Artist Book: Seeing and Seen

 

Seeing and Seen, front and back cover. 2.5 x 3 inches, artist book by Judith Hoffman

Seeing and Seen, pp 1 and 2

Before the book I want to tell you Feedburner is going away. If you are getting email notification when I post a new blog entry, that will end in July. I have downloaded the email addresses from Blogger and will send you an email when a new blog post is out. If you want me to email you directly, you can let me know at judithDOTzDOThoffmanATgmailDOTcom. Of course change the capital letters to the appropriate symbol. That is a "z" as in zebra. I will also announce new blog posts on my Facebook pages and my Instagram. I have two Facebook pages - I prefer to use the personal one but I will keep posting notifications on my "business" page also. Please note - you can't count on Facebook showing you my posts. It may help if you add my feed to your favorites. My Instagram gets more love than my Facebook page, but not many reposts. 

I made this book in 2020 and apparently never took photos or posted about it. Images should enlarge.

I am happy spending most of my time alone, but during the pandemic I realized how important it is for me to spend some time with my friends. I want to see them, to understand them in their complexity (or at least try) and to be seen by them.

Seeing and Seen artist book pp 5 and 6

My art energy was on pause last year, but one thing I did was look through old, unfinished projects.

2.5 x 3 inch old painting/collage tests, sanded to be glued back to back

Among many other things, I found a stack of small mixed media collage experiments on 300 pound watercolor paper. I love small! And because the paper was already used, I didn't feel bad making some experimental collages on the back sides. Above you see the old painting experiments, sanded before gluing them back to back with PVA. They did get interesting didn't they? Sanding turns out to be an awesome technique.

Seeing and Seen artist book by Judith Hoffman pp 7 and 8

I started the experiments by collaging found images that reflected my scattered mind. Then I added drawings of faces to the results. The drawings are on architect's tracing paper, which is fairly transparent.

Seeing and Seen artist book by Judith Hoffman pp 9 and 10

As some of the collages came together I spread them on my work table and made pairs of pages. I realized some of the people in the images were trying to connect with each other.

Seeing and Seen artist book by Judith Hoffman pp 3 and 4

Some looked away, connections were not made. But a few were able to see each other and make contact. 

Seeing and Seen artist book by Judith Hoffman pp 11 and 12

To assemble the pages I glued the collages back to back. I drilled small holes in each page and bound them with Keith Smith's singe sheet binding method. The original paintings are not seen, except for a small bit around the edges which you can see that most clearly in the first photo of the front and back cover.