Artist's Book Lecture and Workshop

WRITER's COLUMN

Artist’s Book Lecture and Workshop This Friday and Saturday
By Robin Ford Wallace

I was about to start this piece by telling you that the first time I met Bob Dombrowski he gave me an artist’s book.  Then I realized I was understating the memory:  Actually, I met the artist’s book before I met Bob!  He sent me one through The Dade County Sentinel, as a kind of calling card, back when my only connection to the newspaper was the “Bob’s Little Acre” columns I contributed sporadically.

I remember wrinkling my brow over it, puzzled.  I had never seen an artist’s book before, even though (through a series of circumstances too complicated to explain) I myself am married to an artist, as opposed to something sensible like an orthodontist, or tax attorney. 

But I digress. The artist’s book was small, about the size of the little tracts proselytizers used to hand you on the sidewalk, but instead of cartoony pictures of what was waiting for you in Hell if you didn’t shape up, it contained Bob’s line drawings and short poems. 

I was interested in the concept but turned up my nose at the idea of “modern poetry.”  I hated everything later than T.S. Eliot!  My philosophy was:  They can make me work for a living, they can make me pay taxes, and sooner or later I will have to die; but there is no power on earth that can make me sit here and endure modern poetry. 

Well, that was just one of many of my core tenets that have been proven wrong.  I stuck that first little booklet on a shelf somewhere and might have forgotten it, but shortly after that I became acquainted with Bob and his life’s partner, Mary, and their zany friends and their sculpture and their paintings and the wild, wonderful dripping-with-color pastiche of their relocated-loft-artist lives. I’ve always thought of it as walking into a Hemingway novel, back during the Paris days when there were cafés and dancing.  Once you walk in no way you’ll ever want to leave – even if it means learning to enjoy a little blank verse here and there at Beatnik Poetry readings!

The Trenton Arts Council, which Bob and Mary founded, is perhaps best known in the Dade community for those Beatnik evenings, as well as for the Downtown Banner project that for several years made Trenton a more interesting town to drive through; but you can’t think of Bob without thinking of those little books.  He continues to make them and not every time you see him, but not infrequently, either, he will hand you one a new one.

Here is a picture of Bob and Mary in 2010, doing their American Gothic impression for a
n article about their performance art festival, "Happenings."

So Bob and artist’s books are inextricably entwined in my mind; but as it turns out the artist’s book tradition is a lot older than Bob (although Bob is no chicken!).  They were around long before 19^th -century poet William Blake found fame with the elegant little volumes he hand-painted, printed and bound with the sole help of his wife.    They date back at least to the Middle Ages.

Artist’s books are not catalogs of an artist’s work.  They are fully realized pieces of art in themselves.  They may contain just images or just words or both.  They can be printed in small editions but the usual case is that they are handmade.  They can be made in batches or each one can be unique.

Avant-garde artists have always used the artist’s book medium to get their work out to the world without the help – and sometimes despite the indifference – of publishing houses and galleries.  The whole point of the artist’s book is that it takes the publishing houses and galleries out of the equation.  It doesn’t matter what the publishing house is looking for right now or what kind of art the gallery is currently showing.  They can shove it up their nose.  The artist is calling the shots here!  

You might compare it to writing a blog …

ANYWAY, Bob Dombrowski has not only been producing artist’s books himself for decades, he has also collected those of others, and this Friday, March 14, he will lead a discussion about them at 7 p.m. at the Dade County Library.  Then, at 1 p.m. on Saturday, there will be a hands-on workshop in which guests will learn to make artist’s books themselves.  Library manager Marshana Sharp will be conducting a session for young children, helping the smallest artists to make books of their own.  After the event, a collection of artist’s books will remain at the library for public display.

The library is partnering with the Trenton Arts Council for this project through a grant the two organizations obtained through the Georgia Council for the Arts, which partners with the National Endowment for the Arts.

Bob was interviewed about the artist’s book event by both the Chattanooga Times Free Press and the local public radio station.  Readers may find the newspaper article online (March 2 edition) but the radio interview is yet to come – it will be aired tomorrow, Friday, at 10 a.m., on WUTC, 88.1 FM.

Both the lecture and the workshop are free and both adults and children are welcome.  Guests may register for the workshop by calling the library at (706) 657-7857, but they are also welcome to drop in. 

The Trenton Art Council and the Dade County Library invite all to attend – to listen, to discuss and perhaps also to create something small and perfect of their own.

Robinfordwallace@tvn.net