This
exhibition takes nothing for granted. While re•de•find includes
traditional book arts elements like handmade paper, book
board, and bound pages, the six teens whose work is featured
in the exhibition pushed the malleable boundaries of book
arts into fresh new territory. A dragon kite descends into
the space. Pink graffiti vibrates on the wall. Shadow boxes
glow with ominous foreboding. A field journal depicts the
encounters of a shy teen with strangers.
The Fall 2006 By Design Teen Exhibition highlights new work
of six pre-emerging artists from the Metro area: Sophie
Alfano, Javier
Corral, Stephanie Kunze, Brita
Light, Libby London, and Jamie
Mosel. The teens completed their work during a ten-week
advanced session of the teen mentorship program at Minnesota
Center for Book Arts.
The works by these teens are extremely sophisticated and complex. For example, Sophie Alfano, working with mentor Wendy Fernstrum (book artist and staff member of MCBA), created a series of three altars to celebrate the existence of the things she finds precious, but also risks losing. She chose three aspects of life that sit near the edge of loss in this world: her home, this country, and life on this earth.
Javier
Corral, an accomplished graffiti artist before
coming into our program, brought his work from the streets
into a gallery in the form of an abecedarius,
or alphabet book. Javier learned about traditional
type styles from his mentor Kent Aldrich (a typographer
and letterpress artist), then interpreted them into a graffiti-style
piece combining traditional book art materials and contemporary
graffiti techniques installed on the wall and covering
about 30 feet of wall space.
Stephanie Kunze created
three artist books dedicated completely to a poem she wrote
a few years ago. Working with mentor Jody Williams, a book
artist and professor at Minneapolis College of Art and Design,
Stephanie made a one-of-a-kind book with rapidograph pen
drawings; a book of etchings; and a folio with rapidograph
pen drawings. She wanted to accurately express the bleakness
of her poem. The dark, moody and black ink of rapidograph
pens depict the atmosphere well, as do the etchings, with
their dark and cloudy effects.
Brita Light,
a sophomore at Irondale, has designed a 20-foot handmade
paper dragon kite with her mentor Bridget O’Malley
of Cave Paper, an internationally acclaimed papermaking studio.
The work was inspired by a piece created by the artist Leslie
Dill and the Asian traditions of handmade papermaking and
kite making. Each of the 5' x 3' sections of paper have a
scale pattern created by "painting" blue pulp with a squeeze
bottle onto the section of paper while still wet.
The head and claws are paper mache and the body sections are formed by stretching
paper across bamboo spars and tying it with a string.
Libby London's Unexplained joins
two paper-sculpted hands in an exploration of two choices:
a more subjective path in life based in art, imagination, and
free flowing ideas, and an objective route centered on austerity
and stability. The two hands represent those two very different
directions in life. The thumbs of each hand connect and hold
the other up to show that although they are different, they
balance their opposite. To complete her project, Libby learned
how to build armatures and cover them with paper or pulp with
the help of mentor Lori Brink, a book artist and staff member
of MCBA.
When Jamie
Mosel concieved her piece for the exhibition,
she imagined the field journals of old masters, explorers
and adventurers recording new and fascinating discoveries.
She realized that those explorers represented facets of
herself. Much like Darwin, who recorded his findings during
a voyage to South America, Jamie recorded the people around
her. Jamie's terrain was Minneapolis. "The structure and
design of my book were chosen because of their efficiency;
the book opens flat, so that the entirety of the page can
be viewed," says Jamie. "I feel this is an aspect Darwin
would have appreciated. My vision of this book has always
been that it would be a traditional, Western, leather-bound
book. This stems from my admiration for old books and techniques.
Each page, each face, and each story come together between
the covers of my book to form a manifestation of the role of
coincidence in daily life." Jamie met with mentor Denny Ruud,
a book binder and calligrapher, every Saturday for ten
weeks, learning how to tool leather and make a contemporary
wire-edge binding with "about a billion" square knots.
Minnesota
Center for Book Arts' teen mentorship program is unique in
its depth of teaching students what it means to be an artist.
Throughout the ten-week session, each teen works closely
with an artist mentor who has been carefully matched to the
teen based on techniques the teen will need to learn or hone
to complete the project successfully.
By
Design replicates the demands of the artworld on an adult
artist beyond
the intensive educational aspect of creating work. At the
beginning of the session the teens collaborate to develop
a theme for the exhibition and design marketing materials
such as an invitation to the exhibition. Once the work is
complete, the teens curate their own exhibition and create
supporting exhibition materials such as an artist statement.
Each teen also gives an artist talk during the opening reception.
With the deadline of an exhibition always in mind, the teen
artists learn how to balance their already busy schedules with
the demands of being a professional artist. They also learn
how to adapt either their vision or the tools used to make
their vision come to fruition, since a project rarely turns
out exactly the way they expect it will. Teens often discover
that a technique they want to learn is much more difficult
to master than they had anticipated.
By Design gives
the students the rare opportunity to show their work to the
public in a downtown Minneapolis gallery. Knowing their work
will be taken seriously in this venue, the teens push themselves
not just to meet the deadline, but to go above and beyond any
project they've completed in the past.
Also
on exhibition in the Cowles Literary Commons is the work
of teens enrolled in By Design's
introductory session. Teens in this "book arts bootcamp"
learn how to make paper, how to bind books in a variety of
ways, and how to print on the letterpress equipment. During
the ten-week session, these teens learn the basics and then
apply their knowledge toward a final project featured in
the exhibition. Final projects in the Fall 2006 session are
amazing in the depth and finesse considering the teens did
not have the opportunity to work with a mentor. For example,
one teen made a dress out of handmade paper.
Teens enrolled in By Designs fall 2006 introductory session include:
Kassie Carlson, grade 10
Isaac Eide, grade 10
Samantha Esguerra, grade 12
Ivar Hendrickson, grade 12
Yvonne Hernandez, grade 11
Maisie Herson, grade 10
Liz Peters, grade 12
Etta Sandry, grade 11
Cori Wentworth, grade 10
Joua Yang, grade 11
These amazing emerging teen artists have committed to work a minimum of 8 hours per week for the past 10 weeks in the studios of Minnesota Center for Book Arts. They have been collaborating with numerous artists, designing individual projects for their exhibition, and taking field trips to Big Brain Comics and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to take a historical look at book art and printmaking and learn about curating. Highlighted workshops include: Huge Sheets of Paper with Bridget O'Malley of Cave Paper, Hot Transfers with Lin Lacy, All Things Paper with Lori Brink, Onomatopoeia and Letterpress with Chris Forsythe, and The Pop–Up Project with Cori Sherlock.
re•de•find will be up through January 20, in the Cowles Literary
Commons on the 2nd floor at Open Book.
M.A. Rosko from Fox 9 News visited the By Design exhibition and interviewed Sophie Alfanos and Javier Corral. Watch It Now: M.A. Rosko Views Re-De-Fined Student Art
To
learn more about the By Design program or to apply, call Anna
Tsantir, Teen Programs Coordinator, at 612.215.2532.
Directions
to Minnesota Center for Book Arts at Open Book
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Good-bye to All of That
Sophie Alfano
"The
decorations that go along with Day of the Dead
traditions are both intriguing and inspiring
to me because they honor and celebrate the dead
instead of mourning their loss. My home, this
country, and life on this earth still exist.
The boxes I made do not mourn their loss; rather,
they celebrate their existence. The skeletal
images serve as a reminder of what we have and
what we should hold onto, while interior collages
illuminate the beauty in each. I
chose to display my art in the form of altar boxes. I
made three boxes in the shape of the traditional Peruvian
retablos to display them. These retablos were first carried
as portable altars and then transformed to portray the
traditions, myths, history and everyday life of the indigenous
people of Peru. In the style of traditional retablos,
I brightly decorated the outside of my boxes with collage."
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Back to The Basics: Graffiti Alphabet
Javier Corral
"In Back
to The Basics, I reveal a transformation in traditional
type styles from very legible letter forms to more
abstract letter forms as the alphabet goes from A to
Z. Below each hand-lettered copy (in black) of each
type specimen, I have shown a graffiti style interpretation
of my own. I use older, traditional, and more legible
styles of graffiti from the 70’s and the 80’s
in the beginning of the alphabet, and move into more
contemporary and abstract styles as the alphabet proceeds.
For example, B is more Old School in the sense
that bubble and block letters (the more legible types)
were the first two forms being used when graffiti began. G is
done in the style of Modern Midwest, which originated
in Chicago and is now being used in the Twin Cities,
The under and over laps give this style a lot of flare. I is
in 3-D Delta; this style's purpose is to become very
three-dimensional and give the illusion that the piece
is coming off the two-dimensional surface. Then, finally, R to Z is
Wild Style. Originally from the West Coast, this style
is meant to distract the viewer from what they are
trying to read, and push things to another level by
adding colors that don't necessary always go together."
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2 A.M. and a Computer Screen
Stephanie Kunze
"Because my poem “2 A.M. and a Computer Screen” is a bit lengthy, I decided to use only specific selections from it for the drawing and etching pieces. Despite the project being about the same poem, both the book of ink drawings and book of etchings use a different combination of words and lines, almost as if I wrote two different poems. My last book, the folio, is the book that ties everything together. It showcases my poem as a whole. Also, the size of the folio is convenient because it allows people to read the entire poem at once."
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Untitled
Brita
Light
"Spreading the kozo (or pulp) evenly to make the paper
for the kite was difficult, since I needed to use a large
5 foot by 3 foot screen. The pulp painting and the application
of the scale pattern was also challenging, because we
tried to use a stencil instead of doing it freehand.
Once we dispensed with the stencil, the whole process
was not only easier, but the overall look became more
biomorphic. Once finished making 6 large sheets of paper,
we began constructing sections of the dragon. Once determining
the right scale for the project all the pieces were brought
together, I tore the paper in half lengthwise, making
the body much longer and skinnier. In the end, the result
was much more streamlined, more like a sky dragon should
be."
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Unexplained
Libby London
"I have sculpted one hand out of straight silver wire. The four fingers of this hand are pointed erectly, except for the thumb that stretches out to hold the other hand. This hand represents the objective side of the spectrum. The handmade abaca paper, which has a pure white and crisp texture, covers the stiff, rectangular edges of the hand. Grasping this studious hand is the more aesthetic hand. This hand represents a more subjective way of living. Sculpting the wire with many circles and loops, I show flexibility and the way ideas change. I have created a skeletal feel by dipping the hand, made with flax, which has a more organic nature, many times. The thumbs of both hands connect and support each other because I believe that each hand needs the opposite hand for balance.”
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Faces
Jamie Mosel
"Have you ever found yourself staring at a stranger,
looking at an intriguing face and wondering what forces shaped
it? Where did that wrinkle on their forehead come from, or
those laugh lines? Have you ever looked around you, and wondered
why the people you see were drawn to that spot of all spots
on earth? Each stranger lives in their own world, yet these
worlds coexist in close proximity. The vastness of each individual’s
personal experiences are invisible to the casual passerby.
I, being a self-conscious person, tend to notice each stranger.
I ponder, as they pass me, what this person would do if I
broke through their atmosphere and introduced myself. My
goal with this book is to record the faces I see - the strangers
I meet, because rarely will I see the same one again. The
faces are a manifestation of the powers of chance and coincidence.
They represent the crossing of two worlds, at one specific
place and time, when a stranger becomes individual."
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| Mentor Kent Aldrich with a gift from teen student Javier Corral. |
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