




Book Marks: An Artist’s Card Catalog, Notes from the Library of My Mind
Barbara Page
LIMITED AVAILABILITY
A captivating blend of art book and autobiography, Book Marks illuminates how books can leave indelible impressions on our lives. Over 430 richly illustrated artworks interpret a lifetime of reading and illuminate how books inform and are informed by events in our lives. Created on repurposed library checkout cards, these captivating “book marks” explore how books and our memories of them can define the different periods of our lives, bookmarking the moment. These compelling artworks resonate and inspire, as will Page’s story.
April 2021
Hardcover
224 pages
408 color plates, with 57 illustrations
2 bookmark ribbons
7.75 x 11.75 inches
ISBN: 978-1735600109
$40.00
Description
Book Marks is a visual journey through a lifetime of reading and remembering that features 434 richly illustrated artworks created on old library checkout cards.
This alluring combination of art book and autobiography will capture the imagination. At its heart are hundreds of 3 x 5-inch artworks—intricate collages and drawings that each represent a book that has left an indelible mark on artist Barbara Page. These works are part of an ongoing art project that began as a colorful way to remember titles Page had just finished reading. Before long, the artist started to recreate her entire reading history, as her memory allowed, starting with picture books from early childhood.
As a collection, these artworks represent over seventy years of literature, politics, thought, and culture—as colored by one woman’s reading choices. Over half of the more than 800 cards housed in a two-drawer library case that constitute the project are illustrated here. Interwoven with personal accounts of the artist’s life, each card represents a literary work that drives the narrative, directly and indirectly.
Like many, Barbara Page discovers strength in the words of authors many of us know and love, and, through reading, she gains knowledge that feeds her personal growth and scientific interest in the world around her. As Page’s life is disrupted by tragedies—one husband’s mental illness and another’s decline into dementia—she forges forward, finding new focus and reinventing her life. In chapters that correspond to the artworks representing her reading during the same period, Page recounts many episodes from her past, from the inconsequential to the life changing. Book Marks is a fascinating journey. As we delve into the personal events recounted by the artist and try to decipher the artworks, many of us might find ourselves pondering the role of memory in our lives, or at the very least, we will discover new books to read!
Advance Praise
“It’s a stunning achievement and an utter delight. Barbara Page tells her story, which is also the story of thousands of women who grew up in the 40s, 50s and 60s, as first a girl and then a young woman trying to make sense of life and family and nature and art in her quest for knowledge. In reading Book Marks, I had many moments of recognition, often subtle and moving—many of us will talk a lot about this book.”
–Gay Daly, author of Miss Havilland, A Novel and Pre-Raphaelites in Love
“Book Marks left me in awe. These cards—or placeholders for memories—are endearing for their authenticity and ability to connect us to our own journeys and the books that made a difference in our lives. I enjoyed getting the connection when I knew the book, and, when I didn’t, the artwork was a significant teaser, greatly expanding my reading list! It reads as a literary memoir, revealing how books served to sooth, excite, or interpret the many seasons of the author’s life. Her willingness to push herself to investigate the world was inspiring. And her frank and transparent resentment at the deaths of her loved ones was insightful and honest.”
–Benita VanWinkle, documentary photographer and Associate Professor of Art, High Point University
About the Author
Barbara Page is an artist, triathlete, and avid reader. She received her MFA from Cornell University and is a fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and was artist-in-residence at the Golden Foundation. Page’s work is included in museum and corporate collections and among her massive site-specific projects is Rock of Ages, Sands of Time at the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York. The installation contains 544 bas-relief paintings that depict the history of life. In 2001, the University of Chicago Press published a book on the project. On a much smaller scale, the Book Marks project was exhibited at The Center for Book Arts in New York City and at various libraries as part of a traveling group show, Artists in the Archives: A Collection of Card Catalogs.