Drawings of people reading—sketched during the artist's daily commute—are translated into block prints on discarded library cards and newspapers. The commuters engaged in their own private world intersect with the book titles and names of past readers on the cards. In different postures of concentration, they are creating a mental space for themselves, an escape, or just making time pass. The office materials used to construct each book imply tasks the workers are bound for. The nostalgia of the old cards suggest a history of the changing methods of reading. An open edition variété, each Everyday Readers book is unique. Block prints on library checkout cards are combined and bound in pamphlet format and finished with a unique vintage book cover.
Artist Statement Collecting and reassembling discarded library books and cards, I think about how they have been read and transformed by time into historical remnants. Books and cards discarded from a community library imply a shared history of people reading the same books. Combining the ‘found’ phrases of the book titles to form poems, I use the cards as pages and tape or sew them into unique artist books. Images made with gouache, coffee and block prints intersect with the words to create a narrative. Re-reading history, consumer culture, and the future of reading are some of the ideas explored
