- Anything Can Happen
- Come Into My Parlour
- Dirty Windows
- does anyone have any idea what's going on?
- Family Album
- Ghost Costumes:
- Good Girls Don’t…
- A Good Wife Wouldn’t…
- A Lady Always Has Beautiful Shoes and a Pretty Hanky
- Misleading Advice
- Rough Girls
- Sex rules: Dos and Don’ts
- Suitable for Success
- What are Little Girls/Boys Made Of?
- Wrong!
Anything Can Happen is a shuffle book, in which the reader can arrange and rearrange the pages to create any number of stories about male/female relationships in the late twentieth century. The images and text are appropriated from men's and women's fashion magazines, collaged and photo-copied on cardstock. The unbound pages are held together by black elastic. #101 to #150 are now photocopied in colour on Boise HDP Color Copy Cover (80 lb.)
1989 & 2010, Toronto & North Bay, ON. 52 cards. (8 1/2 x 5 1/2″) Edition of 150. $60
Twenty-eight women share stories about bad hair days. David Melhorn-Boe computer typeset the triangular pages of text, which was offset printed on Byronic Text, in pink. The book has been fan-folded into a triangular, handmade paper wrapper, with a perm-rod closure.
1989 & 2010, Toronto & North Bay, ON. 52 cards. (8 1/2 x 5 1/2″) Edition of 150. $20
With a design based on a traditional quilt pattern, Dirty Windows gives us both women's and men's true confessions about housework—who does what, and how, and why. Hand-printed text is photo-copied on Domtar Plainfield Offset. The pages are bound in the Japanese fashion, using cotton thread, into handmade paper covers with an acetate overlay at the front.
1992, North Bay. 17 pages. (8 1/2 x 8 1/2″) Edition of 100. $15
Statements and questions lead to answers which lead to more questions about women's sexual relationships as presented in women's fashion magazines. This accordion-fold book with collaged text and images was colour-copied on hemp-cotton-flax cardstock.
2001, North Bay. 14 pages. (5 1/4 x 4″) Unlimited edition. $25
Photos of four generations of good little girls from my own family are paired with other women's stories about being good, or their parents’ expectations of goodness. Handmade paper covers enclose Kutatani end-papers and hemp-cereal straw text pages, which have been photocopied in black and white. There is a plastic comb binding.
1994, North Bay. 12 pages. (8 1/2 x 5 1/2″) Edition of 100. $30
Sixteen life-sized replicas of clothing which the artist's mother and father wore during their lives. Pauline's sheer nylon dresses range from a six-year-old's party dress to her air-force uniform to a two-piece dress she had in her wardrobe when she died. Each garment has a sheer panel inside it with rubber-stamped text from her journals. Kurt was a lot older than Pauline, so his first garment is the lineman's outfit he wore on his first job. All his garments are work clothes, as that was the centre of his life. Each garment has a work-related photo on the chest. (See “Home/bodies” on the Essays page.) Her poignant text about her frustrations at not being able to create are juxtaposed with the mute but powerful photos of what he accomplished.
1996-7, North Bay. 16 “pages.” Unique. $5000
Sunbonnet Sue pop-ups, with the Virgin Mary superimposed on them, are surrounded by rules for good girls, such as “Good girls don’t fight back” and “Good girls don’t whine.” Rubber-stamped text and colour-copy transfers on handmade linen paper, which is accordion-folded with a self-cover.
1994, North Bay. 4 spreads. (5 1/2 x 3″) Edition of 30. $75
This story about a woman who wants a dishwasher, but whose husband won’t let her buy one, even with a prescription from her doctor, and money from his parents, was told to me by Danielle Hart. It’s a tunnel book made of pink handmade paper hands with colour-copied images of dirty dishes, washed dishes in a drainer and a dishwasher at the end of the tunnel.
1997, North Bay. 6 pages. (8 1/2 x 10 1/4″) $500
Women define being a lady and tell us whether or not they, themselves, feel lady-like, or wish they were a lady… or not. The delicate Japanese paper hankies with colour Xerox transfer borders are letter-press printed in a pale pink Japanese paper-coverd box.
1984, Detroit. 5 pages. (5 1/2 x 5 1/2″) Edition of 20. $150
ONLY TWO COPIES LEFT!
Misleading Advice
Women’s magazines are chock-full of advice—this handy volume wastes no space on articles but gives you nothing but advice on everything from “Eight things never to say to the man you love” to “Ten ways to make yourself miserable”. The pamphlet was photocopied both in colour and black and white, on Domtar Plainfield Offset paper, and stapled like a magazine.
1997, North Bay. 22 pages. (11 x 8 1/2″) Edition of 25. $45
Women’s magazines are chock-full of advice—this handy volume wastes no space on articles but gives you nothing but advice on everything from “Eight things never to say to the man you love” to “Ten ways to make yourself miserable”. The pamphlet was photocopied both in colour and black and white, on Domtar Plainfield Offset paper, and stapled like a magazine.
1997, North Bay. 22 pages. (11 x 8 1/2″) Edition of 25. $45
Christine Charette’s story about beating up boys in Grade Two is rubber-stamped on miniature blue jeans, which tumble across the accordion spine with tiny running shoes kicking here and there. This is a handmade paper flag book with a hard cover.
1996, North Bay. 5 pages. (11 x 7 3/4 x 1 1/2″) Edition of 10. $500
Illustrations from fashion magazines are paired with strange commands to create a bizarre little rule book for sex in the new millenium. The book is accordion folded with collaged text and images, colour-copied on hemp-cotton-flax cardstock.
2001, North Bay. 14 pages. (5 1/4 x 4″) Open edition. $25
Suitable for Success
What should women wear to work? The texts include rules from a dress-for-success book and stories from professional women humourously juxtaposed with fashion editors’ suggestions (images from fashion magazines). The pamphlet is photocopied in black and white on Rolland Alkaline/Acid-free Offset, and is hand-sewn into a handmade paper cover. (See Creative Meaning-Making on the ESSAYS page for an image of page one.)
1993, North Bay. 24 pages. (8 1/2 x 3 1/2″) Edition of 100. $15
What should women wear to work? The texts include rules from a dress-for-success book and stories from professional women humourously juxtaposed with fashion editors’ suggestions (images from fashion magazines). The pamphlet is photocopied in black and white on Rolland Alkaline/Acid-free Offset, and is hand-sewn into a handmade paper cover. (See Creative Meaning-Making on the ESSAYS page for an image of page one.)
1993, North Bay. 24 pages. (8 1/2 x 3 1/2″) Edition of 100. $15
What Are Little Girls/Boys Made Of?
Here is a nursery rhyme book with a difference! This accordion compares nursery rhymes about girls to those about boys, drawing attention to how sexist they are. The die-cut pages, which are shaped like dresses and shirts-with-shorts, are offset-printed in pink and blue on Exeter pH-neutral paper.
1989, Toronto, 14 pages. (5 x 4″) Edition of 750. $10
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Here is a nursery rhyme book with a difference! This accordion compares nursery rhymes about girls to those about boys, drawing attention to how sexist they are. The die-cut pages, which are shaped like dresses and shirts-with-shorts, are offset-printed in pink and blue on Exeter pH-neutral paper.
1989, Toronto, 14 pages. (5 x 4″) Edition of 750. $10
