Anne-Claude Cotty
Briarcliff Manor New York
Briarcliff Manor New York
Bio: Anne-Claude Cotty came to artists’ books while doing graduate work in printmaking. She recently moved to Briarcliff Manor NY after living on Deer Isle ME for almost forty years, where she enjoyed a career evenly divided between studio practice and teaching in craft schools, school residencies, conferences, and community arts. Her prints, pinhole photographs, and artists’ books have been shown in museums and galleries across the country and abroad. She studied visual arts at SUNY Purchase and has an MS in Applied Linguistics from Georgetown University and an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Alberta in Canada.
Statement: Books are performance pieces. Little theaters, one book to one performer. An intimate experience of sensual pleasures--not just of sight, but of touch, smell, hearing. We have performed books since we were children, turning pages, sensing a drama unfolding, the unexpected to follow. Some are crazy with movement and fiery images, while some are quiet and move slowly. Either way, they offer a venue for prolonged engagement and hidden treasures.
Making books has freed me to combine such materials as wood, metal, clay, silk, and paper while exploring a book's sequential, kinetic, and sometimes sculptural qualities. I'm given license to juggle and layer various tasks, those of a designer, calligrapher, photographer, wordsmith, woodworker, and so on. Such a multiplicity of tasks has the additional benefit--a particular one for me--of alternating roles as artist and craftsperson. The wizardry comes first; then, the oftentimes less enchanting demands of discipline and detail.
Statement: Books are performance pieces. Little theaters, one book to one performer. An intimate experience of sensual pleasures--not just of sight, but of touch, smell, hearing. We have performed books since we were children, turning pages, sensing a drama unfolding, the unexpected to follow. Some are crazy with movement and fiery images, while some are quiet and move slowly. Either way, they offer a venue for prolonged engagement and hidden treasures.
Making books has freed me to combine such materials as wood, metal, clay, silk, and paper while exploring a book's sequential, kinetic, and sometimes sculptural qualities. I'm given license to juggle and layer various tasks, those of a designer, calligrapher, photographer, wordsmith, woodworker, and so on. Such a multiplicity of tasks has the additional benefit--a particular one for me--of alternating roles as artist and craftsperson. The wizardry comes first; then, the oftentimes less enchanting demands of discipline and detail.