The Artist Book Class Presentations
I spoke with Maddy Placik about her project titled, “1932”. For this response I will share with you all the interview I conducted with Maddy Placik about her project.
S: What have you been working on in your Artist Book Class?
M: We started by learning how to bind; we bound our own sketchbooks. Then we moved on to our zine projects and made 25 of them. My Zine was about fashion and trends. After that we worked on page design and layout. I made a page design based on future. After that we started working on our books. I wanted to do 1932 because that was the year my grandpa was born, 1932. We are both in physics. I found when I looked at the photos that a lot of important things happened in American. For example that was the year Einstein came to America and a scientist won a Nobel Prize.
S: Tell me how you chose the collection of photographs in your book.
M: They all had to be from 1932. I picked the ones I thought were most interesting in terms of the aesthetic and also the subject. I wanted the physics pictures that I took to be artistic as well.
S: What’s your favorite photograph in your book?
M: My favorite is probably this picture of Einstein, taken by an unknown photographer.
S: Why do you like it so much?
M: I think it is super clear and I wouldn’t expect a photograph from an unknown artist to be so clear. It is shocking how good of a picture it is. It is very candid.
S: Explain the process of making the book.
M: First we decided what subject it would be on and then I looked at some pictures that I would want to include. Then I laid out how all the photos would be organized. We had to make a draft because is hard to organize the pages. We printed the first draft on normal paper. Then we printed our final pictures on really nice paper and then we took our paper to the bookbindery. We took them to Chuck Ferguson in the basement of the Chapel. He directed us and we bound our own books, it took a total of 3 hours.
S: What was your favorite part of book project?
M: Seeing it all come together at the end as one.
S: Do you think you will ever book bind again?
M:I would like to. It was a fun process and it is rewarding to have a book that I made start to finish.
Gary Green joins us*
(He picks up the book)
G: This is beautiful this is great. Wow! Congratulations.
S: What are you going to do with the book?
M: I feel like it would be nice to have on a bookshelf. It reminds me of my grandpa which is nice. I’m excited to show my parents. I’ll probably bring it home for winter break. Maybe I’ll just keep it safe at home.