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2019
Upcoming Events:

I am anticipating the new year as my calendar has already started to fill. I hope that you will join me for the upcoming show and book fair. I am also excited to share with you news of an artist residency I will attend in Ireland in Oct/Nov next year.

1. Elizabeth Sher’s Exhibit, Self-Portraits in the Age of Selfies
   

My ‘view’ of Liz is a part of Liz Sher’s exhibit. The exhibit is at the Mercury 20 Gallery in Oakland and runs from January 19th
through February 9th. The opening reception is on January 19th from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM.

Mercury 20 Gallery
475 25th Street Oakland, CA

2. Codex VII International Book Fair - February 3 - 6, 2019.

Scrapped 2018. Six Artist Books: Letterpress and xerox transfer prints on rust stained kitikata paper.

Codex VII 2019 International Book Fair
Craneway Pavillion
1414 Harbor Way South Richmond, CA

Sunday, Feb 3 12:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Monday, Feb 4 12:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Tuesday, Feb 5 12:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Wednesday, Feb 6 10:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Mark your calendars!

3. Cill Rialaig Artist Residency, Co Kerry, Ireland Oct 30 - Nov 26, 2019

Stay tuned for reports from this place!

NBLA holiday Open House

The Studio Printers of North Bay Letterpress Arts invite you

to our holiday open house on

Sunday, December 3rd from 1 - 5

925 d Gravenstein Hwy. So. Sebastopol, CA

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This is our 8th annual December Open House at NBLA.  New this year: the riff-raffle with great prizes to be won and an exhibit of my letterpress work with the  work of Lyn Dillin,  Tami Lovett and Tiana Krahn.  Come!  Join us for the festivities!

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Artist Books: Tiers Asunder

Tiers Asunder_1 - 5,  2017.  Artist Books: intaglio & letterpress prints on acid
stained kitikata paper, book board & cloth, cave paper and miscellaneous
papers bound in drum leaf book structure.

Tiers Asunder was inspired by a photograph that I found rummaging through family heirloom photo albums―an image of an aircraft carrier, the Enterprise, on which my grandfather was one of its captains during WWII.  During his term, a Kami Kazi pilot (whose childhood nickname was Eyeballs) bombed the carrier.  The pilot died with 13 others that day. The photo documents the hole in the carrier's deck from the explosion with the crew standing by.  The image held me as I reflected on the space created by the destructive act—an opening for exploration and a suggestion on how to proceed with the work. My intent was not to make an artist book about this narrative but to use elements of it to create an experience.

Process is content. To speak to the destructive act, I intentionally dirtied the papers for the book pages using a process I coined "negative conservation".  I recalled once watching a paper conservator remove acid stains from artwork―a washing process that left acid tide lines on the support material. I saw the byproduct of the practice as a way to stain the kitikata papers for this book.

addendum:

While binding book #3, glue seeped through and soiled the end sheets.  Unexpected, unintended, what I now refer to as an ath'wart, and a pause, I asked, "How does this mark contribute to the whole?" I thank judi goldberg for use of her words*—and response to my question.

*all ways know―

ing the right of it some

times spoils the

view

"When a Book Becomes An Artist Book"

I will be presenting this talk at the Iota Printshop

on Saturday, Sept 24th from 3pm to 5pm. 

Details below:

http://northbayletterpressarts.org/event/brooke-holve-talk/

skinningtexts

Back to Iceland:

Several years ago on my last trip to IcelandI purchased several kinds of tanned
fish skins including lax (salmon), wolfskin and cod.  In New Zealand I purchased
possum skins — all covering materials for my constructions. But as things happen,
these materials took me to a deeper place; they became more than visual textures
from a country.  I researched and also found language and stories about the skins.

The fish skins still hang on a line in my studio waiting for a place in my work, serving
as a memory of Iceland and now an inspiration for making my own skins here at the
residency with art materials —fluid acrylics. A few samples are displayed below.
While making them, I started gathering Icelandic & English idioms aboutskins and
in the process found a way to learn about the Icelandic people. Language has
become a skin that captures the character, history and cultural practices of a people.

IMG_0940

IMG_0947

IMG_0950

About the Fish Skins:

I purchased the fish skins at the factory inSandarkrokur that processes up to
200,000 fish skins per year. Once tanned, the skins fromsalmon, wolffish, cod
and perch become strong, durable, thin and pliable — a flexible material to
work with.

Fish skins were used in Iceland for centuries, mainly by those who couldn’t
afford lamb leather. The untanned skin was considered poorer quality because
it was brittle and disintegrated easily. People would measure distance over a
mountain by counting how many pairs of fish skin shoes you would wear walking
over it.

Modern tanning techniques take advantage of fish skin’s unique microscopic
crosshatched pattern. When tanned, it’s stronger than most skin you can get, 10
times stronger than lamb leather of the same thickness.

Icelandic Fish/Skin Idioms: (literal translation and meaning)

pikkur á honum skrápurinn - tough skin; one can endure much

tröfaldur i rođinu - double in your skin; a shady character, two-faced                                            
In English, we might say, "to talk out of both sides of your mouth"
which means you say one thing and mean another and implies
what you say is untruthful and contradictory.

rúginn ađ skinni - only the skin left; money or something lost                                                          
In English, we might say "only the shirt on one's back"

vera i ham - to be in a skin; energetically working with a focus

húđlafur - skin lazy; slept in bed all of the time in cow skins

skinniđ mitt - my skin; term of endearment to a child, my little darling

eigi einhamr - not of one skin, or shape

Ađ fara hamförum - to move from one shape to another, to
shape-shift, meaning to go beserk

Researching Icelandic idioms made me think of our own
expressions using skin as an image.

A few below:

skin deep

by the skin of your teeth no skin in the game get the skinny

skinflint

more than one way to skin a cat skinny dipping

skinny shiv

And then there are other kinds of skins, this one from a resident here at Gullkistan.

IMG_0966 2

And and

more skins in Reykjavik:

14045779_10210664196028044_8323580986798229550_n

Cuts Make You. e-book

This e-book documents my latest show,       Cuts Make You. at the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Eureka, CA. The catalog contains    images of my artwork and reviews by           Satri Pencak & Gabrielle Gopinath

Take a look:

C u t s M a k e Y o u .

By B r o o k e H o l v e

Cuts Make You. Review: "Cuts Like A Knife" by Gabrielle Gopinath

A selection of artwork from Cuts Make You. reviewed in "Cuts Like A Knife".

http://www.northcoastjournal.com/humboldt/cuts-like-a-knife/Content?oid=3836956

I couldn't help myself!

LET IT BE (here)

 AND/BUT

    LET IT BE (there)

Credits:

Talk Back letterpress broadside by Judi Goldberg & Eric Johnson

Once We Knew letterpress broadside by Judi Goldberg

outwith construction by Brooke Holve (from Cuts Make You. exhibition at the Morris Graves Art Museum)

The Art of the Book @ Sebastopol Center for the Arts

I am one of a number of artists who will be showing work at

The Art of the Book

at the Sebastopol Center For the Arts.

The work was selected by juror, Betsy Davids, owner of Rebis Press in Berkeley.

The exhibit,  runs from June 17 - July 24, 2016

with an opening reception on June 17, from 6:00 - 7:30.

There will be an artist talk on Saturday, June 18, from 2:00 - 3:00 pm.

Sebastopol Center For the Arts, Galletta Gallery

282 South High Street, Sebastopol

Tues - Friday 10 - 4, Sat-Sun 1 - 4

Cuts Make You. at the Morris Graves Museum

An eventful reception last weekend at the Morris Graves Art Museum in Eureka.  Following are a few views from the evening.  The exhibit will be up through July 3, 2016.

My statement read:

"Artist, Brooke Holve contemplates the poetics of seeing in Cuts Make You., an exhibition of mixed media constructions, installations and an artist book. Her work reflects an exploration of 'cutting' as process and form as she cuts to see and cuts to make. She is interested in how to apply process to a material and arrive to a form that refers back to its making.  The work is informed by the changing role of the book as the world moves to primarily digital delivery systems.  Discarded book remnants are the dominant material of this work."