Lucia Harrison
Old Growth: Beneath the Forest Floor I
My daughter says I have strange reading tastes. Choosing from my personal library, I skip from William Shakespeare’s Star Wars set in iambic pentameter by Ian Doescher, to The Illustrated Edition of The Travels of Marco Polo, edited by Morris Rossabi, and on to a Treasury of Jewish Humor, edited by Nathan Ausubel. With the beverage of my choice, whether it be coffee, tea, a glass of wine, or a cup of hot chocolate, I am comfortable with whatever I decide to curl up . Immersed deep within the lines, I sometimes give no consideration to how the book was made or if indeed if that has anything at all to do with what I am reading. The current exhibition, Undercover Stories, The Secret Lives of Books at artEAST in Issaquah, Washington, attempts to change that, by encouraging me to read between the lines. What inspired the artist/writer to create this work, how the book was bound, what materials were used in creating the book would transcend the importance of the content, if it were not for the fact these issues actually become the content of the books on exhibition. Driving two and a half hours in a rare Puget Sound snowfall on the way home from the exhibition’s opening reception, I reflected on what I had learned this evening. As I watched the falling snow, all that was missing, was the cup of hot chocolate.
Undercover Stories: The Secret Lives of Books
February 8th – March 22nd
artEAST Gallery,
Issaquah, Washington
for more information about the exhibition and directions, go to: arteast.org