“I’ve loved books since I can remember. My first visual journal of sorts was taking a black and white school composition book and pasting whatever I cut out of the current TV Guide, including cartoons and reviews of movies I liked. Books have always been part of my life, from wanting to learn how to make them, to constantly having one with me in case I had a few minutes to just sit and read. Bibliophile came out of my contemplation on the roles books play in our lives, from the mundane to the magical, and all the reasons we love them. I wanted to create a book that was small and portable, but opened into something much more, just as the books we read open worlds to us.” — Meghan Medina

“I explore memory and maps (with GPS/DMS pinning) and how a ‘stuck place’ often transforms into ‘sacred space’ for me. These memory maps fold down into a mini-atlas housed in a small acrylic cube which is sometimes displayed on the dashboard of my car or even carried around in my pocket during my school day (as an elementary art teacher). I found the ritual of opening the maps and then folding them back down into the cube really helped recharge my spirit and energy, revealing the power of ritual and art.” — Stuart Bogue

“My artistic practice is varied and multifaceted. I work in a variety of mediums and focus on several different topics. My main areas of focus are textile and fiber art and both digital and traditional illustration. Some sources for my inspiration include folk tales, nature, and mythology.” — Amelia Haig

“When I read Lord of the Flies in high school it was terrifying and infuriating, but also seemed very far-fetched. The experience I share in this book changed that, as I watched several very close friends turn into a mob of unrelenting violence. It struck me recently how familiar this story is. I’ve heard so many people defend the police as good people: loving, compassionate, honest, and virtuous. Good people, in a broken organization based on peer pressure and bullying, can do despicable things. People will continue to lose their lives until the excuses stop and the system is changed. I heavily emphasize the word ‘boys’ in this book, not to exclude women from any potential to violence, but to invoke the deep histories and associations with the word: Boys will be boys, the Proud Boys, and the derogatory use of the word ‘boy,’ often used by police towards men of color.” — Whitney Broadaway

#SayTheirNames manages a growing list of Black people killed by U.S. Law Enforcement here: sayevery.name

“Elle Hackler (age 8) and Whitney Broadaway (age Mommy) made this zine together to share the eulogy that Elle performed in the living room when she was 4.”

“As a contemporary bookbinder, I craft conceptual books to explore identity, sexuality, and human relationships from being a Chinese gay man. My mixed media hand bound books, book-alike objects, and book installations portray solitude, delineate intimacy, and evoke an immersive atmosphere. By experimenting with the materiality of the page, thread, and cover, I deploy personal memories to celebrate the importance of oneself. My books are inspired by introspection, imagination, and compassion. I incorporate image-making and object-making, papermaking, fiber/textile, and other techniques to showcase the desires, tenderness, and fragility of the LGBTQ community with color, mythology, and symbolism. Improvisation helps me to keep the process organically to mimic the subconsciousness, and I adjust the pages by editing, continue by building, and explore by combining.

The journey of making a book is similar to puzzling; starting with fragmental ideas and matching them in a meaningful position that leads to a final answer. To me, books are the expressions of emotions, sequences of consciousness, and collections of moments. A human is a book; the name is the title, the appearance is the cover, and the memories are the pages. I aspire to bring the sense of ceremony of reading a book into my mixed-media book installation; the viewers enter the space like they open a book, and they close the cover when they exit the space for a poetic and intimate experience. Through curating the different forms of books in purposeful locations based on the site structure, I design an implied book that the audience’s walking flows as the thread to bind the pages of books together as a whole. Currently, my research focuses on books in expanded fields and gender studies. I explore the materiality and challenge the concept of Book Arts. Through expanding the structure of a book into sculptures, installations, social engagement practice, and time arts, I create conceptual books to foster a comforting utopia for the audience to embrace the vulnerability of otherness.” — Jacob Z. Wan

“As Matisse said, “Creativity takes courage.” In my creative pursuits, I share true stories to encourage viewers to investigate other cultures and their inner selves. I’ve lived in some interesting places, including Morocco and Hawaii, and learned to work with many different materials and processes along the way, including wool, quilting, collage, jewelry and ceramics. I especially enjoy using recycled materials to create narrative dioramas in boxes and tiny books.” — Judy Radek

“Living Within the Pages: Voids and Blank Spaces represents a culmination of creative writing, including five erasures about race relations, merged and stitched into one cohesive piece. The book scroll includes all the components of a traditional book, except it is bound with stitching and quilting, the pages are printed on fabric rather than paper, and it is rolled rather than folded. While it can be displayed on a wall, it is strategically designed to act as a ‘book,’ to be rolled and unrolled and handled by the viewer. As the book scroll continues to be handled––like a traditional book––the pages will stain and soften, the edges will fray and discolor, and the stitches will loosen like the binding of a book. The viewer is invited to live within the voids and blank spaces of the fabric pages and immerse themselves in an exercise in reimagining the narrative through what they see, and what they do not see.” — Holly Jefferies

“As both a book artist and illustrator, my work explores Filipino culture by adapting traditional folklore from the Philippines. My approach to artist’s books involves research of both form and content. I utilize the artist’s book to support illustration and text to construct my visual language that communicates to the reader my cultural heritage. In my practice, I apply historical and contemporary bookbinding structures to create book works. I embrace digital technology and traditional hand bookbinding techniques to create work that combines various art-making skills. My most recent artistic investigation has led me to incorporate digitally created illustrations into my artist’s books to highlight the art and design complexities of the book form.” — Chris Saclolo

“Weather Atlas is an altered book that explores how climate change threatens biodiversity. Using scientific data, it asks the reader to ponder possible solutions to protect animals, plants and habitats. Collaged elements taken from an array of sources overlay the atlas’ original weather data maps from 1977 when an earlier wave of organized environmental protests were underway in the US. The narrative of the book is layered; bracketed text cites contemporary scientific thought on connections between biodiversity and climate change, while a first person narration reflects on common consumer behaviors and attitudes. By repurposing imagery from early 20th century educational texts, Weather Atlas juxtaposes images of industrial machinery, fossil-fuel based technologies and extreme weather phenomena with those of vulnerable animals, plants and natural habitats. The inherent critique is multifaceted; the reader can appreciate the scientific point of view asking consumers to do whatever it takes to conserve wilderness to protect biodiversity (and themselves from planetary collapse); however, the reader also senses the insurmountable malaise and confusion of being asked to choose long-term benefits for the planet over short-term comforts for ourselves. .” — Rachel Simmons

“Particulate History, a double accordion featuring polar imagery & visual poetry, was inspired by the scientific method of harvesting historical climate data from the earth’s glaciers by drilling and extracting long frozen cylinders called ice cores. Air pollution, volcanic glass shards, greenhouse gases and industrial chemicals circulate across the planet and become trapped within air bubbles in the ice, preserving samples of the earth’s atmosphere over hundreds and thousands of years. Scientists can travel back in time by studying these layers of frozen time, allowing them to measure and date volcanic eruptions, rising CO2 emissions, temperature fluctuations and even fallout from thermonuclear bombs. I learned about ice cores when researching for my first trip to Antarctica and quickly became fascinated by their physical embodiment of time and knowledge. As I crunched my boots across deep snowfall, I couldn’t help thinking about the history below my feet. The flexible, tactile structure of the book invites manipulation and presents multiple views based on a reader’s individual exploration. One can peer through cut windows to spy turquoise icebergs or read visual poetry on the mysterious nature of history captured in ice. The work was also influenced by my memories of riding in a zodiac through chunks of ice in the Antarctic Peninsula while hearing glacial ice falling into the bay.” — Rachel Simmons

Glass and vellum fan book with digitally printed images and text; four vintage 50 ml glass vials with digitally printed vellum pages, knitted socks worn in Antarctic by the artist with embroidery thread, dried acrylic ink & punch labels, painting wooden rack; screen-printed folder with digitally printed engineering paper & waxed thread.

“In this archive of books and book-like objects, four themes related to exploration— protection, courage, transportation and guidance— emerged from my research into the heroic age of polar exploration as well as from my experiences traveling by ship in the Antarctica Peninsula. I wrote from my memories and incorporated text from Alfred Lansing’s dramatic recounting of the voyage of the Endurance, Ernest Shackleton’s doomed expedition to the South Pole. Lansing’s heroic, ultra-masculine language is juxtaposed with my photographs, taken as a woman traveling alone, of modern polar ecotourism. The materials in the archive reference essential elements of any expedition-- the gathering of observations and data, the activity of documenting one’s travels through ship’s logs and journals, and the important act of archiving such materials for educational and historic purposes. This interactive archive encourages the viewer to question the role of the ecotourist— a traveler that’s neither scientist nor professional explorer— as well as the importance of documenting travel, whether for work or pleasure. Also included is the story of the MV Lyubov Orlova, the Soviet-era ship I traveled on that was later lost at sea as a ghost ship.” -Rachel Simmons

“This project was a response in material form to the materials I use in making an artist book. The beautiful fine, sometimes handmade, covers, beautiful end papers sewn in with beautiful text paper that together is meant to inspire and spark admiration in the object itself. This book is none of those things, just cardboard and newsprint, yet, it still shows the inherent beauty of the object itself. Originally, it was intended to be ironic- hence the Chanel logo prominently featured; however, on another level it points to the idea of the book as protector/vessel of ideas, or the possibility of ideas, as this container was the protector/vessel for the contents inside.” — David Nees