Secret 7"

I'm beyond thrilled that my work was selected for Secret 7” to be featured on the album cover of Jeff Buckley's "Lover You Should've Come Over" 

Secret 7" selects 7 tracks from 7 of the best-known musicians around (this year includes songs by Jeff Buckley, Jimi Hendrix, and The Clash) and presses each one 100 times to vinyl. They then invite creatives from around the world to interpret the tracks in their own style.

This year the unique sleeves are exhibited and being auctioned off to benefit Mind UK, a mental health organization that helps half a million people in England and Wales annually. The 2018 exhibition is being held at The Jetty, Greenwich Peninsula, in London and is sponsored by Sony Music and Squarespace.

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.

Sketchbook Project 2018

Selected spreads from my submission to this year's Sketchbook Project that combine ultra-violet, sketches of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum, impossible grids, and vintage targets.

This is my 9th year participating!

Noli Turbare Circulos Meos (Do Not Disturb My Circles)
2 color risographs and collage on vintage paper.
16 pages, pamphlet stitched,  7x10 " opened
unique edition 
2018

Boston Voyager Magazine Interview

Check out my interview with Boston Voyager Magazine in which I answer some questions about being a creative professional and the ever elusive "What's next?"

Reminder...

London Sketchbook

Haruki Murakami: Men without Women

Out today across the globe...Men without Women by Haruki Murakami

"Dreams are the kinds of things you can … borrow and lend out."

"Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. There are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all."

The fabulous design team at Vintage Books wrote a blog post about the cover process, you can check out what they have to say here and read the official release from Penguin Books UK! 

And check out the story behind "The Frequency of Falling," the print used on the cover!

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

Prints from the Sketchbook Project

Just in time for the holidays...I now have 7 prints available from the good folks at The Sketchbook Project...including selections from my London sketchbook, Italian Cities sketchbook, and Child of the Moon sketchbook.

For a limited time you can use these coupon codes:
HOLIDAY =  20% off
SHIP = Free shipping on $75+
MONDAY = 25% off on Cyber Monday

You can check out my shop @... https://www.brooklynartlibrary.com/katecastelli

A State of Mind: 2016 Boston Printmakers Show

Excited to have my "Ode to Pluto" prints included in the 2016 Boston Printmakers Show!

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: The Sea! The Sea! (part 2)

MC Escher, Phosphorescent Sea (1933)

Kate Castelli, The Frequency of Falling (2013)

What Escher called a "phosphorescent sea" is actually a biological phenomenon known as bioluminescence. This "biological light" in the waves is the product of marine microbes called phytoplankton. Various species of phytoplankton are known to bioluminesce, and their lights can be seen in oceans all around the world.

I saw a phosphorescent sea many years ago at Race Point, on the Cape Cod National Seashore. The waves glowed with pinpricks of light as they washed on the shore and around my ankles. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen and it was the inspiration for my woodblock print The Frequency of Falling.

NEW Website

New layout...new work...& never before seen work from the archives...happily introducing the new www.katecastelli.com!

Check out my latest collage series, new artist book, updated and expanded sketchbook spreads, an experimental book from the archives, and an artist book that was included in my MFA thesis...

I've also updated the interview and press links in the elsewhere section.

Check it out!

Portrait of the artist...

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

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)

Big Red and Shiny Review

"Kate Castelli’s small, meditative canvases (Not a Circle II, III, and Ochre Alphabet, 2015) are exercises in mark making, with a watercolor gradation of tally-lines that recall Paul Klee and Lee Ufan."

Thrilled to be featured in the Big Red and Shiny review of the Boston Center for the Arts 24th Biennial Drawing Show.

You can read the entire article here!

Sheffield International Artist's Book Prize

My book Razzle Dazzle was selected to be included in the 2015 Sheffield International Artist's Book Prize. The biennial show features over 200 books from 45 different countries and is up through October 31st at Bank Street Arts in Sheffield, UK.

More info at http://artistsbookprize.co.uk/

BCA 24th Annual Drawing Show

Ochre Drawing Series | ink on 19th century paper, dimensions range from 7.5x9" to 10x12" | 2013-2015

I'm very excited that four of my drawings from the Ochre Series were selected to be in the Boston Center for the Arts 24th Annual Drawing Show. The opening reception is Friday October 9th from 6 to 8 pm at the Mills Gallery.

More information can be found at http://www.bcaonline.org/visualarts/mills-gallery/upcoming-exhibitions.html

Website update!

A long overdue website update. What's new? The full process and final edition of the color reduction prints Ode to Pluto, a new and ongoing drawing series Not a Circle, and the dizzying Razzle Dazzle book.

I've also updated and expanded the Sea of Lines drawing series and the Ephemeral section!

Check it out!