By Annie Guthrie

 

Annie Guthrie talks with artist Alice Vinson about her exhibit, “Moment and Memory,"  on exhibit at the UA Poetry Center from January through May 2014. Alice Vinson is a mixed media and book artist. Vinson exhibits her work both nationally and internationally. Her work is held in the UA Libraries Special Collections and the UA Poetry Center, has appeared in 500 Handmade Books (Volumes I & II), Handmade Books, and has been featured in The Desert Leaf.

Annie Guthrie: Alice, I want to talk to you about this dress! To me, it seems the book has become a kind of skin, here. The story, the narrative, becomes something externalized rather than internalized, in its usual manner—the private act of reading now becomes a shared look between somebody and book-body. The book becomes something that is open, exposed to the world, worn, and touchable. Could you talk about why the pages have come loose from their cover, so to speak?

Alice Vinson: This was one of the first pieces I started that was meant to be a public, shared piece. I started it when my grandfather passed away my first semester in graduate school. I wanted to share these memories of him. As you can see, when all the panels are closed the dress is completely white, which kind of represents this idea that there will be no more memories. And although I am sharing something here, I usually keep a lot of stuff to myself. With this piece you have to come up close and make the effort, to actually look through the panels, and that’s kind of the way I am—once you get to know me I am more of an open book, compared to when you first meet me, I can be a little more quiet.

Annie: How do you see this narrative in relation to a specific body? It’s decidedly a female silhouette. How do you see the “feminine” as a controlling part of the narrative?

Alice: My grandfather always made me feel like this beautiful young person…he saw me as this young lady, and I always felt like this ragged, young tom-girl, because I grew up poor and I always wore jeans. So (this form) is kind of this compromise—that raggedyness, that poverty is still coming through, but also portraying that version—his idea of this young lady. 

Annie: That’s nice, this idea that how he saw you became part of you, became a kind of skin, so to speak…the text is partially exposed, some photographs exposed…I like the idea that his story is still forming you.

Alice: Yes, and honestly I think it will never end, I want to go back and keep adding more, because the way he affected me. I still think of him all the time, I still hear his voice.

Annie: Your book, Autumn, cast in bronze, is almost the opposite—seemingly keeping something heavy to itself—it seems to contain, protect and hold a sense of grieving. Why is the book so “heavy"?

Alice: So, I went up to Flagstaff and it was fall, and it had been a long time since I’d seen the leaves changing. It was a lovely moment, but at the same time it was a sad and somber moment because it’s something I realize I don’t get here in Tucson, and it’s something I really miss from my childhood—experiencing the four seasons—so that’s probably why it comes off heavy: its that remembering and that longing.

Annie: In writing a long series, or a sequence of poems, the writer may have a problem she needs to work out, maybe without even knowing exactly what is being investigated—maybe the writer is just following lead after lead. Poems can be evidence of that kind of thinking, or of a solution of a kind, and I wondered if this kind of thing translates for you as a 3-D artist working with text.

Alice: The process is different for every book. I never work the same way twice. Some processes are about resolving issues. The book Imperfection, for example, was totally built around resolving this issue about creating “perfect objects,” and I just worked in the moment. Other pieces pop in my head.  It’s very strange...it’s there complete, and it’s just a matter of getting it out—it’s just something I have to go home and do. I have so much stuff saved, materials and collections of photographs, that sometimes the image pops in my head and I just have to go home and get it out. 

Annie: Do you feel compelled to bring the objects into existence? What if you couldn’t make them? I’m interested in the process of bringing something into being, bringing something out of nothing into form, in its very most essential sense…the traveling it does, out of sight: the object in its unrealized form, on its way to manifestation. What if you just weren’t able to do it, to make the works, to bring them into existence? Imagine some limitation that prevented you from doing what you are compelled to do. What would happen?

Alice: I think I would actually go insane. I would probably resort to writing things in the sand if, say, hypothetically speaking, I were stranded on a desert island. It’s not that I think my thoughts are important, but I have to get them out, out there for people to see. From the get-go there has been a connection between other people and my work, and so its not just for me that I create the work, but I think it’s for other people. If I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t feel like I was part of the world! 

Annie: I was looking at your book, The Desert. As you go through the book, you realize through the language and also though the visual language of your photography, that “beauty” is equated with “untouchable.” I was wondering is if you were to make this book now, what would change for you—is the “beautiful” still “untouchable” for you?

Alice: What’s weird now—that book was made years ago, and now, I keep seeing the desert vanishing. So to me it’s becoming even less touchable in the sense that it’s being erased. If I were to remake it today, I would have to take that into consideration.

Annie: Let’s talk about this book, Less Than. The book is bound, literally in a kind of a cage. The cover has a kind of aggressive nature. This is an object that makes me think of ritual objects, something ceremonial, something that is doing a deeper work. It has a different quality, than some of the others, you can...feel it. I think The Desert has this quality, too.  People do make ritual objects to represent or let go of something—

Alice: That’s exactly what this piece was meant to do. It’s the last book I made as an undergraduate. It was embracing that moment that I could finally accept what had happened to me…embracing and accepting what had happened.

Annie: You’ve said before that you want people to feel welcome to rifle through and touch and really explore the books with their hands, and I love that about your approach—it’s unusual and not really the case in a gallery-type situation.

Alice: They’re books, and so they should be touched and read and held. I love for people to be able to handle them, and unfortunately in most museum or gallery situations it doesn’t happen. It’s difficult, for example, when you walk up to a Plexiglas case, and you’re bending and hunching over trying to peek at a page that might be open—you never really understand that piece and that’s kind of sad. With sculptural forms, you can walk up to them and walk all around them, but with a book it’s different. When I create them I create them with the understanding that people are going to handle them.

Annie: Given that in a gallery situation, the constraint is often that people aren’t able to touch the book—and largely, legibility is lost—how do you work with/against this constraint? Rather than losing the legibility—since you have made it clear that this an offering you are making—how would you say has the work changed to accommodate that?

Alice: What I’ve started playing around with is the book as installation; there are visual images, and sound, and the space itself—people can walk into the book and experience it—so for me, this has become the remedy, like the wearable dress piece. That’s where I’ve been pushing the boundaries of what I consider a book. Also, finding different ways of sharing the book. The Bookfitti project is something I started a while back: other artists and I create these little ephemeral books, printed and bound, in editions of 50 or less, and we distribute them into the environment for people to find. So there’s no attachment to them whatsoever! And that’s been my other way to counteract how I feel about “the Plexiglas case."

Annie: Is this the first time you have done a solo show? Or a first time doing a solo show exhibiting your collected works?  

Alice: This is the first time I have had a solo show with my artist’s books. It's amazing for me to see all of them in one place because it really puts into perspective how much work I've accomplished, which is difficult to do when they are normally packed away. Honestly, it means everything to me for people to get the opportunity to see all of them. Normally, I only have the opportunity to show a few pieces at a time, which really limits someone in gaining a real sense of my work. By showing them all at once I would like to hope that people will gain a better understanding of the works as a whole.