Write Your Own Book
My first "Artist Book" and why you should create one too!
In May this year, I connected with Art Historian and writer Tatiane S. Santa Rosa so she could write about my work. We did a couple of interviews, and I gave her access to my studio Drive so she could peruse my texts and artworks over the years. With her text, I wanted to create a mark on time by making an Artist Book that would somehow encapsulate this specific moment in which I recognize the transition to having a formal artist studio and continuous art practice.
The idea of asking for Tatiane’s text came from seeing Katarina Janeckova Walshe’s book, which includes a beautiful text by Emily Farranto. Tatiane is, like me, an academic originally from Brazil who pursued her PhD in the US and is building her life here. I needed to establish a dialog with someone who could see my work in its very personal and familial connections in addition to the Brazilian art historical references. Her text, which I’m making available here in its entirety and with references, grounds me and opens up questions and spaces that keep me moving forward.
You can access the book's contents through the links embedded in the following images.
The final format of the book, which one can see in this post’s video, responds to some of my thoughts on the material necessity of including movement and play in the creation of knowledge. As an academic, I continue to easily (and mistakenly) equate the notion of “knowledge” with the book as an object — and text as the means to it. So, with this book, I sought to practice valuing images, artworks, and movement as effective conduits of knowledge, particularly the kind of knowledge I am acquiring at this point in my life!
The experience of creating this book and facing its formal publication challenges showed me the importance of making this kind of work, and I want to encourage other artists to do it, too. We constantly collect materials from our lives in book-like formats, such as sketchbooks, photo albums, work reports, etc. The “Artist Book”—or considering books as a specific format— can mark a critical moment in building our theoretical frameworks, and having someone else write a text about our work can help us see how this framework is reaching others and building our legacy.
Thank you for connecting with me and my work through these newsletters! There is much more to come!
With love and creative joy,
Debora
The following note informs everyone that I’ve migrated my newsletters to Substack and now offer two possible subscriptions!
I will write a free newsletter occasionally on Thursdays and a paid newsletter every Monday.
If you received this email in your inbox, you are currently subscribed to my free newsletter and are receiving this email as an example of the contents of my Monday paid subscription. You don’t need to do anything if you wish to continue receiving my occasional free newsletter. As with any newsletter, you can choose to unsubscribe to my list at the bottom of the email.
Like in this post, my paid Monday newsletters will offer art prompts, art criticism, and meaningful news about my studio practice in a way that invites collaborative art-making.
My free Thursday newsletters will include texts that frame cultural theory in service of intuition. These texts help connect us intellectually and create (or update) the theoretical frameworks that directly impact our daily lives. Here is an example of a Thursday newsletter:
