Artist’s books.

http://www.sewanee.edu/gallery/artistsbooks/

My friend Susan had told me about this really nice international show of artist books down at the University of the South in Sewannee. Went to see it today.

It was a beautiful day for a drive. Had never been to the campus. Founded around the time of the Civil War 1858, i think. Very pretty and isolated. Talked to some students in a coffeeshop on campus...they talked about the Sewannee “bubble”—I can imagine.

Unfortunately, the show’s leaving in a couple of days. The website is good, but gives you no real idea of how beautiful and inventive many of the books are. The small paperback show catalog was amazingly expensive for its size, but worth having if artist books are of particular interest.

Funny little arcane community, the book artists. Obsessive about the provenance of papers, the smartness of colophons, tricksome bindings, and other things most people never give a thought to.