The Death of Books at the Des Moines Arts Festival

I am thrilled and humbled to be honored as one of the Emerging Iowa Artists selected for the 2012 show which opens in just a few days on June 22nd. This three day show consistently is voted into the top ten art festivals in the nation and sees about 250,000 people throughout the weekend. My booth is called The Death of Books, and for those of you have followed this blog, you saw the very first pieces posted in my blog from November of 2011. Most people just kind of look at me and nod politely when I try to describe this body of work. Most people also do not recognize immediately that those holes are bullet holes, but you can see the question in their eyes and the wrinkle in their forehead and you can almost hear the thought, "Is that what I think it is? I have never seen a bullet hole up close and personal, but what else could it be? Why is there bullet holes in the book? I get the doorknob idea - they no longer open, no one opens books for information anymore. Why bullet holes?"

I continue to explore the tragic fall of "real books". I am still saddened by the fact that some children are growing up and have no idea how to look up the spelling of a word in a paper dictionary. I am annoyed on a daily basis as I see fellow college students that not only can't spell, they don't even know how to use spell-check correctly. It is astonishing to me to see a word used incorrectly in a power point presentation. You know what I mean - someone didn't know how to spell a word, and as they typed it in, Word automatically suggests several words close to what it thinks they are trying to spell. The problem is, when the student doesn't recognize the correct word in the list (because they don't know how to spell it), I imagine they just pick the word at the top of the blue list. They have no idea if they are right or wrong, but they know they have selected something that Word suggested so they know it is spelled right. Unbelievable.

I love dictionaries. I love words. I always have and always will.

I have found some extraordinary books that I have used in the latest body of work being revealed this weekend. I have found some extraordinary doorknobs to pair with them.

Most of the books are dictionaries and other reference books. No one uses these anymore. With the ease and availability of the internet, people just point and click online - for everything.

When was the last time you opened a book that was more than one hundred years old? Have you ever done that? If you haven't, can you even imagine what that is like? A book of that age probably passed through five generations. A century. One hundred years.

My son found a small pocket-sized book in the basement of our house awhile ago. It was printed in 1856. That makes it older than the American Civil War (1861–1865). It was written to be used for flower and plant identification. I am sure it was the type of book a proper lady used. Small enough to be kept in a tiny handbag or tucked away on a bookshelf in the parlor. Apparently at some point, it was lost or forgotten. Dropped behind the piano. Stuck behind the back of the mantel. It is in pristine condition. We don't have it on a high shelf to be admired, although we are very careful with it. We use it. We read it. My eleven-year-old son has taken it outside into our 1.57 acre backyard and used this tiny little gem of a book to identify plants and flowers growing in a natural setting (which means we don't mow). It is an extraordinary book and we are honored to be the caretakers.

In preparing for the festival this weekend I have been amassing an arsenal of books and doorknobs. As the assembling process started, I found that I had a significant stumbling block. I came across a few books that I could not bring myself to either shoot or drill for doorknobs. I couldn't do it. I have decided that for the time being that they have won a "stay of execution". I am going to display some of these books at the art festival with lengths of gold cord wrapped around them - kind of like the pictures you see of Houdini before he submerges himself in that claustrophobic tank of water. I want people to appreciate the fact that for the time being, they have been saved. They are still being held captive, however, and I may decide to shoot them someday, but not today and definitely not tomorrow.

The last couple of years as a full time student with five majors has really been a challenge. I owe a big thank you to Kelly Friesleben, my academic advisor, who has never failed to encourage me in my somewhat radical approach to higher education. I keep telling every one who asks that these five majors are all related and they will work together for a greater good that has yet to be revealed to me. I feel peace on this path so I will stay the course. There are times that it has felt like being in a luge competition, and not only in your night class Dr. Kathy Petersen! Thank you for your mighty passion for psychology and thank you for your relentless pushing in the classroom. I am sure that sometimes it feels like shoving boulders uphill on a muddy slope, but I want you to know that your efforts have made a difference in my life, and they have influenced my art. Thank you Professor Guy Cunningham for incorporating your unique view of the world in your classroom, but more importantly, for challenging me to create my own. Your wit and intelligence has always been stimulating and sardonic - in a good way! Thank you Dr. Sheryl Leytham for your soft heart and your sharp brain. Both have helped me to have a little more empathy and a little more hope for the human race. The opportunity to re-examine recent art history was never made more exciting than it was in Rachel Schwaller's class - thank you for stirring up my disgust for Jeff Koons and my admiration for Andy Warhol! Your enthusiasm is contagious! Mary Jones, I did not think it was possible for me to love books any more - until I took your bookbinding class and fell in love all over again.  While it definitely made the pursuit of this body of work more painful and more difficult for me, it also made it much more meaningful. I hope that message comes through in this conceptual art. Thank you also, Mary, for taking the photographs I needed to meet the requirements of the application for the Des Moines Arts Festival - they were beautiful and professional and I am sure they were a big reason the jury accepted my work for the Emerging Iowa Artists category.

Last but not least, thank you Michael Lane! You were the first person after my husband to see the first dictionary with the first doorknobs and the first bullet hole. Your reaction was priceless and was the tipping point in my decision to go down this path. Not only did you tell me that I "absolutely needed to take" the bookbinding class, but you encouraged me by letting me know that this concept was really, really relevant. With you by my side I filled out the Iowa Arts Council mini-grant application (which I won!) asking for help with a custom display for this body of work as well as marketing pieces to be printed for the festival. I am just as excited about the custom display as I am about the books - it is the perfect metaphor to complement the books. I will take pictures at the festival and share them at a later date.

If you are in central Iowa and can join us at the Des Moines Arts Festival this weekend, please do. I am in booth #EIA12 in the southeast corner of the festival grounds.