Eugene, OR: Susan Lowdermilk, 2007. Hardcover. Number 7 of 15 copies. Signed and numbered by the book artist. Susan Lowdermilk is a book artist and printmaker working in traditional processes such as woodcut, wood engraving and intaglio etching as well as digital media. Her artist’s books involve movable parts, pop-ups and LED circuitry. She is a professor at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon, teaching courses in printmaking, artist books and graphic design. Her work has been collected by over 60 public institutions including, the Getty Museum, the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library. Her artist’s books are represented in galleries throughout the United States. She earned her Master’s of Fine Art from the University of Oregon. Her artist's statement: "Our experience of reading books is increasingly changing from being physical and tactile to digital and virtual. My artist books are hand printed and hand constructed and feature low-tech movable elements that are meant to be technologically transparent. I view my artist books as a counterpart to the flood of mass-produced, digital imagery that we contend with constantly. I am interested in the dualities that complicate our human condition—chance versus strategy, faith versus reason, serendipity versus design, peace versus war, winning versus losing and our relationship to and separation from nature."

She met the poet Jeanine Hathaway several years ago at a show of her prints in Eugene and they became friends. "Jeanine was inspired by my woodcut diptych titled, “Remembering, Forgetting,” and wrote the poem, “XO, On what might have been our anniversary.” I created my artist’s book, inspired by her poem, printed with the woodblocks from “Remembering, Forgetting,” thus continuing our circle of creativity and inspiration."

The poems reads:
"How our desires signed off, stringing along kisses and hugs. Once a game, an alphabet for two boxed in pens, our characters tick-tocked onto a lattice. I'd x you out. You'd hold your place. We crossed ourselves, carved the zero of a face in bank accounts, park benches, sand. Like hope in deep midwinter, no valentine survives on frosted windshields, sugar hearts. XO can disappear, a change not like weather but when, like a woodcut, the inked vows erode from relief to vague and slurred impressions. Even kissing costs us breath, the tight squeeze, breadth. In grading, lists, the X means wrong and done. More than binary, O means failed, perfect."

Bound accordion-style with red paper covered boards. The text is laser printed with Futura Book and Bernhard Modern Italic type on organdy fabric that overlays the woodblock designs printed on Zerkall Frankfurt paper. In a paper chemise with woodblock design. In fine condition. 6.5 x 4.5 x .75 inches. ARTISTSB/073118. Fine.

Item #32397

Price: $400.00