By Paul Smart for The Hudson Valley Times, November 11, 2010. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a passion for words and images in equal measure,” says the artist/author Nava Atlas of what has pulled her into the sort of book-art work that will be on display starting on Friday, November 19, 2010 at SUNY-Ulster’s Muroff/Kotler Visual Arts Gallery in Stone Ridge, alongside comparable works by fellow Ulster County artists Ann Lovett and Maureen Cummins. “Stories written were always accompanied by drawings; visual works nearly always contained text. In the former, the visual component allowed me to share my interpretation of the words; in the latter, words added a layer of context and meaning. Further, the words themselves become an intrinsic part of the visual pleasure of the piece, whether one reads them carefully or not.”
“What are books?” is a suddenly tangible question these days, as people start to try out Kindle e-readers and iPads, or thumbing through digitized classics from Gutenberg.org on their smartphones. More than print newspapers, they’ve long been treasured as much for their tactile qualities – from covers and illustrations to size and heft – as what they contain. They have also long centered a very specific strain of creation – Book Arts, as which the medium is generally known – that has had a strong presence in our region because of Women’s Studio Workshop’s 35-plus-year history championing the form, along with key programs teaching it in many of the area’s top colleges.
Read the rest of the review in Hudson Valley Times – Paper tigresses Exhibit of artists books opens this Friday at UCCC in Stone Ridge