DigitalCommons@RISD

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  Black is every color

  Alisa Banks, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume (8 unnumbered pages) : color illustrations ; in box 11.5 x 12.5 x 12.5 cm. Unique book. Artist's statement: Black, the sum of all colors, mysterious, all-encompassing, a shroud, a swarm. Familiar but unknowable, coveted and uncontained. This book work considers the encompassing nature of blackness. Box containing painted cube surrounded by four flaps featuring single signature books. Each stitched cover opens to reveal a poem about the color black. Media: Book cloth, book board, paper, acrylic paint, graphite, glass, embroidery thread, silk, watercolor, graphite. "Created while watching spring bloom and events unfold during COVID-19."--artist's website. Curated title for Fleet Library Special Collections exhibition By Hand: Women & Books Exhibit fall, 2021.

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  The Morse Dry Dock Dial

  Sarah Nicholls, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume (unpaged) : illustrations ; 31 x 46 cm folded to 17 x 13 cm. Cover title. Edition of 250. "The Morse Dry Dock Dial is the Spring 2020 Informational Pamphlet, taking its name from the magazine published by the Morse Dry Dock Company, my great-grandfather's employer in the early years of the twentieth century. The original publication reported on the lives and activities of their community of workers, many of which lived in the neighborhood, what was then called Bay Ridge and is now named Sunset Park, Brooklyn. This pamphlet talks about my family's history in the neighborhood, the changes in the neighborhood since then, the industrial past, the post-industrial present, how nature has adapted the waterfront left behind by industry, how nature will change the waterfront in the coming decades, and what we might do in response, among many other things. Edition of 250, letterpress and linocut on paper. There is also a virtual walking tour of the neighborhood to accompany the publication."--artist's webpage. Letter press and linoleum cut prints on paper. Single sheet folded to create 8 pages which can be unfolded to reveal more content. Bound in printed red cardstock covers with linen thread using pamphlet stitch method. "Brain Washing From Phone Towers is a series of informative and entertaining Informational Pamphlets produced by hand on a seasonal basis. These small-scale publications combine text (handset in metal type) and image (carved in wood or linoleum) produced via obsolete technology in editioned works which are distributed at will to a chosen audience. The content of the series aims for historical interest, commemorative intent and a healthy dose of humor, and the distribution methods are based on the values of the gift economy."--Provided by artist "Funds raised from the sale of individual copies of this pamphlet will go to UPROSE. UPROSE promotes sustainability and resiliency in Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhood through community organizing, education, indigenous and youth leadership development, and cultural/artistic expression. The 2020 Brain Washing from Phone Towers Informational Pamphlet Series is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council."--Artist's website, viewed February 23, 2021.

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  In today's news: alpha males & women power

  Kaamna Patel, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume, 46 pages . "Reappropriates images from print media in India to comment on patriarchy and gender roles."--colophon. Title from last page of book. "Image sources : Mumbai Samachar, Janmabhumi, Mumbai Mirror, Mid-day, Times of India, Hyderabad Times." In Todays News: Alpha Males and Women Power is a photobook by Kaamna Patel wherein she appropriates images from print media in India to comment on prevalent patriarchies and pre-determined gender roles. Using the semiotics of images, In Todays News attempts to reveal the dominant ideology of a people at a particular time in their history, while leaving room for the reader to uncover their own biases that may be informed, consciously or subconsciously, by this ideological structure.--Printed Matter.

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  The Black Banal

  Tony Cokes, Elana Schlenker, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  15 leaves, unbound sheets. Issued in burnt orange cloth-covered portfolio with bright red-pink lettering. Title from portfolio. Portfolio held closed with a yellow elastic band.

  "Designed by Tony Cokes and Elana Schlenker. Screeprinted in Ithaca, New York by Kaleb Hunkele. Slipcase produced in Jersey City, New Jersey by Conveyor Editions. Edition of 100. Second Edition"--Colophon, page [3] of portfolio.

  The Black Banal, a limited edition, hand silk-screened portfolio, is a graphic blast of found text sourced and sequenced by Tony Cokes. Cokes channels the intense boredom and extreme anger generated by his encounter with the source material into an act of "minor deconstruction." The fact that race was rendered marginal, and banal, in its original reading context makes the excerpts more resonant, intriguing in their isolation, producing new, broader connections in a different place and time. 15 leaves each in a different color with short texts on the meaning of being black in America and exploring being a black artist in a predominantly white culture.

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  Grass

  Kim Su-Yong, Xianlu Yi, Brother Anthony, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume, 12 pages. Limited to of 50 copies. Accompanied by folded sheet booklet ([6] pages ; folded to 13.5 x 10.5 cm) "Kim Su-yong, a poet who explored love and freedom as poetic and political ideals"--page [3] of cover. Wooden hardcover. Cover has blind carved designs. Title and author information embossed into covers. Accordion, flag book binding. "Kim su-yong is one of the most exceptional poets of modern Korea. He died at the relatively young age of 48 in 1968, but his poetry has become a symbol of freedom and revolution during the democratization of Korea. His last poem, "Grass," only published after his death, has provoked particular critical attention and debate. Depending on the viewpoint of the literary figures and their political beliefs, the meaning and the value of Kim's poetry showed a great range of differing opinions."--Datz Press webpage.

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  Wandering Stars

  Sara Langworthy, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume, 20 pages. Edition of 33 copies, signed by the artist. Text is letterpress printed. Images printed from multiple layers of collagraph blocks and pressure print templates. The paper is Okawara Handmade. Size and shape of papers varies. Handsewn into black paper cover. This book is made from remnants of the artist's work, "Sidereal," also printed in 2019.

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  Make the earth say beans

  Sarah Nicholls, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume. Cover title [Edition of 250] Linoleum cut and letterpress prints on paper. Do-si-do binding, instant book format, that unfolds to reveal additional text and illustrations. Enclosed in printed, paper cover. "Brain Washing From Phone Towers is a series of informative and entertaining Informational Pamphlets produced by hand on a seasonal basis."--Provided by artist. "Summer 2019 NYC"--back cover.

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  Solastalgia

  Sarah Nicholls, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume, 170 pages. "Solastalgia" is a term coined over a decade ago by Australian professor of sustainability Glenn Albrecht, which he defined as "the pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is under immediƯate assault.. a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at home." He originally described this emotion as being familiar to people who lived in sacrifice zones-- lands decimated by open-pit mining, or clear-cut logging. But it is quickly becoming, in an era defined by climate change, a universal human experience.--artists' website. Printed on a risograph and a Vandercook Universal I, using metal type, pressure prints, woodcut, linocut, and polymer plates on a variety of French Paper Company papers and some glassine. Sewn boards structure, case binding. In cloth-covered slipcase.

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  Pot calling the kettle black

  Kevin McCoy, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume, 28 unnumbered pages. Black people in America have been taxonomized as "savages" or "lazy" and dehumanized by mainstream media which are derivatives of early scientific racism. Back in the 19th century, blackface was used primarily by white performers to demean Black people and as a source of entertainment. The titling of this publication, Pot Calling the Kettle Black, is an idiom used in the Black household to underscore blatant hypocrisy. This publication offers critical observation of the use of blackface and its variations found deeply embedded in cartoons, pop culture, the fashion industry, and beyond.-- Work / Play.

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  Fresh Creek

  Sarah Nicholls, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 folded leaf, 20 pages . "The last pamphlet of 2019 is about: transportation networks, bicycling in the city, the Jamaica Bay Greenway, landfills, Robert Moses, how to get where you need to go, Starrett City and their seaside view, and finally, the Shirley Chisholm State Park out in East New York. It follows a bike ride that I took last fall that I particularly enjoyed."-- artists' website.

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  Plant out of Place

  Sarah Nicholls, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 folded leaf . Cover title. "A special publication from Brain Washing from Phone Towers Information Pamphlets"--page [4] of cover. "Spring 2019 NYC" Pamphlet stitch, interior is printed on single folded sheet. Metal type and linocut printing.

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  Pur-suit

  Naima Green, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  54 cards : color portraits. Edition of 2,500. Edition printing number statement from the artist's website. "Pur·suit is a deck of 54 playing cards features queer women, trans, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people."--colophon card. "Pur-suit is in the interest of queer and trans people, of people of color, and of groups that continue to be marginalized. Made over 9 days between October 2018 and January 2019, these photographs help complete an image of the world that we live in."--colophon card. In playing card box with title, photographer's name, "First Edition ; Made in ROC, Printed by Expert Playing Card Co., New York, NY 10001"

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  Decomposition Book

  Kelli Anderson, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume, 133 pages. A self-destroying notebook ... 2/3 usable lined sheets and 1/2 lines down the drain. -- author's website.00% recycled (30% post-consumer) paper made in French's hydroelectric-powered mill -- author's website. Small diagram card of the text laid in (4 x 8 cm) Three holes punched through the left-side of the text. Cover has black and white marbled pattern of a composition book. Perfect binding and black cloth over head of text block.

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  Urgency Reader

  Paul Soulellis, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume, 252 pages. "Urgency Reader is a quick assembling of texts, risograph printed in Pawtucket, RI, and bound as a book at the last minute to launch at the Odds and Ends Art Book Fair at Yale University Art Gallery on December 6, 2019. Suggested topics from the open call included: urgency, craft, queerness, gender, transformation, kinship, race, survival.."--cover wrapper.

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  Vasilisa and the Witch's fire

  Joanna Robson, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume, 4 pages. Title from cardboard slipcase cover. Pattern cloth over cover boards. Lasercut silhouette illustrations, with pages that fold out concertina style. In paper box, 14 x 14 x 2 cm. Certificate of authenticity ([6] pages ; illustrations ; 10 x 10 cm) includes instructions on how to display the book. "A papercut re-telling of Vasilisa the Beautiful's flight from the hut of Baba Yaga the Witch"--Certificate of authenticity. "Book no. 16 of 30 was completed by Joanna Robson in Edinburgh, United Kingdom, on 11/1/2019"--Certificate of authenticity.

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  REF

  Shift-Lab, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 container, 15 parts. "REF is an investigation into the erosion of the physical reference area of the library, and the fundamental shift taking place in the way we ask and answer questions. This project was produced by the members of Shift-lab: Katie Baldwin, Denise Bookwalter, Sarah Bryant, Macy Chadwick, and Tricia Treacy. Artists worked individually and collaboratively to produce elements inspired by the traditional components of a physical reference section: Almanac, Atlas, Bibliography, Biographical Dictionary, Chronology, Concordance, Dictionary, Directory, Encyclopedia, Gazetteer, Guidebook, Handbook, Index, Manual, and Yearbook."--Big Jump Press. "As we designed our responses to traditional elements of the reference section, we used several dates as loose organizational principles to tie our work together: 1963: The publication of Automation and the Library of Congress -- 1991: The Gore Bill, which led to the World Wide Web as we know it today -- 1993: the publication of Planning Second Generation Automated Library Systems and the release of Mosaic, the web browser that popularized the World Wide Web -- 2001: the arrival of Wikipedia."--Shift-lab. REF components are housed together in a custom archival document flip top box with an ascending accordion folder structure. Printing methods include letterpress, risograph, screenprinting, laser printing, and digital printing. Binding formats include concertina, spiral bound, document binder, pamplet, double pamplet, folder, paper envelope.

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  The Radiant Republic

  Sarah Bryant, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 box, 5 volumes, 9 concrete forms, 1 sheet of glass. "In The Radiant Republic, language from Plato and Le Corbusier has been combined to create a narrative in five parts. Each part is bound separately, and features a portion of an interlocking landscape with no fixed beginning or end. The project is housed in an elaborate enclosure featuring elements of wood, cement, and glass. Letterpress printed and completed in 2019."-Publisher website. Box constructed with finger jointed, pressed-wood with pale green cloth lid. Lid has image of three icosahedron forms. Box contains 5 pamphlet-stitched volumes wrapped together. Each volume consists of inked and uninked text impressions with a folded color print at center. Sheet of glass covers nine concrete geometric forms (3 icosahedrons, 3 cubes, and 3 pyramics).

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  Prism

  Helen Hiebert, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume, 54 pages . Watermark and hand-stitching on page preceding title page. "A triangular prism is a transparent object, with ends in the shape of a triangle, which separates light that passes through it into the colors of the rainbow." "Helen Hiebert made all the papers in this book by hand. The colored text papers are all 100% premium abaca, colored with aqueous dispersed pigments mixed by Lata Gedala ... The cover is a cotton/abaca pulp blend with a pulp painting in abaca. All text was letterpress printed by Tom Leech at the Press at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, New Mexico from polymer plates made by Boxcar Press. The typefaces are Dante and Futura. Claudia Cohen created the box."--Colophon. "This book explores the wonder of that interaction between color and light. As you flip through the pages, you will see 24 analogous colors (each new hue sharing some of the color of the page next to it). It's my attempt, as a paper artist, to capture the essence of a rainbow within the pages of the book. All 54 pages plus the cover of this book are stitched together into a single signature allowing the soft, deckled edges of the colors to meet at the fore-edge, blending and transitioning from one to the next as colored light does in a rainbow. The action of turning the thin, translucent pages, combined with the light source in the space you are viewing them in, creates an experience with color and light."--Helen Hiebert artist's statement.

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  Book Book / 书书

  Myungah Hyon, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 plastic bag, 3 components . Cover title. "Book Book is an instruction book of intro-level bookbinding. Written by Myungah Hyon and illustrated by Yuchen Chang."--Printed Matter. "Edition of 500, Third printing, November 2019"--colophon. Accompanied by notched four-piece cardboard book stand. Stitch bound, exposed adhesive binding. Digital printing. Book and book cradle housed in a clear-plastic backpack with yellow drawstrings.

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  A Single {frame}

  Liya Zhu, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume, 6 pages. Numbered edition of 12 copies. "printed in Caslon Old Style on French paper with watercolor and lino-cuts"--colophon. ".. [Produced] spring 2019 [for] Art 136: The Artist's Book course, taught by Tia Blassingame"--colophon. Combines handset letterpress, linocuts, watercolor, papercutting and an interactive element to express the significance of self."--Scripts Press.

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  your name is safe, you can rest now

  Keri Miki-Lani Schroeder, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  5 folding panels . "Your Name is Safe, You Can Rest Now is a letter to my great-uncle Rikio who died in WWII explaining the impact that his death had on our family for generations. Every household in my family had this photograph of his funeral on their butsudan, a Buddhist altar. Rikio fought in the US Army Infantry 442nd Regiment which consisted almost entirely of second-generation Japanese Americans, and holds the record of being the most highly decorated unit in US Military History. While Rikio and others in Hawaii fought for the US, our family members on the mainland were held in internment camps. Rikio was the youngest of my grandmother's siblings, and was killed in action in 1944 at the age of 20"--accompanying materials.

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  On display in a gallery that no longer exists

  Walker Mettling, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume, 36 pages. Color illustrated title page. Includes ten color risograph prints. Silkscreen cover with stitch binding. This book is a visual document of the RISD Museum 2017 Artist Fellow, Walker Mettling. It includes his drawings and observations from his time in RISD Museum (particularly storage). "I drew all the artifacts in the book with my left hand, using a superstition against handling sacred objects with your right hand (to ward off curses) as a way of trying to respect these objects." - walkermettling.tumblr.com/page/2 "Writen and drawn in January/February 2018.. Book binding by Julia Gualtieri. Screen printed at AS220 Industries in Providence RI."- colophon.

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  Hair

  Sun Young Kong, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume. Title from colophon. Title on cover in Korean. "Embroidery using hair"--colophon. Korean text is embroidered. Accordion folded, self cover. Limited edition of 20 + 1 artist's proof. Text in Korean, English translation on colophon.

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  Endless Bridge

  Mikhail Mishin, Special Collections, and Fleet Library

  1 volume, 80 pages. "A visual retelling of creation, Mikhail Mishin's Endless Bridge utilizes juxtapositions and stark comparisons in a narrative that spans from birth to death and back again. iPhone photos, newspaper clippings and other found materials are the vocabulary used in this book in which light is separated from dark, and order emerges from chaos, only to revert back into nothingness. Images in this book have the quality of archaeological artifacts, where the transient qualities of an inflated tarp, a light reflection on the pavement or footprint in the concrete are highlighted. We know what comes after, we see what came before. Yet these fleeting moments hold great weight in the larger context of this cycle."--Publisher's website, viewed April 25, 2019. Limited edition of 100 copies. Black on black illustration on paper cover. Perfect binding.