720 Silent Prayers in a Buddha's Nut by Louise Genest (N 7433.4 G3 A6 S497 1999). Click image to see more.

A fruit seed named after the spiritual leader inspires an artist's book that contemplates the path to enlightenment. The book is grounded by the earthy smell of the nut and the way that the “text-block of 720 blank pages of Mitsumata tissue [is] transformed to resemble a mushroom’s gill” (dealer’s note). The blank pages require us to be patient and attentive to their subtle differences, challenging us to experience each seemingly identical page anew. The number of pages probably signifies the year that Buddhism made its way to China: 720 CE. “The Buddha's nut's stem is held with a gold wire. Housed in a light tan book-cloth box with decorated Japanese paper and a cedar cone decorated with gold leaf” (dealer's note). 

[Hanging Book] by Louise Genest (N 7433.4 G3 A6 H36 1982). Click image to see more.

Juxtaposing tactile luxury with decay, and careful craftsmanship with elemental deconstruction, this sculptural art object invites sensual engagement and quiet meditation. While its exposed spine is exquisitely bound by boards covered in soft goat vellum and sewn with a diamond pattern, its dried pages of old Barcham Green paper emit an undeniably musty odour suggestive of decomposition. And yet, this book seems to bloom like a strange and vital hydrangea. Pushing the limits of traditional bookmaking, Genest has applied a process of controlled deconstruction in which she heats and dries out bound paper, and then rehydrates this paper in a humidifier to a point of saturation. This process causes the pages to fan out and take on a new shape which is sure to evoke a subjective response, as one touches, smells, and views this artist’s book. This unorthodox form not only reminds us that books are organic, but also prompts us to wonder about the book’s history and secrets. Its empty pages leave us with a sense of open-endedness and the multiple possibilities of what a book is and can be, while the vellum cords for hanging suggest that a book can simply be a thing of ornamental beauty.

After Image: Playing with Colour in All Its Dimensions by Barbara Hodgson and Claudia Cohen (N 7433.4 H695 A6 A38 2009). Click image to see more. 

This playful artists’ book is the sequel to Barbara Hodgson and Claudia Cohen’s The Temperamental Rose and Other Ways of Seeing Colour. Continuing their historical and imaginative exploration of colour, this book examines, applies, and reinterprets the colour theories of influential figures such as Wilhelm Ostwald, Josef Albers, Alfred Hickethier, and board-game pioneer Milton Bradley. Fruitful marriages are also formed: for instance, Euclidian geometry and the Bauhaus school are brought together to demonstrate Wassily Kandinsky’s ideas concerning colour-shape associations. With this book, Hodgson and Cohen also up the interactive ante by including a series of optical toys to encourage play. We can bring colour wheels to life by twirling the handmade Phenakistoscope or Thaumatrope on the maple-carved spinning top provided, untie and assemble geometric colour structures, use the transparent flag book-within-a-book (made of translucent cromatica papers) to form countless colour combinations, or watch the effects of sliding a movable colour wheel inspired by Victorian children’s book construction. This book’s tactility is also heightened by details such as a three-dimensional paper spiral and a stunning colour wheel of pressed petals taken from Vancouver and Seattle flower gardens. It offers visuals that demonstrate various types of optical phenomenon, including an "after image," in which our "eye will 'see' a colour that actually does not exist after looking at that colour's complement" (36). Ultimately, After Image not only offers innovative new ways to see, touch, animate, create, and play with colour, but also constructs multiple new prisms through which to encounter and understand books. 

The Temperamental Rose and Other Ways of Seeing Colour by Barbara Hodgson and Claudia Cohen (N 7433.4 H695 A6 T282 2007). Click image to see more.

This artist’s book explores ways in which colour can be seen, touched, read, interpreted, and enjoyed. As with all of their collaborations, this book is beautifully designed by Barbara Hodgson and hand-bound by Claudia Cohen. The leather cover is decorated with gilt lettering and circular leather overlays ranging from warm to cool colours, and the book is housed in a tan cloth box. Inside this box, in a small built-in compartment, we find an interactive interpretation of the colour wheel in the form of six tiny vials containing vivid artists’ pigments. Tracing the history of colour wheels and charts, this book highlights the work of Newton, Runge, Goethe, Schiller, and Werner. Notably, it also includes interactive details such as a colour-coded 3D pop-up version of Dante’s Purgatory, a tactile and fanciful take on a silk merchant’s colour thread card, and a wheel with a slider and colour shield that allow us to physically engage with notions of contrast and harmony. In this book, butterfly wing fragments, pieces of currency, and a synaesthetic poem from Rimbaud form elegant and imaginary colour structures, while a medieval urinoscopy chart functions as an unlikely thing of beauty. A detailed introduction, text passages throughout, glossary, and bibliography all serve to enhance the experience.

Votes for Women; Exercises for the Growing Girl by Sarah Jackson (NE 3002 J14 A6 V97 1987). Click image to see more.

This accordion-fold book features two parallel narratives: “Exercises for the Growing Girl” in green and “Votes for Women” in red. All of the images have been printed on a photocopier and altered, resulting in a tactile, layered, and distorted frieze. On one side, the narrative examines a series of exercises meant to  “condition” a girl physically and mentally for an “appropriate” expression of womanhood. The narrative on the other side is presented as a collage, which suggests collective experience and pays homage to an entirely different form of exercise by recalling the courageous individual acts of suffragette Lady Constance Lytton and the triumphs of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). The narrative seems to be intended to appeal directly to us today, asking us to consider, “What are we going to do with the vote?”

Drawings about Desire by Shelagh Keeley (N 7433.4 K26 A6 D767 1987 folio). Click image to see more.

This book creates a vivid intertext using various artist's tools (china marker, pencil, oilstick, wax, and Conté crayon) to augment print materials, including copies of interspliced drawings, medical texts, and pages in oriental script. As we open the concertina-folded sheets, drawings of visceral bodily fragments are revealed, superimposed over sterile medical diagrams and jargon. The narrative shifts from intensely personal to universal experience and from tongue-in-cheek to profound gestures.

Aléa: poèmes de Réjean Beaudoin by Lucie Lambert (N 7433.4 L22 A4 1982 folio). Click image to see more.

This limited-edition artist’s book includes ten coloured etchings on folded loose sheets by Lucie Lambert and ten poems, in French, by Réjean Beaudoin. The sheets are encased in a brown box that holds the copper plate used for the etchings. The poems consider a series of oppositions, including dreaming and waking, sun and rain, meaning and ambiguity. Since Beaudoin’s text is inspired by Lambert’s work, we can consider the text to represent the etchings. Where is the aléa (risk or hazard)? Perhaps it is in the colour or the space, in the subject or the object, in the presumed permanence of books or their decay following repeated use? The book is dedicated to the great Iraqi calligrapher Ghani Alani (1937–) and is signed by both artist and poet. The etchings in this edition are taken from the 92 etchings in the original edition.

Le Prince et la ténèbre (story by François Ricard) by Lucie Lambert (N 7433.4 L22 A6 P95 1980 folio). Click image to see more.

This limited-edition artist’s book includes seven black-and-white etchings and one dry-point on folded loose sheets by Lucie Lambert. The story, inspired by the images, is by François Ricard and tells of a learned prince who undertakes a journey in his dreams and learns that illumination cannot come from solitary reading without added life experience.

Do Not Enter by Marlene MacCallum (N 7433.4 M3 A6 D632 1998). Click image to see more.

This hand-bound tunnel book is made of Lana Laid paper and enclosed within a white paper wrapper tied with a crimson thread. This bright thread closure can be untied, but it ensures that our entry into the book is delayed and gradual so that the instant that we engage with the book, we will simultaneously be resisted and enticed. The book’s flexible, unstable structure ensures that we are only able to take fleeting glances or peeks at different parts of the book. We are never allowed to truly know this book or experience it as a whole. Instead, it manipulates us. Moving progressively further “into” the book, we encounter warnings and barriers that mediate our experience. As we reach the final “dead-end,” we realize that we are still on the verge of discovery, still denied, still—caught in-between—at the threshold.

A Lady Always has Beautiful Shoes and a Pretty Hanky by Lise Melhorn-Boe (N 7433.4 M52 A6 L15 1984). Click image to see more.

Do not be deceived by the pink box that holds this special book or the multicoloured frilled hankies that border the text, as this book has a strong message: “being a lady sucks.” The text, printed on five separate folded Japanese papers, challenges the restrictions often associated with proper behaviour. It points out that even though being "a lady" means being considerate and generous, it also means “being oh-so prim and oh-so proper and oh-so dull.”

Come into My Parlour by Lise Melhorn-Boe (N 7433.4 M52 A6 C732). Click image to see more.

This pink artist's book offers a series of brief anecdotes from twenty-eight women, who reflect on their experiences in beauty parlours. The anecdotes often overlap in various ways—for instance, many of the women recall being forcibly introduced to the beauty parlour by their mothers—but they also represent a range of experience. Some of the storytellers obviously enjoy refreshing and revitalizing trips to beauty parlours, whereas for others the pursuit of physical beauty is a torturous process. The intimate, conversational tone of the anecdotes allows us to feel as though we are seated at a kitchen table, sipping a cup of coffee, and listening to a group of women whose understanding of the construction of gender is complicated, varied, and always fascinating.

Gypsy Moth by Lise Melhorn-Boe (N 7433.4 M52 A6 G97 2007). Click image to see more.

This limited-edition star carousel book is made from multiple levels of paper, net, cotton, and nylon fabrics, and printed in Humana Serif (see video). It tells the story of one woman's difficult recovery following her serious illness after being exposed to industrial pesticide, sprayed to kill defoliating gypsy moths near her cottage. This book is not an angry diatribe: it offers a deeper response to personal wellness and the health of the earth. The pale green paper and dangling caterpillars, which turn into butterflies, offer a hopeful outlook in the end.

Library Book by Lise Melhorn-Boe (N7433.4 M52 A6 L53 2005). Click image to see more.

This is a book about books, specifically a book about reading library books. The text reveals that the writer, Wendy Cain, discovered a wonderful world of fairy tales through her public library. Lise Melhorn-Boe uses a pop-up representation of a library to reinforce this message and reproduce images from this fairy-tale world, reminding us of how engrossing a library book can be. Cain confesses that she only emerged from her fairy tales after a librarian introduced her to the “rest of the world” or, in other words, to books other than books of fairy tales. Through this book Melhorn-Boe and Cain invite us to remember the ways that childhood books can cast a spell.

Once Upon a House by Lise Melhorn-Boe (N 7433.4 M522 A6 O58 1998). Click image to see more.

The artist invites us into her childhood home through the pictures of the front and back of the house that are pasted onto the covers of the book. As we turn the pages, we discover that the book is composed of family pictures, pop-up constructions of various rooms in the house, and a “once upon a time” narrative that describes the evolution of the artist’s family during their time in this particular house (see video). The pop-ups encourage us to interact with this family home, peering under staircases and behind doors. Not merely sentimental, the family relationships are sometimes depicted with dry humour: “Kurt and Polly [the artist’s parents] were blessed with two more girl babies. Little Lise was not amused, but condescended to share her house.”

Powder Puff Pink, Powder Puff Pink by Lise Melhorn-Boe (N 7433.4 M52 A6 P88 1984). Click image to see more.

This limited-edition artist's book is constructed of a pink powder puff and a series of cards printed with text representing anecdotes told by male voices (printed in blue) and female voices (printed in pink). The anecdotes vary wildly, describing personal and societal responses to colour, drawing attention to some of the stereotypes that are associated with things like pink clothing and pink bedrooms. The stories reflect evolving attitudes as individuals mature and hint at larger issues associated with colour and gender.  

The Girl Who Liked to Read by Lise Melhorn-Boe (N 7433.4 M52 A6 G57 2007). Click image to see more.

This flag book (i.e., a book made from tabs of paper adhered to alternating sides of concertina folds) unfolds like an accordion. It comprises colour copies of book covers, ink drawings, and text on cotton rag paper (see video). As we read the separate flags, which show portions of book covers and text, it is possible to learn about "the girl" and her experiences with books: she loves to read in the library, at school, in a tree, and anywhere else she can find. In images of book covers and snippets of text, we see some of the books that she has read, and these books cover a wide range of subjects.

Untitled (Book of Hours) by Lise Melhorn-Boe (N 7433.4 M522 A6 U62 1995). Click image to see more.

Untitled (Book of Hours) is an artist's book made of a grand, mysterious scroll encased in a box, and wrapped in dark brown leather. Attached to the leather wrapper is an image depicting the figure of a woman sculpted into stone. The meaning of the image remains elusive. The lengthy scroll, composed of various pieces of stitched-together leather and silk, reprints a variety of religious texts relating to goddesses and female religious figures from various points in history (see video). It is only the section made of silk and focused on the Virgin Mary that resembles a traditional book of hours.

Where Does Wisdom Come From? by Lise Melhorn-Boe (N 7433.4 M52 A6 W56 1983). Click image to see more.

This flag book (i.e., a book made from tabs of paper adhered to alternating sides of concertina folds) is beautifully constructed out of soft, handmade grey paper mixed with colour photocopied pictures of minerals, metals, and mining. As we unfold the stacked sections of the book, we may feel as though we are getting beneath the surface of the book, tunnelling deeper and deeper. The pictures are attractive, drawing us to the deep colours and the shiny surfaces of these minerals and metals. The text, a biblical quotation from Job 28, points out that metals and minerals are captivating, but that wisdom is found in God.

Universe by Cathryn Miller (N 7433.4 M55 A6 U55 2006). Click image to see more. 

This book was purchased in honour of the 75th anniversary of the University of Alberta’s Faculty Women’s Club. As stated in the colophon, this book “will certainly inspire others to consider how the artist has challenged the format of the traditional book with innovative physical structures and unconventional boundaries.” The artist has cut pages from the Life Nature Library series and folded them into Froebel stars. These stars are contained in a Japanese-style Shiho Chitsu box. Once you unwind the hematite clasp—a magnetic stone known to have grounding, protective, and balancing properties—the paper stars tumble out, surrounded by snapshots of the galaxy, which line the inside of the box (see video). Since the stars fall and settle differently each time, every experience with this book is unique.

Textiles of the Millennium by Robin E. Muller (N 7433.3 M646 2000 folio). Click image to see more.

As we unfold this tunnel book, one side outlines the development of textiles in Europe and the ways in which the textile industry has been connected to empire and class. For example, one innovation in textiles came about because of a desire to make “high quality products affordable to the general public.” The other side delves into a seldom-explored story about the forms that are “not always included in [an] official history” of textiles, such as domestic goods are often made by women. The images of textiles that decorate this book are complex and visually appealing, perhaps emphasizing the fact that the untold tale of the textile industry is both literally and figuratively more colourful. This book was made for the Millennium in a Box project.