Themes

• The Body
• Women's Clothing
• Domesticity
• Quilting
• Mother/Child Relationships
• Women's Health
• Sexuality

The Body

Melhon Boe, Lise.  Body Map.  Transformer Press, 2009.  Body Map folds out into a poster depicting the artist's body, inscribed with text tracing the connections between health and the environment.

Nettles, Bea.  28 Days: A Deck of Cards.  Inky Press Productions, 1991.  The artist's deck includes both prosaic medical explanations of menstruation and her own expericence of the twenty-eight day cycle. 

Nettles, Bea.  The Observer: My Constant Companion.  Inky Press Productions, 2005.  Oberserver takes a seies of images of the artist from the ages of 10 to 50 in the area surrounded the eyes has been cut out on the centeral images.  These cut out panels produce teh unexpected transposition of youthful eyes on a more aged face.

Sakaizumi, Akiko.  Female Sampler.  Women's Studio Workshop, 2001.  Packaged suggestively to evoke the phenomenon of consumerism and mass consumption, the artist renders how own body a commodityby including hair and fingernails, among other such samples, in this visceral piece.

Sligh, Clarissa.  Wrongly Bodied: Documenting the Transition from Female to Male.  2009.  Sligh offers the story of a white female's transition to a male body juxtaposed with the story of Rebecca Craft, a nineteenth century slave who escaped bondage by dressing as a man.

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Women’s Clothing

Bart, Harriet. Garment Register. Minneapolis: Hermetic Press, 2001. E f#1206 
Includes prose from women writers, fabric samples and, mounted on reproductions of ledger pages, photographs of women.

Gaulke, Cheri. Im-’ped-ə-mənt. Rosendale, NY: Women's Studio Workshop, 1991. E Pam #6826
Im-’ped-ə-mənt explores and condemns the sexual fetishism associated with women's feet, from the ancient practice of foot binding to the modern-day popularity of high heels. The book's centerpiece of two images—one of a foot in a stiletto heel, the other an X-ray of a bound foot—is silkscreened onto handmade paper containing hair and toenail clippings.

Grossman, C. J. Papaya Lesson. California: C. J. Grossman, s.d.
Stuffed bikini underwear house a little box that contains 3 books, two with visual euphemisms people use to describe female and male anatomy and one that signifies condoms. Image by Bob Hsiang, photographer.

Leeb, Susan. Shame. North Carolina, 2005.
Each page is a cutout of an eighteenth-century woman's gown with a naked female torso on the reverse. Folded, these pages slip inside a cloth bag with a sewing pattern design just as a dress pattern would slip into its envelope.

Melhorn-Boe, Lise. A Sad Little Girl. North Bay, Ontario: Transformer Press, 1995.
A floral fabric-covered box opens to reveal a cast pink paper doll and five pink paper dresses hanging on small pink hangers. The dresses bear the story of a young girl who doesn't quite fit traditional notions of girlhood—she has been labeled a "bad girl."

Michaelis, Catherine.  A Revealing History of Women's Underwear. May Day Press, 2007.  Michaelis' gown-shped book traces the dramatic evolution of the undergarment from antiquity to the twentieth century. 

Poehlmann, JoAnna. Glad Rags: A Compilation of Quotations. Milwaukee: JoAnna Poehlmann, c1999. E 12mo #6325 
" ... a compilation of quotes, poetry and proverbs hand lettered on bristol board imprinted with a metric centimeter grid to mimic a seamstresse’s [sic] pattern cutting board. [In the shape of a dress, the] book is collaged with color copies of dress labels.”

Stone, Tamar. The Untitled Pink Corset Book. New York: Tamar Stone, 2000. In process.
Stone's book juxtaposes effusive copy from turn of the 20th century corset advertisements with the recollections of women forced to wear the uncomfortable devices. Consisting of five nested pink corsets, reading the text becomes a symbolic act of undressing and freeing the female body.

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Domesticity

Atlas, Nava.  Love and Marriage.  Amberwood Press, 2008.  This altered comic book rewrites the content of the dialogue bubbles to juxtapose present-day cultural obsessions with the visual culture of the 50s.  The original advertisements have been left untouched as, according the artists, their absurdity needs no embellishment.

Atlas, Nava.  Secret Recipes for the Modern Wife.  Amberwood Press, 2007.  This satirical cookbook includes recipes such as Gender Role Casserole, Hyper Critical Raisin Role, and Souffle of Fallen Expectations.

Carmen, Carissa amd Gretchen Hooker.  Good Eats.  Women’s Studio Workshop, 2005.  The red casing holds a place setting and recipe cards which contemplate the intersection of food, family, place, and memory.

Kellner, Tatana.  Iron.  Women’s Studio Workshop, 2008.  In order to read the text—which traces the history of the eponymous apparatus—one must actually iron the pages.

O'Banion, Nance.  Domestic Science. Flying Fish Press, 1990. Linoleum cut illustrations accompany an investigation of idioms, reading, and psychosocial experience.

Pirkle, Amy.  Daily Bread.  Perkolator Press, 2006.  These foldout pages include illustrations relief printed from linoleum blocks.  The text explores the cultural associations of bread. 

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Quilting

Cash, Barbara, ed. Fragments. Sweden, ME: Ives Street Press, 1995. E q#2051
"Seven women from rural Maine speak of memories associated with quilting."  A quilt square, made ca. 1900, is incorporated in the binding of cloth over boards; in clam-shell box.

Cummins, Maureen. Crazy Quilt. Rosendale, NY: Women’s Studio Workshop, 1998. Library Service Center Text contains quotations from narratives written by fifteen women imprisoned for madness, including Kate Millett and Francis Farmer.

Kaufman, Margaret. Aunt Sallie’s Lament. West Burke, VT: Janus Press, c1988. E q#2102 
According to the designer Claire Van Vliet, this accordion-bound book is “a poem that is the autobiography of a spinster quilter stitched with mutterings that accumulate as the cut pages are turned becoming a diamond quilt square.” We also hold a trade version of the original that was published by Chronicle Books in 1993.

McPherson, Sandra. Beauty in Use. Newark, VT: Janus Press, c1997. E #19138
Poems inspired by S. McPherson’s collection of African-American quilts, illustrated by Claire Van Vliet with pages of interlocking papers to form two-sided quilt squares with sumptuous colors and kinetic geometry.

Wascher-James, Sande. How Long? Renton, WA: S. Wascher-James, 1993. E Pam #6800 
Depicts women’s struggle for the vote through text, photographs, and quilt blocks. Text inspired by article on women’s suffrage by Minna Morse in The Smithsonian 1993.

Wascher-James, Sande. Every Man Needs a Woman. Newcastle, WA: S. Wascher-James, 1995. Miniature #31 
25 squares in a quilt block ’snail’s trail’ pattern, using Liberty Lawn fabric, unfolding to 40 x 40 cm. Contains a text by an anonymous 19th-century male and reproductions of American stamps honoring women. 

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Mother/Child Relationships

Gaylord, Susan Kapuscinski. Childbirth Journey. Newburyport, MA: Notan Press, c1992. E Pam #6932 
“Artist's emotional journey through pregnancy, Caesarian birth, and new motherhood. Abstract charcoal drawings are combined with imagery created on the photocopier from natural objects and a calligraphic text based on her journal writings.”

Hamoy, Carol. Mothertalk: A Commentary on Non-Verbal Communication. ca. 2005. E 12mo #7291 
An altered copy of Spoken Italian by Charles E. Kany and Charles Speroni (Boston : Little, Brown and Co., c1946) with illustrations of mothers and children glued in, wrapped and interleaved with waxed paper (glued on) with brief text about the nuances of mothers’ gestures and expressions.

Larson, Jill. My Mother’s Coming to Town. Atlanta: Nexus Press, c1994. E Pam 12mo #12443 
A photographic collage that reflects the author’s mixed emotions about a visit from her mother, ending with an unexpected punch line.

Murray, Charlotte.  Dear Mom. C. Murray, 2005.  This book features photgraphic reproductions of teh artist's late mother punctuated by letters Murray and her sisters have written to her after her passing.

Sligh, Clarissa T. What’s Happening with Momma? Rosendale, NY: Women’s Studio Workshop, c1988.  E Pam f#1050 
A bookwork, consisting of one cardboard sheet accordion folded to form various views of a house, with a poem printed on accordion folded cards which unfold to form a stairway in front of the picture on each page.

Washington, Bisa. Promise Not to Tell. Rosendale, NY: Women’s Studio Workshop, 2007. In process.
Spare narrative and silkscreen prints tell a personal history of child abuse and trauma.

Zanis, Liz.  Grandmaclock. Women's Studio Workshop, 2004.  Constructed as a diminutive replica of a Grandmother clock, this sculptural interpretation of the book form relates anecdote regarding a grandmother and her clock.

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Women’s Health

Michaelis, Catherine.  Stack the Deck:  Twenty-two Artists Mark the Cards for Women’s Health and Healing. Vashon, WA: May Day Press, c1999.

Sexuality

Cummins, Maureen. Femmes Fatales. Brooklyn, NY: M. Cummins, 2001. Library Service Center.
Images of seductive women are juxtaposed with names of torture devices in a Victorian-style photograph album.

Gaulke, Cheryl and Sue Maberry. Marriage Matters, 2005.
Gaulke and Maberry invited 10 lesbian and gay couples to go to Sears and have their portraits taken. These families reflect on the question “when your relationship is not legally recognized, what does marriage matter?” The materials used evoke wedding invitations and with the alternating vertical and horizontal pages splayed open, the book’s shape resembles a two-tiered wedding cake.

Jacobs, Diane. Alphabet Tricks. Rosendale, NY: Scantron Press, 2000. E 12mo #6332. 
An alphabet book of sexist language about women. Book consists of 15 printed cards which slide into transparent paper sleeves silkscreened with illustrations.

Kahn, Robin. Everybody Needs Milk ... Even Dada. Brooklyn, NY: Distributed by Permanent Press, 1993. Library Service Center

Lee, Su-Jung. Lovelines in the Nineties: A Book. Atlanta: Nexus Press, 2000. E Pam 16mo #93.

Meynell, Katherine. Emissions Book. E Pam #7267
Contains substances purported to be bodily fluids.

Rindl, Deb. Seeds of Desire. London: D. Rindle, 1998. Miniature #36 
Contains seeds which can be reached only by cutting bellows-folded paper enclosure mounted within boards, on the lower of which is printed text concerning female genital mutilation. 

Schaer, Miriam. How Do You Compare?: Excerpts from Selected Sex Surveys. Brooklyn, NY: M. Schaer, 1996. Library Service Center
This striking artist's book is made from a bustier bra silk painted purple and adorned with compasses. The pages of text are painted with illustrations and collaged with snippets from sex surveys.

Som, Indigo. He Likes You. Berkeley: Bitchy Buddha Press, c1996. E f#1171 no. 4
Work consists of three different sized folded paper "fortune tellers."

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