2016) Susan Lowdermilk Hardback with open spine, Asahi cloth over board, debossed front cover with fitted, pastedown artwork, around folded structure with cut-outs, pop-ups and pastedowns. H236 x W182 x D20 mm. 14 pages. Edition of 30, of which this is #24. Acquired from the Abecedarian Gallery, 5 October 2023. Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with the artist’s permission.
Some book art illustrates a poem. Some converses with it. And some, like this one by Susan Lowdermilk, enact the poem.
Books On Books 