The Dade County Planet

Artist’s Books To Remain on Display at Dade County Library

by Robin Ford Wallace

At his March 14 lecture on artist’s books at the Dade County Library, artist Bob Dombrowski exhibited a suitcase that appeared on his Manhattan doorstep a day or two after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. 

There’s a story behind that Samsonite. The artist’s loft where he lived with his partner, Mary, was quite near the fallen towers, paranoia was rife, and Mary feared that the suitcase might contain a bomb.  Out in the street with it, she urged. 

Dombrowski himself was thinking, free luggage; and besides, the cops were pretty twitchy these days.  What would they do to a man who ran out into the street and dumped a suitcase?

Two guests were trapped with them in the tiny loft by the city’s lockdown, and they had their own takes on the suitcase as well as on the effect the attacks of that fateful September day would have on the current of history. 

Six months later, Dombrowski had the idea of asking each participant in the suitcase saga to write an account of it.  These four short narratives he compiled and bound into one of the small artist’s books he has been making for decades.

The Suitcase, with its four entirely different but entirely compelling accounts of that day in Manhattan, has the distinction of being among the more readable artist’s books Dombrowski had produced or collected.  He explained that artists traditionally pushed the envelope with the small, self-produced volumes.  One contained only punctuation marks, and another had a rock for a front cover.

A sampling of artist’s books will remain on display at the Dade County Library, which partnered with the Trenton Arts Council to sponsor the lecture and a workshop on making artist’s books the next day.   Both were well attended. 

TAC and the library produced the event with the help of a grant from Georgia Council for the Arts.

     robinfordwallace@tvn.net