Portland, Oregon
Nested Book
$2800
smcollard@gmail.com
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The journey into this book involves two locked doors and a key. It can be said to contain six lies and at least six truths; its cryptic and fragmentary contents hint at an interest in printmaking, celestial mechanics, sugar beet production, carpentry, the works of Schiller, magnetism, geometry, and the anatomy of songbirds.
The book emerged from the idea for a nested book structure, one that could be unpacked like a series of matryoshka dolls. Remembering a poem I’d written years ago called “Recursion,” I realized I’d stumbled back into a recurring fascination. The opening lines of the poem serve as the book’s text. They are first encountered in a woodburned page, encrypted in a phonetic alphabet of my own devising (its tally-mark form inspired by the early Celtic alphabet, Ogham).
The text references this classic logic problem:You find yourself standing before two identical gates and gatekeepers. One gate leads to heaven, the other leads to hell. One gatekeeper always lies, the other always tells the truth. You are allowed one question. What do you ask?
Artist Biography
Susan Collard is an architect and book artist in Portland, Oregon who makes one-of-a-kind collaged and constructed books. She has exhibited work in numerous group shows, most recently in Unbound at Western Oregon University and Outrageous Pages at SUNY Oneonta, as well as several previous shows at 23 Sandy.
All images and text copyright the artist. All rights reserved.
