Artist Member
Press/Crush
Dimensions:
14” x 16” x 14” closed
72” x 14” x 4” hanging
48” D x 14” standing (circular)
Bin: 15”H x 18”L x 13”W
Stand: 4′ x 4′ x 12″H
Materials: Bookboard, crushed kitchen objects, drawings and distressed patterned papiers d’Arches, aluminum; bound with a tire chain; dowels wrapped with dictionary entries; galvanized bin for storage; white wooden stand for display.
Description: Unique sculptural book; 12 double pages: cover, 10 pages with objects, last page with text; dowels thread through binding and into stand for upright display; can also be displayed hanging or flat.
Artist Statement about the work: Press/Crush, a unique sculptural artist book, incorporates aluminum kitchen objects that have been flattened with a steamroller. These objects, combined with drawings, rubbings, prints, and collages, form the pages of this exploration of crushing pressure. The double pages fold open to support the structure; the crushed objects hang suspended within the page spreads. The pages are loosely bound with coiled strips of aluminum that attach to a tire chain from a school bus. The text on the last page riffs on the word “press”, forming a visual poem on woven strips: press press press re/press de/press press op/press com/press de/com/press press ex/press/ion press press im/press/ion im/press/ive press/ure.
Note: This book can be displayed freestanding, in a circle (see photo); the stand that accompanies the work holds the pages securely and allows the viewer to see all the crushed objects that hang from the page structures (see installation photo). Without the stand, the work is best displayed hanging (see photo) or with pages collapsed in a circle.
Life Unspooled
Dimensions: 8” x 4” x 6” closed; grater with attached books opens to approximately 24″; separate scrolled accordion is 2″x 14″ open
Materials: Rotary cheese grater; black papier d’Arches; photographs; black silk scraps; aluminum; glaze drop
Description: Unique Artist Book with three sections (two accordions and one scrolled accordion) housed in and attached to a small rotary cheese grater
Artist Statement about the work: My eldest sister’s complex and rich life ended with a short decrescendo into illness and hospice. During this end time I went to Paris where she was living to help care for her briefly and bring her back to the USA. It was during this two week period that the broken grater appeared as a harbinger and later became the vehicle for this story.
Life Unspooled is in three sections. Upon opening the arm of the grater, an accordion section unfolds, showing images of the eclipse as projected through a colander, echoing the pattern of holes on the grater drum and setting the mood for the reflective nature of the book. This section is punctuated by a drop of glaze from my sister’s kiln. Inside the grater well is another accordion book which is sewn to the grater drum. Pulling it open, one sees a series of portraits of my sister throughout her life, her gaze looking forward and back at herself as a baby, as a beautiful young woman, in middle age, and in her last years. Inside the drum, curled tightly in an aluminum coil, is another accordion section with the text, the story of the grater. All three accordion sections are affixed to fraying scraps of black silk.
Procrastination
Dimensions (Unique variant #4): 9.5” x 4.5” x 4’ (closed); opens to maximum 4’ long
Box: 10 ⅝” x 5 ⅝” x 5”
Materials: Found objects, bookboard, photocopies; bound with wire, egg timers, and cord; with box
Description: Freestanding accordion book; 17 pieces: front and back cover, 15 pages. Edition of five unique variants
Artist Statement about the work: Letters spelling the word P-R-O-C-R-A-S-T-I-N-A-T-I-O-N form the chunky pages of this book. Each page, made from book board, is backed with doodles and drawings from the margins of elementary school spelling workbooks. Minute timers are tethered to the pages with brass wire and serve as the accordion binding. In the first variant of this edition of five, elastic is threaded through the pages so “time will stretch.” As is befitting a small monument, the book is painted and burnished in bronze tones. The cover is an old alarm clock with no hands. The back endpaper is a clock collage with extra hours inserted; butterfly wings add a touch of fragility. This book is typical of my process: to take uncontrollable or ambiguous situations as subject matter, and by manipulating found objects, photographs, scans, and ad hoc binding techniques, make them manifest.
Artist’s BIO
Deborah Phillips Chodoff studied painting at the Corcoran School of Art and Columbia University School of the Arts, and printmaking at Atelier 17 in Paris, France, with Stanley William Hayter and Krishna Reddy. Her work includes artist books– both unique and unique variants, digital and analog collage, video, printmaking, painting, and drawing.
Her work has been shown nationally and internationally and is in numerous collections, including the Fine Art Collection at The Center for Book Arts in NYC, the MoMA library, libraries at Harvard, Yale, the University of Alberta, and Florida Atlantic University, and Hillary Clinton’s archive collection. Her work was included in the exhibition and catalog Freed Formats, which traveled throughout NY State and Connecticut, and has been selected and awarded prizes in numerous juried shows, including the Rochester Art of the Book and Paper.
As an art educator, Chodoff has taught every age from toddlers to adults. She served as the Art Department Chair at Wooster School in Danbury, CT, where she taught, among other things, printmaking, painting, drawing, 2D/3D, ceramics, and book arts. She has been a resident artist and has taught workshops for students and teachers at public and private schools in the tri-state area. Most recently, she was the Atelierista at the Putnam Indian Field School in Greenwich, CT, where she enjoyed sharing her love of process with her young students and their teachers. She is now retired from teaching and is looking forward to delving further into her own art-making process.
Artist’s Statement
Born of a need to tease out conflict in mundane situations, my artist books speak to the interaction of human nature with frustration, the push/pull of constraints and expectations, and encounters with uncontrollable situations and poignant events.
I have chosen the book form as the vehicle for this subject matter because of its time-based, sequential nature. Whether a book hangs, stands open, or awaits the viewer to manipulate the pages, the experience builds over time and space.
The collaged pages build on a base of heavily worked book board and include distressed, painted, and printed papers, photographs and scans. Embedded found objects add a tactile, physical dimension. The bindings combine traditional and ad hoc techniques. Larger found objects often serve a structural purpose, dictating the binding solutions along with the size and shape of the pages. Text, if present, consists of signs and found phrases, conceptual word play, or snippets of autobiographical writing that complement or steer the visual experience.
All the elements of the book refer literally or metaphorically to its central concept, resulting in sculptural, free-standing works that often stretch the limits of the book form.
Deborah Phillips Chodoff
www.deborahchodoff.com
dphchodoff@gmail.com