Biography

I discovered at an early age that books are a wonderful way to self expression. Out of this grew a life-long habit of reading and collecting. My education was in Art Histroy, so my studio experience has been largely self taught.

In the 1980's I discovered artist's books and mail through Treah Pichette in Massachusetts. We developed a taped correspondence (email was unheard of then) and began our exploration of the wonderful world of book arts which was then not widely known.

Early in the 1990's I saw a wonderful show of artist's books at Kenyon College curated by Ellen Sheffield and was totally smitten. Not only could I buy, research, and collect books, but I could make them combining my interests in poetry, photography, assemblage, and of course, paper.

With over 150 numbered volumes and many not, I have been busy with books ever since. However, during this time, I worked mainly on my own and the books stayed unseen on my shelves. Then, in the summer of 2008, a chance discussion at a wine tasting introduced me to the Cultural Arts Center and Emily Reiser's book arts class. Suddenly I was connected with a whole community of like-minded artists. The culmination of this year and a half association is this first ever showing of over 25 years of book love and art!

Stephanie Sherwood