Closed/Open

Installation view, left to right: A–ZYM, Reading Room, books from Newberry archives
Closed/Open, a 2006 site-specific exhibition at Chicago’s Newberry Library, began with two bodies of my work inspired by collections of knowledge—a 1910 Britannica encyclopedia and a Webster’s dictionary from the same era. Objects from the library’s archives, chosen in partnership with staff librarians, complimented mixed media installations of my art.

In Closed/Open, the relationships between my art and Newberry objects were literal, impressionistic, and metaphoric. My vision was to create dynamic connections between past and present, text and image, meaning and imagination, and to illuminate the role of books in my art.
A–ZYM, 27 mixed media collages, table
SHU–SUB Sound, mixed media on paper
PAY–POL Physics, mixed media on paper
Reading Room, mixed media in constructed books, table, and stools
poetry (from Reading Room), mixed media in book
philosophy (from Reading Room), light box in book
Aa–Zz, mixed media on paper on sculptural walls
G: glove, mixed media on paper
K knit/knot, watercolor and graphite on paper
Sentinels, light boxes, sound, table
L’Odor del Bosc, mixed media in book, reading table, sound
Tongues, sound installation, entrance vestibule of library