Minnesota Book Awards Announces Recipients of the 2015 Book Artist Award
Conceptual artist Harriet Bart wins the 2015 Minnesota Book Artist Award for work created in collaboration with master printer Philip Gallo (Hermetic Press) and fine binder Jill Jevne.Â
November 20, SAINT PAUL, MN – The Minnesota Book Awards is pleased to announce Harriet Bart and her longtime collaborative partners, printer Philip Gallo and binder Jill Jevne, as the winners of the 2015 Minnesota Book Artist Award for a new piece entitled Ghost Maps. Sponsored by Lerner Publishing Group, this annual award is presented by Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA) and the Minnesota Book Awards and recognizes a Minnesota book artist or book artist collaborative group for excellence of a new artistic work, demonstrated proficiency and quality in the book arts through three pieces of supporting previous work, as well as an ongoing commitment and significant contributions to Minnesota’s book arts community.
The images in Ghost Maps were created by Bart during a 2010 residency at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts where the paint-splattered floor of her assigned studio became the focus of a new project. Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Bart began to view the encrusted floor of Studio VA5 as an archive of the creative process. Attending to color and repetition, she marked off sections of the floor with tape, scrubbed spaces between them and took aerial photographs. The result is a stunning, site-specific piece documenting the presence and absence of the forty-six artists who preceded Bart in Studio VA5.
Part of a longstanding collaborative relationship between artist, printer and binder, Ghost Maps was printed by Philip Gallo at The Hermetic Press in Minneapolis and binding was designed and executed by Jill Jevne of Jacobsen, Minnesota. Since 2000, Bart, Gallo and Jevne have collaborated to produce ten artist books, two of which have been honored with Minnesota Book Awards in the Fine Press category. An exhibit celebrating Bart’s work in collaboration with Gallo and Jevne will be on display December 12 – January 25 in the second floor literary commons of the Open Book building (1011 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis), with a reception taking place Thursday, January 15 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Bart, Gallo and Jevne will receive special recognition and an award at the 27th annual Minnesota Book Awards Gala on Saturday, April 18, 2015, at the Saint Paul Union Depot. Awards will also be presented that evening to the winners of the eight book categories (Children’s Literature, General Nonfiction, Genre Fiction, Memoir & Creative Nonfiction, Minnesota, Novel & Short Story, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature) and the Kay Sexton Award, sponsored by Common Good Books. Gala tickets will go on sale in February.
The Minnesota Book Awards, presented by 3M Library Systems, is a statewide, year-round outreach program of The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library in partnership with the Saint Paul Public Library and City of Saint Paul. Please visit www.thefriends.org or call 651/366-6497 for more information about the Minnesota Book Awards. Visit www.mnbookarts.org or call 612-215-2527 for more information about Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
Contact:
Bailey Veesenmeyer, Minnesota Book Awards Coordinator
The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library
651-366-6497
[email protected]
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