The Alternative Field Guide

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The Lloyd Library and Museum Cincinnati, OH July 2008 Exhibition September 13 – December 31, 2008

www.lloydlibrary.org

Residency activities were designed to connect each participant's personal experience with the tradition of understanding the natural world through collecting, categorizing and arranging evidence of careful observation.

The core group (made up of the Lloyd staff and individual adults) created individual installations/artists' books/mixed media pieces inspired by the Lloyd's collection. The Lloyd is a science library with resources that focus “ on a wide variety of disciplines that fall under the subjects of natural history, botany, pharmacy, and medicine. “ The collection includes a significant amount of pre-1873, wonderfully illustrated books. Members immersed themselves deeply into the collection and into the creative process, using images/text from the Lloyd to create their own pieces.

Participants used printed digital images as the raw material for their work. Images were enlarged, layered, juxtaposed or otherwise manipulated as mandated by each individual's developing piece. Images were printed on a variety of papers as well as on transparency and on silk. Members brought in additional materials- such as gold leaf, sticks, fabric, curtain rods, honey and a walker- to incorporate into their work.

Peripheral Participants included the Art4Artists group and the Teen summer group from the Clifton Recreation Center, and the librarians of the Cincinnati Civic Garden Center. My vision for their activities was: Inserting ourselves into natural history. Seeing ourselves as part of this knowledge not as separate from it.

TheArt4Artists final session was at the Lloyd. Members brought personal items from a list of suggestions I provided. We explored a series of writing and arranging activities as individuals and in small groups. Lloyd staff provided selections from the collection for our use that featured large striking illustrations and or covers. Many of these were the oversize elephant books- with pages over 36” in height. I photographed each of the participant's temporary compositions that combined their own ephemera and hands on opened pages and covers of Lloyd volumes.

The culminating exhibition held in the Lloyd's gallery space featured the work of the core group participants. The accompanying book exhibit brought together a sampling of books from the Lloyd's collection that inspired each participant with an individual artists' statement. A slide show of images of peripheral group activities was projected during the opening reception and is available here at right.

 

 

 

 

 

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Alternative Field Guide SlideShow

Alternative Field Guide Core Group SlideShow

(These are large files and may take a while to load, so please be patient and enjoy the show)

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