Speaker 1 (00:00):
Coming up on Art Palace, 

Speaker 2 (00:03):
I found one called The Independent Eye that was published in Cincinnati and I knew that I had to find 

Speaker 1 (00:10):
It. Welcome to Art Palace, produced by Cincinnati Art Museum. This is your host, Russell eig. Here at the Art Palace, we meet cool people and then talk to them about art. Today's cool people are artist and educator, mark Neely and John Flannery, designer and Printmaker at Cryptogram. So how do you two know each other? 

Speaker 3 (00:53):
It was common interest. 

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah. 

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Yeah. Just started 

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Talking connected online. I had seen his artwork, probably saw it around actually 

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Before 

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Online posters and such, and when I decided to do the tribute paper, I immediately knew I should reach out to John 

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Because 

Speaker 2 (01:11):
I consider him sort of a printing guru 

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Of sorts, 

Speaker 2 (01:15):
And I am very much an artist in the traditional sense. I'm not very good at putting something like that together and compiling it. 

Speaker 1 (01:24):
What do you mean by in the traditional sense? 

Speaker 2 (01:26):
I just make the art. I'm not very savvy on, I 

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Just make the art as 

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Publishing programs, like compiling it to make print ready formats and stuff like that. Okay. 

Speaker 1 (01:40):
You're more hands-on working with your hands and just sort of like, okay, where's the pencils, the paint, that kind of stuff. Correct. Gotcha. 

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Okay. 

Speaker 1 (01:48):
And what about you? I would say that I, 

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Since early days, like high school, even before then, when I sort of had an idea of what I wanted to do, I saw the printmaker as very much a designer and an artist in their own right. They help artists to realize their work on the page after it's left their minds. So therefore they need to understand how all of that works. So yeah, I went to the art academy and I was basically just enamored with their print program and knew that I wanted to be a designer, but through the lens of print, through the vehicle of print. So it's always been a hand in hand sort of thing to me to be a designer and a print maker as well. 

Speaker 1 (02:34):
So tell me a little bit about the project you guys are working on right now. 

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah. In the beginning what happened was, I had read a book last year called Free Press, 

Speaker 1 (02:46):
And it was essentially 

Speaker 2 (02:48):
About the movement 

Speaker 1 (02:50):
In the late 

Speaker 2 (02:50):
1960s where underground newspapers started being published around the country. They were primarily war resistance with Vietnam going on, and they're really beautiful. The artwork, the design, this was of course all done using collage and various print methods that John could explain better than I could. And after reading that book, I stumbled on a list of hundreds of papers that were published in the US and I found one called The Independent Eye that was published in Cincinnati, and I knew that I had to find it. I was just enamored by it. I first reached out to anyone I knew in local creative circles and nobody had heard of it. I had one response from Steve Sch Small, he runs black plastic records, 

Speaker 2 (03:48):
And he gave me this really funny response, like back in the nineties, I was living in a communal space in Clifton and I saw these on a coffee table or something, and I got in touch. He gave me the name of the landlord whose papers they were. I caught him and he had no idea what I was talking about. So all dead ends. I then discovered our library had not the whole collection, but a large portion of the archives kind of locked away in their rare book room downtown. So my wife and I went in one Saturday, and as soon as we opened the collection, we were just completely taken by it. We were really stunned, not only at how well designed and the scope, the content of the paper, but that it was such a mystery. We kind of felt like we stumbled on this treasure chest that no one knows about. When I was giving the collection back, one of the librarians working said, Hey, why are you interested in this? He said, you should do something with this. You should make a program for us. He then got out his phone and called his friend Jim Tarbell and just handed me the phone on the spot 

Speaker 4 (05:01):
Here, talk to Jim. 

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, he will know what to do. And Jim was very friendly to me. He said, oh, I remember the independent eye, and he gave me the name to a woman named Ellen, who was one of the original publishers. I then spoke to Ellen. She's still a practicing psychologist in the Clifton area. I called her out of the blue. She seemed pretty shocked 

Speaker 4 (05:27):
That anybody knew about 

Speaker 2 (05:28):
This still yes, or had any interest. And really everything has happened since then. This was last November. I've since met with Ellen. I went to Ellen's house in this beautiful historic mansion on Clifton Avenue, and I walked in and she said, oh, here's the big communal paper where we put the original paper together. So it was actually the original house where the paper was published. I've spent the last year researching the paper, speaking with different staff members and preparing an exhibit, an event at the fall at the library. We're also digitizing the entire collection that the library has. And then finally I partnered with John to create a tribute paper to the Independent Eye where we reached out to about 14 local artists. I think the artist and me kicked in and I wanted to do something visual 

Speaker 5 (06:26):
With the 

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Project. We reached out to local artists that we either knew or just knew of their work and created kind of a mission statement that we're making this paper. We wanted each artist to contribute one piece, and I kept it pretty open-ended, just kind of keeping the original spirit of the eye in mind. If you were making something today, what would you make and put on the paper. Tell me a little bit more about those original papers and what they're like. Just what do they look like? What's the content like? They are full broadsheet papers, so a standard-sized newspaper on fine newsprint. They're very radical, very progressive in their political scope. It was obviously a very turbulent time in the late sixties, and you had the civil rights movement going on. You had the Women's Liberation Movement. When we opened the archive, one of the first covers we stumbled upon was an ad for the International Women's March back in 1971, and we immediately made that connection to today's sociopolitical climate. And then the artwork is full of everything from political cartoons, comic strips, also commentary on both the political and national level. Really beautiful oleum cut prints. There's a really beautiful linoleum cut print of Martin Luther King Jr. That was published in the April of 68 edition when he was assassinated. 

Speaker 2 (08:04):
And these were all local artists primarily. Sometimes there would be syndicated cartoonists who had comic strips and things like that. And then another thing about the paper is it gives you this glimpse into kind of that counterculture movement through a local lens. You see all sorts of original advertisements for concerts at the Ludlow Garage, and John and I loved looking at all of the original advertisements for record stores and hippie boutiques all around the city and experimental film screenings and pretty much anything that was going on at that time, primarily around Calhoun Street, 

Speaker 5 (08:47):
Around 

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Uc and things like that. So it's very multi nuanced, but they're absolutely 

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Gorgeous and amazing to look through. What was your kind of take John on them, seeing them as a printmaker? Did you have any sort of reactions to the imagery and the way things were made right off the bat or? 

Speaker 3 (09:07):
For me, it was just like I'm very much in tune to the history of how Cincinnati has a sphere of creativity was and in its own little bubble. So I've always just made connections through my life of where these things come from. So for me, it was just cool to see a full archive of an actual scene that was present and very lively here. It was pretty eyeopening to me. I've always looked to other cities for that kind of stuff, and so to see that existing here was one of the biggest aha moments for me and kind of connected a lot of other dots that I'd seen here and there. But from a printmaking aspect, it just strengthens the backbone of printmaking being for everyone and being a very democratic way to produce art. Much of the stuff in there was, like you said, relief printmaking, which is essentially just carving away from a surface and inking it up and putting it on the paper. 

Speaker 3 (10:09):
And it's pretty much as easy as it comes, as democratic as it gets, as far as producing an image. So I've always been attracted to that style, but becoming more of a working professional. It makes a lot of sense to me why this was so popular back then because there's different ways of creating images, but these ways are just so much more visceral and momentary that it makes a lot of sense why they were in these papers. Whereas, I don't know, when I was a kid, I was probably just looking at it thinking that was 

Speaker 1 (10:44):
The 

Speaker 3 (10:44):
Hippie kind of way to do things or whatever, and 

Speaker 1 (10:46):
It 

Speaker 3 (10:46):
Is, but it's also coming full circle, finding out why it was because of that. So from a submission standpoint, you have all these people doing woodcut prints or whatever, things that were just almost stencil based. And then there's a whole other side of printmaking, which is the actual production of the paper itself. The magazine, which was often just like everyone of that time, sort of knew the basic skills to mock up a paper, to send something to a printer, which going back to what I was saying about my love for design and print coming together and wanting to access that through the art academy, everyone had these skills, whereas today, it's not necessarily taught if you're a designer if might not know how to take that into multiple formats after it's left your brain or the screen that you composed it on in the computer. 

Speaker 3 (11:48):
So that's always just been really fascinating to me is that there was this communal knowledge of how to really put something out there in a massive effect way. And the playing field was so much more level back then because they were dealing with the same tools and ways of disseminating information as a national paper was. So they were talking to the same printers often. A lot of the printers who would make these papers, they were made on the same presses that might've made a national newspaper. So it's like everything was just so much more. There's your print shop down there and it can do A, B, and C and you can use it for this corporation sort of outlet, or you can come together as a community, raise some money and make your own paper and make 500 of 'em. So that's always just been really interesting to me. Just the free press literally. I mean, it is such a tool to be used. It's a very powerful tool, and I think that's why the paper was such a blacklisted kind of thing, or anybody who was doing this in the seventies is because they took the tools that these big companies had or these big media outlets had, and they used it in ways that those people didn't want them to use it. But again, it's freedom of the press and it's amazing. I don't know, 

Speaker 2 (13:11):
And this was just to touch on that this era was really the first time that Free press really gained momentum. It was the first time that these papers in the hundreds started being published. Sometime from my research, the circulation would be in the thousands and people who had conflicting reports on let's say the war, social or national politics, music, whatever the case may be, that is where they got their news. And John had mentioned looking at other cities, there were a couple prominent underground papers such as the San Francisco Oracle that was published right in the Mecca in Haight Ashbury in that era, the East Village other from New York City. That's where a lot of the underground comics artists like Robert Crumb started out on those papers. So there are a few that people are aware of in those bigger cities where we think of the vanguard of this movement happening. So I'm right there with John that to see that we had our own and to see really just how amazing they were put together. I think that kind of spoke to both of us. It seems like you both were 

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Sort of surprised on some level that this happened in Cincinnati. Right? 

Speaker 3 (14:30):
For sure. 

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah. I think probably no surprise to anyone listening to this that Cincinnati has a reputation of being a historically conservative city, 

Speaker 2 (14:40):
And I've spoke at length to a lot of the staff members of the original paper who have talked about how ostracized they felt doing this, not in a negative way, they're proud of what they did, but it was a challenge here. Everything from being spied on attending peaceful protests to, I'll go ahead and jump into something that happened in the early seventies with the paper. That's one of the most interesting parts of the story. There was a fire at the house where the paper was being published, and several of the staff members actually lived in that building, and it was ruled in arson. Several members of the staff claimed that they were not allowed in the building after it was condemned, and that they witnessed local police breaking into filing cabinets and stealing their subscription lists and things like that. There's an article published in the Independent Eye about it that provides photographs of broken in filing cabinets and things like that. Later into the eighties, they actually filed a lawsuit against the city of Cincinnati police that sadly didn't go anywhere, but there's actually articles about that in the Cincinnati enquire in the 1980s about the fire. So they found out that the F b I had even looked into these underground papers. Really? Yeah, because they were seen as dangerous and 

Speaker 3 (16:15):
And that's going back to just they were using the tools that people were familiar with to create your morning paper as the same format. So it almost felt like people could take the news in the same way, and that was anti-state at that time. So you talked a little bit about some of the people you've found who were involved with it. I mean, do you know any more people who, have you learned any more about the people who actually made the paper? 

Speaker 2 (16:42):
I do. Meeting with Ellen, one of the original publishers was really fantastic. Ellen and her ex-husband, they started the paper with another couple who was from Yellow Springs. 

Speaker 2 (16:58):
The paper actually started in Yellow Springs and it moved to Cincinnati very shortly after. In the coming months, it has been quite a challenge to track people down. As you can imagine, this was over 50 years ago, and basically what I've done is periodically the paper would post a very small paragraph of staff members and I would essentially try to use the magic of the internet to track people down. And at first I was kind of ambivalent towards this, but as time went on, I kind of felt it was my duty to try to reach out to them, to let them know about the project and just speak to them briefly. And it's been extremely rewarding when I have found people, everyone has seemed genuinely touched that I have an interest in it. And they're also very excited to see the digital archive we're creating because most of them haven't seen the paper in that many years. Some of the people I've spoken to include Melvin Greer, who is a prominent still local photojournalist 

Speaker 1 (18:09):
And 

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Photographer. I had a great conversation with Melvin. He started essentially his first photography job was working for the Independent Eye, and his name is credited to many of the original photographs. It was funny, Melvin ended up being a photographer for the Cincinnati Post for over 30 years. So we kind of laughed about his peculiar career trajectory, starting with a radical underground paper and then moving on to a mainstream paper. I spoke to Ken Hawkins, another photojournalist who both he and Melvin have had work featured nationally, time Magazine clients like that. I spoke to a doctor in Martha's Vineyard named Gerald Kovich, who called and left a message, and he called me back. He's now a doctor there, and he joked and said, yeah, I remember watching Joe Namath win the Super Bowl in the living room where we were putting the paper together to illustrate how long ago it was Frank Gerson, who is often credited as starting the Free Store Food Bank, he has since passed, but he was one of the original street hawkers of the paper. He was able to distribute the most papers around town. So I've spoken to a lot. It's difficult to find names, and also there were a lot of females working for the paper who were of course using their maiden name 

Speaker 1 (19:39):
And 

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Their late teens, early twenties. Also a lot of people who might've been living here going to uc or a local college and then moved away immediately. So it's been very challenging, but very rewarding for the ones I have been able to speak to. 

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the exhibition you have planned at the public library. 

Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah. The exhibition is going to be on November 13th at 7:00 PM We are going to have on display a lot of the original papers, which are very beautiful, and we're going to have a small panel discussion there with myself, Ellen, the original publisher, and Jim Tarbell just recently got confirmation that he's going to be there and the digital archive should be up and running right about in time for that. 

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Okay. 

Speaker 2 (20:33):
We're really excited about the tribute paper that we're putting together. It's an interesting mix of local artists. We've got some that work for local arts organizations like Visionaries and Voices and Artworks, and then also some people who just doodle and freelance or do their art as a hobby. John, I didn't know if you wanted to talk about literally how we're going to put it together and the printing method. 

Speaker 3 (20:59):
So we just aim to pretty much employ as many authentic tools of production as possible. We're going to try to go completely Oh, nice. That's really cool. May use the computer as a visual layout just to see Page Nation, how it will flow, but essentially it'll just be done. Masters will be made with the use of a copier, and then the actual book will be made on Arisa Graph, which is just about the closest you can come to the original production method. Originally, it was produced on a web press, which is the same as you would print a newspaper, so it's a very large machine and there's just not access to that. There was then Arisa Graph is basically a hybrid of a silk screen and a copier machine. 

Speaker 2 (21:48):
Okay. 

Speaker 3 (21:49):
So it looks just like a copier, but essentially it works like a silk screen or an offset process and that you print one color at a time. So if you have a two color job, you print all of your red first and then you put the whole edition back in the press and switch out the color drum and you print black second. But it has a really, in the page feel very much like Offset does on newspaper. The ink is not raised at all. It's got its own sort of machine-like way of distilling images from Gray Gill to just pure black and white. So that's really interesting and very akin to the original production method. And then we'll be doing a silk screen cover, which is pretty familiar with mid-century printmaking and especially commercial. So yeah, we're just trying to do that source some old paper, which we've been sort of doing some research about, but basically just trying to keep it to where it doesn't feel too fresh and in a way that it's democratic enough where it affords us the opportunity to just give them away or sell 'em for almost nothing because they were sold between what, nothing and 25 cents back then. 

Speaker 3 (22:56):
So 

Speaker 2 (22:57):
Inflation. 

Speaker 3 (22:58):
Inflation, right. But we're producing probably 150 and once they're gone, they're gone. 

Speaker 2 (23:04):
And the digital archive too, I just want to say I think that might be the most important part of the whole project because the library has a world-class department in that way. They've digitized many periodicals, and I know that the scanning has been completed. I know they're in the editing process for that now, but for me working on this project for a year, I think it's so significant that that's going to be the permanent piece to it. It's going to be an archive that will always exist, and my hope is that not only these previous generations who have never seen it will get a but also future generations, and we'll allow the people that were there to revisit it for the first time. 

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Yeah, I think especially in Cincinnati, it's important for people to see that digital archive because there's obviously this culture of people within the last few years standing up super strong for what they believe in and not backing down. And I feel like in a city like Cincinnati, it can be hard to keep that in mind and stay strong when you feel like maybe you're the only person doing this or you're part of a very small group. But to see that it does have a lineage in such a conservative city, I think is hugely important for people to just see and be aware of and know that they're not alone. And 

Speaker 2 (24:28):
I think people will be absolutely floored and shocked when they get a chance to look at it. I really do. 

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Cool. Well, 

Speaker 1 (24:36):
Normally at this point in the show, I would take us out to the galleries to go look at something in the actual museum to talk about it, but today I thought in the spirit of what you've been talking about, I thought this would be a great opportunity to look at something that probably a lot of people don't know about that we have at the museum, which is an artist book collection that's housed in our library, which we kind of walked through today to get here and we pick these up. So these are from the Marr Schiff Library and Archives, and I honestly, I can't remember if I've actually looked through all of these yet, so it's just going to be kind of like, let's open this box and see what's in here. That's great. Sure. So John, this one actually, I didn't know you went to the Art Academy, but this one might be interesting to you. So this one I was looking at, and I'm assuming it's made by, was a class probably that made this project and I don't know, donated it to the library, but it's called Letterpress Toys. I actually was there at the time this was made, so I probably will know some people. That's 

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Awesome. 

Speaker 1 (25:43):
I'm not even sure. I didn't look through it too completely, but I saw it today. But yeah, I mean a lot of these artist books are sort of handmade and have sort of interesting packaging, and this one is just in a box that's full of things, which is a 

Speaker 3 (26:02):
Love, a good folio. 

Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yeah. There's a beautiful little pillow here. 

Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, that's awesome. 

Speaker 2 (26:10):
That corresponds with a letter to Santa about a new pillow. Yeah, I love that. 

Speaker 3 (26:18):
I love when letterpress is done on, not letterpress paper. This is photo glossy paper. 

Speaker 1 (26:24):
Yeah, 

Speaker 3 (26:25):
But it's totally still got that letterpress touch to it. It's beautiful. That's nice. Little pop goes, pop's. The weasel visual poetry here. That's awesome. There was a little book 

Speaker 1 (26:39):
That said something. 

Speaker 3 (26:40):
I think it's that blue one. Can I see that please? 

Speaker 1 (26:42):
I wanted 

Speaker 3 (26:42):
To look through the edition. 

Speaker 1 (26:44):
Okay, so this was, 

Speaker 3 (26:45):
Yeah, it's got the artist in there. 

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, so Jane Mercks was the assistant. I remember her. Peter Bartle was the teacher. Oh my gosh. I do know people in here. This is crazy. Who was from India and who was living with some of my friends actually at the time, Emily Horning, who I know pretty well. Yeah, a lot of these names are pretty familiar. Did you go to the Art academy? I did, yeah. I graduated in 2003, so this is just the year before that, so that's why I was like, when I saw the date, I was like, oh, I probably am going to know somebody who is in here, so that's really 

Speaker 3 (27:23):
Cool. Who taught you letterpress? Was it Dave? 

Speaker 1 (27:27):
I did not take any letter press classes, so I was actually, here's another one too. They can kind of put back in there. I'm just happy to look through this stuff too. I don't know how many people ever get to see it. Oh, absolutely. Love, of course. It's really not hard. I mean, I know we have classes who come in and check it out, or there's book Arts associations and things who come in and check it out. This was another one. It's actually at the bottom here. It's so big. But this was another one that I thought had maybe a cool relationship to what you're doing, 

Speaker 3 (27:57):
Those yard signs. 

Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. 

Speaker 3 (28:01):
So it's called Urban Haiku. Wow. Is this local? 

Speaker 1 (28:04):
Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, so there's a little page there describing the project. 

Speaker 2 (28:10):
That's awesome. So a lot of local businesses contributed to this urban Hiq. I see. Camp Washington, Chile, everybody's records. Some good previous ones too. Like Crazy Ladies Bookstore in Northside, the Comet. 

Speaker 3 (28:26):
There was actually an ad for Crazy Ladies in the Eye, I think was there. I'm pretty 

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Okay. Yeah, we talked about in the Independent Eye, all of the local businesses at that time. Yeah, there could have been a few on here. 

Speaker 1 (28:39):
This was from, I was curious about the date. So it was October, 1999 through March, 2000, it says, and it looks like 

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Six months. 

Speaker 1 (28:47):
I'm assuming they are all literal haikus. I can't, the one I think they 

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Are. Yeah, it 

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Looks like it. The blink of 

Speaker 3 (28:53):
An eye. Is that 

Speaker 2 (28:54):
The one you 

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Just had? 

Speaker 1 (28:55):
Yeah. John, does it say on there who wrote them? I was kind curious about that 

Speaker 2 (29:02):
Individual artist Grant to poet Timothy. He was from the City Department of Neighborhood Services. 

Speaker 1 (29:11):
It's like there's two 

Speaker 3 (29:12):
Poems, and they were distributed to different businesses in these sort of hot color corrugated plastic signs, 

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Which are pretty famous 

Speaker 3 (29:25):
With the political sign 

Speaker 1 (29:27):
Season. Right. 

Speaker 3 (29:28):
Which were about to be in 

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Findlay Market, Aldi's suitors art store. 

Speaker 3 (29:34):
Oh man, Aldi's 

Speaker 2 (29:35):
So good. Got a mix of former and present here. 

Speaker 3 (29:39):
Yeah, 

Speaker 2 (29:40):
That's fantastic. 

Speaker 1 (29:40):
This would've been just right around the time actually. I started at the art 

Speaker 3 (29:44):
Academy, 

Speaker 1 (29:45):
So I kind of have a vague memory of this project. But 

Speaker 3 (29:50):
Yeah, now that I see it, I'm like, yeah, I kind of remember these weird signs, especially in everybody's, yeah, 

Speaker 1 (29:55):
So I had a sort of, it was hovering 

Speaker 3 (29:58):
Out there. I think I remember this, but I didn't know a lot about 

Speaker 1 (30:02):
It. I 

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Did want to mention real quick, what's that other name, John? I didn't want to leave that one out. Oh, yeah. So it was Timothy and 

Speaker 3 (30:10):
Diana Duncan. Holmes. 

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Okay. 

Speaker 1 (30:12):
Yeah. This one is a little bit, those two were very homemade, and this one is a much more big name artist, so it's a much more professionally produced book. But this 

Speaker 3 (30:24):
Jenny Holzer, 

Speaker 1 (30:25):
Jenny Holzer 

Speaker 3 (30:26):
Book just called 

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Eating Through 

Speaker 3 (30:28):
Living, I think. Is that correct? Yeah. 

Speaker 1 (30:30):
So it's a little more straightforward than some of the books here. It looks like a book. Right, right. But it's kind of full of these. The 

Speaker 3 (30:40):
Layout's a little unconventional, which 

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Is cool, and it's full of these sort of, if people know our Jenny Holzer bench that's on the third floor, she's kind of famous for these, what she calls truisms. These statements that are, so much of her art is just text-based, and then the text delivered through these different methods. In that case, like a marble bench, but she uses LEDs, displays, different ways of getting those messages across, and so this one is a book, but it also has little 

Speaker 3 (31:10):
Illustrations in it 

Speaker 1 (31:11):
Too. It 

Speaker 3 (31:11):
Looks like Peter Naden Naden. 

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, the illustrator. 

Speaker 3 (31:16):
Yeah. Did some mix of really clean spot illustrations and really messy sketches. 

Speaker 2 (31:21):
Sketches, 

Speaker 3 (31:22):
Yeah. 

Speaker 1 (31:23):
And 

Speaker 2 (31:23):
This was 1981, I think I saw. 

Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah. 

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah, so I thought that was kind of an interesting, 

Speaker 3 (31:28):
Yeah, that's cool. 

Speaker 1 (31:29):
Little project. 

Speaker 3 (31:31):
I'm just kind of poking around. What do we get? 

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Kind of has that classic hardcover beneath the 

Speaker 1 (31:39):
Dust jacket. Dust 

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Jacket 

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Book 

Speaker 3 (31:42):
Binding linen. 

Speaker 1 (31:44):
It's 

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Lovely. 

Speaker 1 (31:44):
This one here is pretty cool. I'll let you guys discover that all of its sort of layers. This one's called water fish. 

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Oh, it's 

Speaker 1 (31:53):
Kind of like Water slash Fish by Lois 

Speaker 3 (31:57):
Morrison. Is that the name on it there? 

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yes. 

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Lois Morrison. Oh, wow. 

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Yeah, so I love V h s. Yeah, it's a v h S box. Wow. 

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Oh, I love this. It looks like a hammerhead shark on the cover. 

Speaker 3 (32:10):
Oh, this is from the Women's Studio workshop in New York. Yeah. They're still around. Are they? Actually, yeah. 

Speaker 2 (32:16):
Oh, this is really beautiful. Actually, check this out. 

Speaker 1 (32:19):
That 

Speaker 2 (32:20):
Texture, it's almost like a, what is the word for that? It's textured in a way. It's 

Speaker 3 (32:25):
Like rice paper or something. Yeah, it was it a one color red printed on yellow rice paper and then cut out and collaged on, or just pasted on top of a white box. It's kind of like a card box, like a of cards. Oh. But then it has this nice bifold opening, like a gatefold and Wow, this is crazy. God. It's all cut out dye, cut sheets, two color printed different colors, and strung together with this wavy 

Speaker 2 (32:55):
Fabric 

Speaker 3 (32:56):
Of in there something. 

Speaker 2 (32:57):
It's the fabric looks like water. 

Speaker 3 (33:00):
It's bound 

Speaker 1 (33:01):
In a way. That reminds me of a Jacob's Ladder. 

Speaker 3 (33:04):
Yeah. Toy with 

Speaker 1 (33:05):
A ribbon kind of 

Speaker 3 (33:07):
On either side. 

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah. 

Speaker 3 (33:09):
Actually, now let me see that. 

Speaker 1 (33:10):
I wanted to try something now that I said that after, I was like, it's 

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Like a Jacob's 

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Ladder. I'm like, 

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Can you, 

Speaker 3 (33:17):
Oh, switch it around or whatever. 

Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. I don't want to break it though. Yeah, you 

Speaker 3 (33:21):
Can. Oh, nice. Oh, wow. That's insane. 

Speaker 1 (33:23):
Oh, wow. It does it. Yeah. Amazing. 

Speaker 2 (33:26):
That really is. 

Speaker 1 (33:27):
I didn't try this earlier since it's truly wavy. 

Speaker 3 (33:31):
Yeah. It even refers to Jacob's Ladder in the description. Yeah. When 

Speaker 1 (33:36):
You picked it up. I just saw that. I was like, I wonder if that will work. 

Speaker 3 (33:41):
1988. 

Speaker 1 (33:42):
I don't think I've ever seen a 

Speaker 3 (33:43):
Book bound like 

Speaker 1 (33:45):
A Jacob's Ladder. 

Speaker 3 (33:46):
That's That's really intricate 

Speaker 2 (33:48):
As we're reading the details here. Yeah. It's 

Speaker 1 (33:51):
Fish shaped pages 

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Printed with lino cuts. That's truly a one of a kind piece, 

Speaker 3 (33:59):
And even the fabric it's bound with is printed. There's fish, and then there's dye splatters to emulate 

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Water. I saw the water. I didn't even see the fish on there. Yeah. 

Speaker 3 (34:09):
Really cool piece. This one 

Speaker 1 (34:10):
I opened. This is another kind of, I'll let you guys put that one away since it's got a lot of heart since it's VHS case, that really threw me off 

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Back in the V H S. 

Speaker 1 (34:20):
I know. That was my favorite part 

Speaker 3 (34:22):
Too, 

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Opening in 

Speaker 3 (34:23):
Just 

Speaker 1 (34:23):
A V H Ss box in there. 

Speaker 3 (34:24):
You're like, what do I have the wrong thing? So many layers, because you open that and there's another box, and then you open that and you're like, what is this? Those are the best printed pieces. This one is also, I opened, I was pretty like, what am I? And I don't even know if I went too many levels deep, but this is by Christine. 

Speaker 1 (34:39):
Wow. 

Speaker 3 (34:40):
The iridescent of this immediately. 

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah. 

Speaker 3 (34:44):
Crazy. 

Speaker 1 (34:44):
It's so 

Speaker 3 (34:45):
Pretty. I how to go about opening this? 

Speaker 1 (34:47):
I think you just, 

Speaker 3 (34:48):
It's not too 

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Hard, actually. 

Speaker 3 (34:49):
Oh, wow. It's very like a box that's 

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Hinged, 

Speaker 3 (34:55):
But it's so 

Speaker 1 (34:56):
Beautiful on the outside. 

Speaker 3 (34:58):
Feels like in an ocean. Yeah. There's even some ceramic in here. Wow. Oh, it's inlaid. That's crazy. I think it's actually the back of the box, and they put a resin on top. 

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yeah. Over here too, there's numbers. 

Speaker 3 (35:14):
All kinds of little elements. 

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Almost reminds you of a child poking in the wet cement, 

Speaker 3 (35:22):
Right? 

Speaker 1 (35:23):
Yeah. Yeah. It's got that. The texture of it does. I mean, it has that cement quality to it. Yeah, 

Speaker 2 (35:29):
It does. And then 

Speaker 3 (35:31):
There's even a little bit of that cement stuff they put inside this little book, which is 

Speaker 1 (35:37):
The box, and it looks like it's just a sandpaper sort of texture, but really stands out 

Speaker 2 (35:45):
And it says it's a Belgium artist book on the interior. 

Speaker 1 (35:49):
I picked up this one. I was just looking at it. It's called Smoke in My Dreams by Mark Wagner. I was looking at it and there was this page that I've never seen before. I mean, most of it's very kind of collagey stuff going on, and it feels very handmade. Certainly the binding, but there was a page where there was that one there where it's like stuff kind of, oh, this one? I think it's that one. There was something almost, it felt like between the pages and the Oh, right here. Yeah, there's several of these. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's just a little shortfall. 

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Shortfall opening. 

Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah. It's like little secret messages between the pages. That's so cool. For me, that's the first time I've seen that in a book, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a duplex, but only half duplex, so you can hide something. And I was just kind of flipping through and my finger just kind of caught it, and I was like, oh, what's this? That's really interesting. 

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Probably how it 

Speaker 1 (36:45):
Was originally designed. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, that's really cool. I've never kind of experienced that. And I think that's one of the fun things about artist books is they sort of can take the very idea of what a book is, and you can really subvert that and sort of play with people's expectations. And this one, it feels pretty straightforward compared to some of these other ones. 

Speaker 2 (37:08):
I think John and I also love collage 

Speaker 1 (37:11):
In 

Speaker 2 (37:11):
General, and this is very reminiscent of the collage in the independent eye. A little more abstract. Of course, theirs was printed, but it's just that childlike. You 

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Cut something out and pasted, 

Speaker 2 (37:26):
And it's really fascinating. The results here. 

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah. These are all just motifs from Camel cigarettes packaging, it looks like put together in different organizations paired with letterpress and real sort of galactic style treatments of the page, like real deep blues and feels very astronomical. That's probably enough books for you guys, but I mean, it's never enough. I know. I know. I would've brought more, but at a 

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Certain point I 

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Was like, well, that's probably all my arms can carry. 

Speaker 2 (37:58):
I don't think we'd be doing the project 

Speaker 1 (38:00):
If we didn't like to 

Speaker 2 (38:02):
Dig through old archives. 

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for coming and being my guest today. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for 

Speaker 2 (38:08):
Having us. Sure. 

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Thank you for listening to Art Palace. We hope you'll be inspired to come visit the Cincinnati Art Museum and have your own conversations about the art. General. Admission to the museum is always free, and we also offer free parking. Special exhibitions on view right now are Kimono Refashioning, contemporary Style and No Spectators, the Art of Burning Man, which closes on September 2nd, labor Day. Join us on September 21st at 1:00 PM for an artist Workshop with Pam Kravitz. This worked, so bring your friends and family to share in a creative art-making experience. For program reservations and more information, visit Cincinnati art museum.org. You can follow the museum on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and also join our Art Palace Facebook group. Our theme song is a Frond Music How By Balal. And if you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review or rating and you can also take our survey, which helps us learn more about our listeners@cincinnatiartmuseum.org slash podcast. I'm Russell Leig, and this has been Art Palace produced by Cincinnati Art Museum.