La corde de sang / The Bloodstream Chain by Jocelyne Aird-Bélanger (N 7433.3 M646 2000 folio). Click image to see more.

Created for the Millennium in a Box project, this fragile artist's book is closed with a red silk cord and sealed with a tiny drop of blood-red wax. Inside is a woven tapestry that layers a poem, a flowery silk print collage on Japanese Unryu paper, and five images photo-etched onto black Arches paper. These photo-etch images emit an eerie glow, making a row of solemn tombstones, a timeline connecting iconic and anonymous women: Mona Lisa, Amelia Earhart, Jacqueline Roy, Anne Frank, and a baby, Elyane Roy. This alternative, female history unites public and private, universal and personal experiences, and the mythic and quotidian, while memorializing “the spirit” of our female predecessors. Leaving an archive for the “women of this millennium,” while calling them to advance with the same “spirit,” Aird-Bélanger suggests that regardless of the “woman,” we are all physically and spiritually connected, “all related through an eternal bloodstream chain” (Artist’s Statement).

Across the Millennia the Author is Speaking by Elaine Antoniuk (N 7433.4 A58 A6 A37 2003). Click image to see more.

This artist’s book is inspired by the Phaistos Disk, which dates to the ancient Minoan civilization circa 1600 BCE. Although this archaeological mystery has not yet been deciphered, many interpretations have been suggested: is it a decorative version of Linear A script, a magical text, a curse, a Minoan calendar, a game board, a creation myth, or a disk of time? This collaborative artist’s book presents its own interpretation of the mystery with images and text digitally produced and printed on Arches watercolour paper. The book is accompanied with a stone disk and the artist’s suggestion that the original was sort of a precursor of the CD, in part because the narratives, which spiral on either side of the disk, are meant to be read aloud. The book's russet-coloured disk, which mimics fired clay, has a delightfully tactile, earthy quality. To read this book, one will have to “spin” the disk to follow the contracting visual-linguistic narrative, pulling up tabs to reveal “translations,” which range from conventional, to anachronistic-modern, to tongue-in-cheek. Playfully integrating antiquity and modernity both formally and thematically, this artist's book offers multiple narratives, ways to read, and hours of amusement.

Theocratic Government Bans Paper Bags by Elaine Antoniuk (N 7433.4 A58 A6 T46). Click image to see more.

Wrapped in brown paper, this fascinating artist’s book houses a variety of rustic and precious media in a wooden pencil box: smoothed wood, recycled paper, altered Koran scrolls, suede, and black wire mesh woven with silver thread. Found objects such as a string of translucent brown beads (that evoke Islamic prayer beads) and a tiny copper shoe add depth to this unconventional book. The artist says that she wants "to give the past a new life using unconventional structures," allowing us to touch and muse over secrets, meanings, and past experiences. 

Evergreen before the Spell by Jane Rees Bally (N 7433.4 B187 A6 E93 1986). Click image for more.

This quilt-book consists of polyester quilt batting covered with cotton cloth. The text is hand printed with various dyes, and the pages are coloured with dyes and illustrated with attached materials such as wire figurines, thread, feathers, baby socks, and a mesh dress. The book is wrapped in a cotton cloth displaying the title. The combination of fantasy story and quilt gives readers the sense that we are peering into a mother’s carefully crafted gift to her newborn baby. This book is a delight to read, soft to touch, and, with all its tactile sew-ins, exciting to explore. One can easily fall under its spell!

Shallow Bay Beach Walk by Anne Meredith Barry (N 7433.4 B279 A6 S528 1999). Click image for more.

As it is opened, this accordion-fold book gradually reveals the landscape of Gros Morne, Newfoundland, which is shown in a cool palette of black and white punctuated by red and blue. Barry's sensual, melancholy poem layers collective and personal experience, exploring how landscapes connect us to millions of years of history and to the ones we love. The book’s form forces us to slowly move through the visual and linguistic narratives, first taking them in piece by piece, and then sitting back to view the tenderly drawn landscape upon which sea creatures are scattered like bright hieroglyphs. Created in Flatrock, Newfoundland, this limited edition is the result of a collaboration between Barry (who wrote the poem and drew the images) and Walking Bird Press’s Tara Bryan, who printed the text and made the binding by hand.

A Book about Colors by Aura Beckhöfer-Fialho (N 7433.4 B43 A6 B66 1995). Click image for more.

This book’s vibrant linocut illustrations and charming interactive details radiate a childlike spirit, which is fitting, given that the story contained within was originally told by a six-year-old boy (Brian Sutton-Smith, The Folkstories of Children). As we move through the yellow, red, orange, and purple pages, the book not only playfully invites us to reflect upon the acts of owning and reading books (for example, a shiny gold page functions as a mirror), but also asserts its creative autonomy from these acts. Ultimately, it is the book’s agency—its emotions and desires—that are at the forefront of this artist’s book, as is evident by its final bright blue metamorphosis. 

Présence / estampes by Nicole D. Brunet (N 7433.4 B895 A6 P933 1997). Click image to see more.

Issued in limited edition, this artist's book includes six engravings by Nicole D. Brunet on folded loose sheets, and an unedited poem, in French, by Lise Bouchard. The sheets are encased in a salmon-pink box that holds the wood block for one of the engravings. The wood block image is repeated with additional elements added for each print, creating several images of leaves, forests, and water. The sorrowful poem tells of unrequited or lost love. This is one of 26 copies printed on vellum paper and signed by both artist and poet.

Down the Rabbit Hole by Tara Bryan (N 7433.4 B73 A6 D69 2005). Click image to see more.

The book artist asks us to stand up to experience this tunnel book fully, since it compels the reader to peer down a rabbit hole while reading. Once we follow the instruction to pull apart the bow made of cord and lift the handle made of a bent branch, we can read the text that frames each of the squares (cut in diminishing sizes and offset) that construct the rabbit hole. The text, composed of excerpts from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, suddenly comes alive for the reader who feels what Alice must have felt (see video). The sides are printed using colourful and fanciful linocut on handmade Japanese Kiritsubo paper, and the cover flaps are made of Thai Bamboo paper decorated with compressed grass.

World Without End by Tara Bryan (N 7433.4 B73 A6 W67 2000). Click image to see more.

Made for the Millennium in a Box project, this hand-cut and -folded tunnel book holds a tiny cosmos. Constructed from Classic Laid Duplex paper, it creates a mesmerizing vortex when opened. It also resembles a miniaturized art gallery space of sorts, with colourful images of the zodiac lining the sides of the tunnel (see video). Alongside these are dates marking apocalyptic predictions, the names of the seers who offer them, and the anticipated methods of destruction. Offering infinite narratives—and many endings, but no end—this book gestures towards the repetitive rhythms of history, critiquing the often-dangerous human fascination with our own end, and the unquestioning worship of the latest trend. 

The Walk Book by Janet Cardiff (N 7433.4 C37 A6 W36 2005). Click image for more.

This artist's book documents Janet Cardiff's audio walks in Paris, London, and New York, providing binaural multi-layered audio walking tours intended to trigger several senses at once and transport listeners to many places simultaneously. Though at first sight the physical book appears traditional, the audio instructs listeners to start on page 233 and to jump around, rather than reading sequentially. Cardiff challenges traditional order, shifting from a memory “that was 8 years ago” to the present time, as well as back and forth between cities. Though she guides us with step-by-step instructions, at the same time, she encourages us to incorporate our own local landscape. We are instructed to listen with headphones in order to “inhabit two acoustic spaces at the same time” (Track 4): the world inside the headphones and the world on the outside. Incorporating ideas by thinkers, writers, and artists such as Artaud, Barthes, Baudelaire, Foucault, Freud, Kierkegaard, Meredith Monk, Plato, Proust, and Schoenberg, this book is both “playful” and “serious” (9). It will fascinate and challenge you to reconsider how you experience the world.

Air by Martha Cole (N 7433.4 C56 A6 A298 1995). Click image to see more.

One of a four-book set—representing the elements Earth, Air, Water, and Fire—this artist’s book constructs a prairie sky out of layered Thai Unryu paper and Kingin tissue paper flecked with pieces of gold leaf. When taken out of its large blue box, its randomly torn pages float and fan out in a semi-circle. Fingering the tactile pages and reading the silver-ink handwritten poem (by Leona Flim), the reader is struck by the multiple ways of reading/viewing offered by this panoramic book. The allure of this artist's book is that, as one moves its pages—transforming the book—one will never see the same skyscape twice.

The Story of the Earth by Martha Cole (N 7433.3 M646 2000 folio). Click image to see more.

Part of Millennium in a Box, this scroll book traces the earth’s history up to the present time. This artist's book is constructed of a piece of canvas that resembles a papyrus fragment, tied with a brown cord, and printed with a quotation from singer-songwriter Carolyn McDade that emphasizes the interconnections between nature and human beings. At 2.3 metres long, the grand scale of this book makes it rather difficult to read. However, its structural elements serve to emphasize the fact that our millennium is only a tiny blip within the greater cosmic narrative. 

Rivers of Ice by Joan M. Collins (N 7433.4 C6 A6 R622 2000 folio). Click image to see more.

In addition to text, this artist's book consists of 14 paintings created by the artist at the Columbia Icefield, Alberta. It is enclosed in a clamshell box with the title on the cover, made of Japanese silk. In a prologue, Collins describes the way in which the Rocky Mountains “have always offered a kind of spiritual calm and deep fascination” and says that she intends “to create a personal reflection that invites an intimate sharing of [her] experience [in the Rockies] with an audience.” A combination of scientific research and personal impression, the text locates the 300-million-year-old mountain range in its geological, historical, linguistic, mythological, and political contexts. Collins is clearly moved by this geography. This book was selected by librarians in Bruce Peel Special Collections to help celebrate the accomplishments of U of A Honorary Degree recipient James Balog.

Tonight I Am Coming to Visit You in Your Dreams by Joan M. Collins (N 7433.4 C6 A6 T665 2002). Click image to see more.

This unique edition is “intended to be a series of memories of a young child living with an ageing grandmother” (Colophon). It includes ten plastic-cased plates, with text and illustrations (see video). There is “no specific page order since memories are often random, disconnected and fleeting in nature” (Colophon), meaning that the viewer is invited to rearrange the plates and create his or her own sequence. The art interrupts the text in interesting ways that echo the obscurity of dreams: the illustrations cover the text, creating an effect of blurred, although decipherable, memories. There are some joyful memories, but several hint at the grief of knowing that the young child's grandmother is about to die. 

Is the Red That Is Captured the Red That Cannot Be Spoken? by Joan M. Collins (N 7433.4 C6 A6 I88 2002). Click image to see more.

Cradled in a box of crimson and gold, this tiny accordion-fold book is bound with Japanese silk and displayed on a red silk teardrop cushion. These details not only emphasize the book’s gemlike quality, but also mirror the precious personal memories contained and protected within its jewel box case. This book’s layered, dreamlike narrative—which integrates Chinese characters, intimate photographic fragments printed on Somerset photo-enhanced velvet paper, and miniature envelopes containing musings and observations—traces the artist’s travels in China as well as the tension between a mother’s absolute love for her child and the bureaucratic forces that threaten to come between mother and child. As we examine this mysterious artist's book, we are shown experiences that are both cherished and painful.

Time Passes by Mira Coviensky (N 7433.3 M646 2000 folio). Click image to see more.

This artist's book is made of unbound pages housed in foam-board supports that allow it to be stood upright. It is housed in a protective utilitarian shipping tray. Several of the pages have cutouts that reveal the book's central theme: time passes. This artist's book can be seen as an example of what Johanna Drucker imagines as every book symbolizing “a passage of time” (The Century of Artists’ Books 363). Unlike many artist's books, this one draws attention to the fact that it is not made of archival grade materials and suggests that we can either leave it open to the elements or protect it, noting that protecting it will only delay its inevitable decomposition. "The beauty of this slow, uneven deterioration inspired this book" (Artist's statement).

Primary Text by Rebecca Cowan (N 7433.3 M646 2000 folio). Click image to see more.

This accordion-fold style book is made of vibrant, hand-coloured Xerox images—printed on Kozo Concertina paper—intended to interrogate the meaning of “primary text” in the context of the Information Age. Inside, a collage of newspaper texts and images of children reminds us of publishing formats ranging from ancient scrolls to books to the Internet and might lead us to wonder what will our children read in the new millennium? What will be their primary text?

-MM+ by Holly Dean and Larry Thompson (N 7433.3 M646 2000 folio). Click image to see more.

The loose pages of this collaborative artist’s book are held together with a copper band and enclosed in a sheet of vellum-like paper, which is housed in a protective black leather wrap that is tied with soft leather laces. The format reflects the artists’ “speculation of how books might have appeared early in their evolution from scrolls to sewn spines” (Artists’ Statement). This book’s beautiful pages are decorated with images that recall the rough deckled edges of handmade paper. Its criblé initials recall the work of French printer André Bocard, and the illustrations are adapted from Bewick wood engravings. Made for the Millennium in a Box project, it is sure to delight bibliophiles and bookworms alike.