Blanket Bog
Philadelphia: Alice Austin, 2023. Number 6 of 25 copies signed and numbered by the book artist. Alice Austin is a printmaker, book artist and painter living and working in Philadelphia. She has been on the faculty at the University of the Arts, teaching book structures, and has also taught workshops at the Center for Book Arts in New York, Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ireland, The Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, and other institutions. She earned a BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art and has been an active member of the Guild of Book Workers since 1998. She worked as a rare book and paper conservator for over 20 years at the Library Company of Philadelphia. Her work is widely held in private, public and special collections worldwide. This is a colorful five panel tunnel book that evokes a drive taken by the book artist through the blanket bog along the west coast of Ireland in County Mayo. From the colophon: A herd of sheep stops the car and the viewer contemplates the hillside, with piles of peat, cut and stacked to dry. Printed from hand-cut linoleum prints, the side panels take the viewer along the road from farm land into the bog. The last panel is a five-color reduction linoleum print of the landscape. The back of the tunnel book has a poem written by Austin about the blanket bog. The book is accompanied by a small pamphlet in an envelope with the colophon that describes the area in Mayo County with bogs, the importance of peat, and how the bogs are currently protected, The tunnel book is housed in a gray paper clamshell box. with title label on one side. In fine condition. Size: 4 x 6 inches. ARTB/022924. Fine. More