Keri Miki-Lani Schroeder (San Antonio, Texas)
Consume
2020
Paper, board, cloth, found objects. Original illustrations are pen and ink, scanned and digitally reproduced for the accordion book and colored by pochoir. Text is handwritten on Fabriano Ingres and Caba, bound with Asahi bookcloth. Edition of 5.
9”x2.75”x1” (closed); 9”x 27”x 0.5” (extended)
Artwork description:
Consume memorializes five bird species that have been hunted to extinction for food, feathers, or to expand agriculture: the Passenger Pigeon, Heath Hen, Hawaiian O’o, Great Auk, and the Carolina Parakeet. This box set includes an accordion book with text and illustrations about the birds, the methods of mass hunting that led to their extinction, and what it means to “consume”. Illustrations in the book are printed from original pen and ink drawings. Each clamshell box contains one of the five original drawings, and a gifted duck wing from a hunter.
Influxstructure: A Topography of Ghosts
2018
Artist’s Book: paper, cloth, board, glass, iron filings
10”x10”x2” (closed); 20”x38”x1” (extended)
Artwork description:
Influxstructure: A Topography of Ghosts explores macro and micro human systems (both natural and artificial), and how we use the earth and our bodies to communicate and navigate space. When the book is closed, iron filings in the glass case are gathered in a tightly closed circle around a hidden magnet. When the book is open, the iron filings fall away from the magnet and scatter into formless dust. The map-fold variation structure allows images to be peeled back layer by layer, alternating between the minuscule (synapses, nerves, veins), to the immense (Nazca lines, US Highway systems, Atomic bomb test site). Holes in pages peek through to highlight the interconnection of the systems. Text alternates from prose poems to cited research.
Letterpress printed with photopolymer plates and pressure printing, and pochoir on Hahnemuhle Ingres and Uda-gami paper. Typeset in Diotima designed by Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse. Signed and numbered edition of 25.
Artist statement:
Artist’s books offer a uniquely tangible, intimate experience making them an ideal form for the convergence of craft, communication, and content. I love how books demand touch for them to work, making the reader an active participant in the narrative. I find inspiration from wild natural spaces, history and science, memory and artifacts. It is possible to share stories without words, and capturing the essence of a moment or idea feels deeper than mere documentation. The utility and the technology of the book can be expanded to offer an accessible space for connection, reflection, and meditation. The ways in which we navigate and utilize the space around us intrigues me. My work reflects on the reciprocal effects of human beings and our environment, and explores the mysterious, liminal space between our interior consciousness, our bodies, and our surroundings. I am driven by the questions, “how and where is memory held in objects and places?” and “where does our internal space stop and external space begin if our presence is capable of changing the atmosphere?”
Artist Bio:
Keri Miki-Lani Schroeder is a book artist based in San Antonio, Texas. Keri produces limited-edition artist’s books and is the proprietor of Coyote Bones Press. She is the 2020-2021 Helen M. Salzberg Artist in Residence at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts at Florida Atlantic University, and teaches Book Art classes at Southwest School of Art. Keri produces and hosts Books in the Wild, a podcast about book arts and book history. Originally from Las Vegas, Keri started making zines and books as an art student at University of Nevada. After falling in love with book art, she went on to earn an MFA in Book Art & Creative Writing from Mills College. Keri worked as a studio assistant for Julie Chen at Flying Fish Press for four years, and as an edition bookbinder at BookLab II with master bookbinder Craig Jensen for two years. Keri’s books utilize traditional bookbinding techniques, letterpress printing, intricate box-making, and often incorporate found objects. Her books have been exhibited across the country, and are held in prominent collections including UC Berkeley Libraries, Stanford University, RISD, Otis College of Art and Design, Baylor University, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, and Savannah College of Art and Design. www.kerischroeder.com