Our latest look at bookish art from the recent American Craft Council show in Baltimore features Vermont artist David Montgomery. He says his Travelogues "are constructed of wood and plastic, with resin miniature books and birds, and a vintage postcard as the interior image. The exterior pages you see are from a 1906 large-print edition of Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1860 essays entitled 'The Conduct of Life;' the chapters include Power, Beauty, Wealth, Worship, Behaviour, Culture, Fate, and Illusions. I ordinarily prefer to rescue and repair old books and ephemera I find, but the cover was already missing from this one when I found it at an outdoor sale, and I feel the books-within-a-meta-book was a satisfying way of saving and savouring this venerable item." Here's a Q&A with Montgomery:
How long have you been working with books? Only for four or five years, since I embarked on a craft career. Some of my first Aviary shadowboxes contained pages from an old, trade paperback edition of "As You Like It."
What is it about books that connects with you – and with buyers? A book, by its nature, is experienced almost entirely in the imagination. It can take a reader to places and times far from the everyday world, or show the mundane world in a new light. These are things I try to do in my own work, but I usually do it visually rather than with words. These Travelogue pieces are more of a hybrid of word and picture, which I hope gives them multiple levels of meaning--- and pleasure.
Name a favorite books. Why did you like it? "The Coldest Winter," the late David Halberstam's comprehensively detailed history of the Korean war; a very big, and relatively recent event which no one seems to talk about. Unlike its cousins in conflict--- the first and second World Wars or Vietnam--- the war in Korea sometimes seems to have been wiped from our collective memory in this country, which for me made this account feel like an imaginary story of something out of legend, like reading science fiction or an "alternate history" novel. The author is also generous with insights into the causes and consequences of the war, so, like any good novel, it helped me understand a little more about our lives today--- the politics and personal motivations of the past are always mirrored in the present.
What have you read lately that you'd recommend? Rob Gifford's "China Road." It combines two of my favorite subjects: China and travel. China is so big, and changing so quickly, that it's impossible to understand the whole, but this book paints fascinating vignettes of far-away places.