Turning to Art in Wood: A Creative Journey
This portfolio was published in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the renowned Wood Turning Center as it took a new name—The Center for Art in Wood—and moved to an exciting new location among the art galleries in Old City Philadelphia.
The name change reflected The Center's desire to be associated with more than just wood turning and to make it clear that it was first and foremost about promoting the art.
There is definitely a division in the wood turning community about whether what they produce is art or craft. The Center obviously treats it as art and my goal was to communicate that. What better way than to create a museum-quality artist's portfolio to showcase the work. And any artist's portfolio always comes in a limited-edition so each of these is hand numbered in an edition of 250.
Come on, you know there had to be wood somewhere, right?
The title is silver foil stamped on real wood veneer paper and tipped onto the 14 x 9.25 inch linen-wrapped portfolio box. The title sheet on the inside of the box was also produced on this same wood veneer paper.
Once opened the Portfolio reveals a stack of individually bound materials topped by the wood veneer title sheet. On the inside of the cover is a tipped-on signature plate which was individually hand numbered and signed by all of the authors.
The Portfolio is a total of 284 pages divided into three primary sections: historical essays, 25th anniversary exhibition catalogue, and a catalogue of The Center's complete collection.
As I mentioned before, the title page was printed on real wood veneer paper. The manufacturer cursed me for having a solid band of silver foil with such thin serifs reversing out—but they figured out a way to make it look perfect. A wonderful surprise was how the grain of the wood showed through the foil.
The essay sections were individually bound into six sections. This helped separate all of the different author's perspectives on the past, present, and future state of The Center. They all had their own stories to tell about their experiences with The Center but they are all grouped together to make a single whole that is "The Center". As Glenn Adamson from the Victoria & Albert Museum said in his essay, "There is no such thing as a typical encounter with the Center—its activities are too varied for that."
These sections were printed in only two colors in order to give them a more historical look and to differentiate them from the color sections for the artwork. This two-color printing helped reduce the printing costs for these sections.
I also printed the essays on a really toothy uncoated paper. It gave them a wonderful archival and artistic feel. The images were all printed as duotones and are just beautiful on the uncoated sheet. A metallic silver ink is used throughout the Portfolio as the accent color.
One of these sections contained the essay for the 25th anniversary exhibition. The thumbnail images show the works in the exhibition. These same images will be repeated on the exhibition cards that follow directly after this section.
Here is where the artist's portfolio idea really takes shape. There is a stack of 52 individual cards showcasing the more than 100 works of art in the 25th anniversary exhibition. The images are reproduced as large as possible for closer inspection and printed on a silky, coated sheet to give the best reproduction quality.
The individual cards allow the reader to experience each piece individually, just as you do as you flip through an artist's portfolio. Since The Center's collection is so varied the curator, Gerard Brown, wanted the readers to be able to view it in whatever groupings they saw fit. As Gerard said in his essay, "... the viewer of this portfolio can rearrange the plates to imagine new relationships between objects and hear conversations that go beyond the present exhibit."
The other main goal of this publication was to document the complete collection of The Center to date. This 80-page section has a thumbnail image of over 1,000 objects showcasing the entire collection in order of acquisition.
One of the issues with publishing a history book is that it becomes dated the instant it's published. This is one of the primary reasons I designed this publication as a Portfolio with separate sections. Purchasers of this limited edition Portfolio will automatically receive complimentary printed updates about new objects added to the collection. And since this section is in order of acquisition these inserts can be added to the end of this section and it won't be out of order. It becomes a living document.
It should be said that this limited edition will also be produced in a standard bound hard cover edition for the trade—making it available to a wider audience. The Portfolio was designed in such a way that the exact same layout could be printed and bound in a standard hard cover binding. The design allowed for the layout to be reduced from 9 x 13.75 inches to 9 x 12 inches for the trade version without changing the pagenation of the book.
One final note. There isn't a more common item for a wood turner to create than a simple vessel. This Portfolio acts as just that. A simple vessel to contain all that the Wood Turning Center has achieved for the field over the last 25 years, and for all that it will achieve over the next 25 as the new Center for Art in Wood—achievments not only for the wood turning field, but for art as a whole.
Information about purchasing this portfolio can be found at The Center for Art in Wood's website.
Book Review
The Portfolio was reviewed in the April/May 2012 edition of American Craft Magazine. Download pdf of article. Link to article on American Craft Magazine online.
Bronze Medal: 2012 Independent Publisher book awards. Get more info on the awards page.