Pages/Panels

I rarely get a chance to show my artists books so I'm excited for to have the opportunity to show a selection from 2010 to 2017 in the Atrium Gallery at the Lunder Arts Center in Cambridge.

A Very Small Guide to Chair Constellations

"A Very Small Guide to Chair Constellations." (2017)

A tiny little book measuring only 2 1/8 x 2 3/4 inches (which is exactly 1/8th of a standard US letter sheet of paper), printed in 2 colors on vintage 1940s onion skin typewriter paper. It is bound with handmade marble paper from Florence and hand sewn with red silk thread. There are 32 chair constellations total over 36 pages.

A Very Small Guide to Chair Constellations

2.125 x 2.75" page size, 4.25 x 2.75" opened

hand sewn signature binding

signed and numbered edition of 20

2017

copyright Kate Castelli

Sunday Studio

Something tiny little is brewing in the studio these days...

Artists' Book Cornucopia VII

I'm thrilled to have my book "Child of the Moon" selected to be included in the exhibition Artists' Book Cornucopia VII.

The seventh in an annual series of international juried exhibitions of contemporary artists' bookworks, Artists' Book Cornucopia VII includes work by 40 artists from the United States, Canada and Argentina. The series highlights a broad spectrum of works created under the artists book work umbrella, with unique sculptural works exhibited alongside more traditionally bound and printed works.

This year's selections were made by Margery N. Sly, Director of Special Collections and Kimberly Tully, Rare Book Curator, Samuel L. Paley Library, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The exhibition runs from September 16 through October 29, 2016.


Abecedarian Gallery 
910 Santa Fe Drive, #101
Denver, Colorado
http://www.abecedariangallery.com/

Friday Inspiration: William Kentridge...

Everyone Their Own Projector / William Kentridge*

Kentridge plays with the palimpsest and with overlaying; he outlines hidden affinities. He superimposes pages torn from dictionaries, encyclopedias, cookbooks or science manuals, mixing up their languages; he crosses out, erases, covers images with Indian ink, blending different forms of knowledge, perception, and transmission. He engages in his own dialogue with images borrowed from art history through projections, retakes and bifurcations. Each image becomes a possibility, a path of exploration; each drawing, though independent, is part of a system of constant revision and referral in the sketched artistic self-portrait that the title of the book seems to suggest.

*I was recently lucky enough to acquire a copy of this limited edition book...
Artist book (orginals include ink and brush drawings and collages on books pages)
112 pages, facsimile edition of 1500 published in 2008 by Editions Captures, Valence France

Wanderlust...

Currently in the studio and thinking about Florence and Paris and London and...

The Sketchbook Project 2016: Distance & Time

I'm down to the wire (per usual) on the deadline for The Sketchbook Project 2016. My prompt this year was "Distance and Time," which has been an underlying thread in my work for quite a while. The final book incorporated primary colors, constellation charts, early perspective diagrams from the Renaissance,  Florentine paper, and proof prints from my last woodblock circle series.

{vellum overlay} I had this anecdote in the back of my mind as I was working in the studio.

{pages 18-19}  Primary colors, graph paper, and numbers are constant threads throughout.

{pages 14-15} A vivid blue scrap of marbled paper from Florence combined with a Renaissance diagram and process prints.

{pages 6-7} an incomplete map of the universe...

The Sketchbook Project 2016: Distance & Time
22 pages, single signature binding
cut paper, vintage ephemera and woodblock proofs
9.875 x 6.75" opened
unique edition

copyright Kate Castelli 2016

Night studio

{1:29 am} something brewing in the studio...

Child of the Moon (take 2)

{Sketchbook page of the final page layout}

It started with last year's submission to the Sketchbook Project. That book felt like a rough draft of something bigger. I wanted to combine sketches, images of the moon, lyrics from the 1968 Rolling Stones song "Child of the Moon," and prints into a process book of sorts for the series of circle woodblocks I have been working on for the last few years.

This summer I changed the format to a square and sourced some new images of the moon from a NASA publication, but the book was still lacking something. So I put the project aside for a while.

{pages 4-5} a vellum overlay of a horizon diagram from Bruno Munari's "The Circle" (1964)

{pages 6-7} A spread with one of the cropped pages featured original prints, and images from a 1970 NASA publication.

When I began working on it again, I decided to use the mechanical wire binding to my advantage. I included vellum overlays with scientific and philosophical diagrams, I inserted cropped pages to reveal and obscure content, and I decided to include more original prints. The result was much more dynamic than the first two "drafts" and felt like an authentic process book that reflected the ideas I was interested in.

{pages 10-11} a vellum overlay of a late 16th century astronomical diagram

Child of the Moon
photocopies, ephemera, woodblock prints
22 pages, mechanically wirebound with linen hardcover
14.5 x 7.25" opened
unique edition
(copyright K. Castelli 2015)

Child of the Moon

(pages 4/5) photocopy of sketchbook page, 1960s National Geographic image

(pages 12/13) 1960s National Geographic image with cut-outs, text on graph paper

(pages 18/19) woodblock on found paper, ephemera

National Geographic issue from 1969 + graph paper + lots of circles + an obscure Rolling Stones song = my submission for the 2014 Sketchbook Project.

Child of the Moon
20 page signature binding, unique edition
mixed media
9.875 x 6.75" opened

copyright Kate Castelli 2014

Collaborative Circles

Caroline Board and I sat down one day in the printshop and cut up all sorts of proofs, ghost prints, and experimental prints to make this latest collaborative book. We completed it in one afternoon.

Untitled (Collaboration No. 6)
accordion with hard covers
woodblock and lithograph
5.5 x 36" opened

In addition to our collaborative books, we've printed our first collaborative edition! The venn diagram inspired print was created after we each carved one side of a circular woodblock. My side is printed in yellow ochre and Caroline's is black.

This print is currently on view at the Atrium Gallery at SMFA as part of the juried Print and Paper Show.


Untitled (K + C)
two color woodblock
edition of 8, 18x24" 


Our collaborative books and prints will be on view during our thesis show at Fourth Wall Project  April 16-27th.

Collaboration #5

Caroline Board and I just keep making books.

Untitled (Collaboration No. 5*)
accordion with hard covers
mixed media
3 x 24" opened

(*There was a collaboration #4, we just didn't like it.)

This and That

This book began as a project to explore the formal relationships between random elements from my collection of ephemera. I had envisioned the format, made the accordion structure, and set the type all before I had selected the content. I had an empty book to fill. And that's where things changed.

As soon as I glued down the first pair of elements I realized the relationships and juxtapositions were anything but random. The fragments I had gathered had a history of their own that I couldn't ignore. I spent 10 straight hours in the studio creating the final sequence.

The result was poetic, heavily coded with visual data, and completely mysterious. Although there is not an intended narrative, one can be implied or created through various readings of the sequence. There are threads running throughout. The final book is over 12 feet long, but it can easily fit in your hands.



This/That 
accordion structure with hardcovers 
ephemera and typewriting
5x150” opened 
unique edition, 2012

copyright Kate Castelli 2012