Exhibits in the Library · New Artists' Books

New Artists' Books

First Floor, Vitrines

Newly Added Artists' Books Related to North Carolina

The following books were created by NC-based artists, created in North Carolina, or focus on North Carolina. The exhibit cases show artists’ books that were newly added to J. Murrey Atkins Library collection. All of these books are housed in Special Collections & Archives.

Highlights include I Wish to Say, Volume 2 and I Wish to Say: The Birthday Project by artist Sheryl Oring who is based in Greensboro, NC. As explained in her artist’s statement, she creates installations, performances, artists’ books, and digital work in order to address themes of citizenship, free expression, first amendment rights, story-telling, and activism. I Wish to Say, Volume 2 includes a selection of cards created during 2004 performances in California. During these performances, Oring wore vintage secretary attire and set up a typewriter to ask visitors "If I were President of the US, what would you say to me?"

Continuing this interactive approach, I Wish to Say: The Birthday Project is a result of similar interviews. The book includes 45 birthday cards and photographic portraits bound in handmade yellow linen book cloth with foil-stamped images.

Additional highlights from the collection include the 2005 miniature book Flowing Essence by Sharon A. Sharp from Boone, NC. The book uses the accordion-fold and linocut prints. Sharp describes the book is “a meditation on water's powerful, mysterious role in our lives and language.” The library also has her work Blue Ridge Bounty, which tracks the Blue Ridge Parkway and its geography.

Charms for Hemlock: Tsuga Canadensis & Tsuga Caroliniana is a 2018 artist’s book by Anna Lena Phillips. She created the book for the Asheville Bookworks’s Vandercooked Poetry Nights (reading series accompanied by letterpress-printed broadsides). Asheville is located in the eastern hemlock range, which has been decimated by the introduction of the woolly adelgid, so Bell printed two charms she made for hemlock, Sandstone and Dendron. The covers are printed on Legion Bamboo with hemlock needles from Black Mountain, NC.

You can find out more information about these books through the library website. All books are listed in the North Carolina Artists’ Books Collection as part of Collection Discovery. You can view the artists’ books by visiting Special Collections & Archives on the 10th floor.

Flowing essence by Sharon Sharp

Boone, NC : Curious Pursuits Press, 2005

Puppets one ought to know : an abecedarium in three acts with woodcuts by Terry Schupbach-Gordon

Tobaccoville, NC: Catbird (On the Yadkin) Press, 2019

The truth hurts by Chris Stain and Josh MacPhee

Philadelphia, PA: Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, 2012

Created for the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC

Charms for hemlock: Tsuga canadensis & Tsuga caroliniana by Anna Lena Phillips Bell

Wilmington, North Carolina : To Do in the New Year, 2018

Covers are printed on Legion Bamboo with hemlock needles from Black Mountain, NC

The collection: a botanical A-B-C book by Mary Beth Boone

Columbus: OH: Purple Pumpkin Press, 2012

Collection focuses on plants found in the historic Green Hill Cemetery located in Greensboro, North Carolina and was printed Penland School of Crafts in Penland, NC

I wish to say ... vol. 2 by Sheryl Oring

New York: Fargo Books, a division of Schicksal Press, 2005

Created by based in Greensboro, NC and teaching at UNC Greensboro

I wish to say: the birthday project by Sheryl Oring and Emanuel Dhanraj

Ann Arbor, Mich.: Quack! Media, 2008

Created by based in Greensboro, NC and teaching at UNC Greensboro

Several books from the circulating stacks were selected to complement the themes of artists' books and book arts.

Books from the Stacks

Cover to cover : the artist's book in perspective