Artist Member
Vernal Pool
Chinese Thread book (Zhen Xian Bao)
Handmade paper with inclusions with collage in each compartment illustrating life in a vernal pool.
5 x 9″
Arrivals and Departures
Canson flags with hand marbled liners, encased in a student-form book jacket
A flag book displaying bookmarks of all kinds, found in the returned books of an academic library where I worked.
6 x 9.5″
River’s End
A twisted panel, cloth-bound carousel binding, illustrated on two sides in pochoir, stamps, and text.
Made in honor of my mother.
5.5 x 8″
Janet Poirrier
Instagram – @janet.poirrier
BIO
Janet is a mixed media artist living in Western Massachusetts, with creative experience using a gamut of materials and manipulation—collage, printmaking, digital art, assemblages, and other techniques all may appear in her books. The Garage School for the Book Arts, run by Daniel Kelm, in Easthampton, MA was instrumental for her start as a book artist. Hedi Kyle, Dea Sasso, Barbara Mauriello, and Julie Chen are only a few of the wonderfully talented people she had the pleasure of learning from during the School’s operation.
Post-retirement from employment in a college library, Janet still very much takes delight in the physical mystery and surprise of books and their meaning beyond the page. The flag book “Arrivals and Departures,” for instance, came about from a habit of saving bookmarks discovered in returned volumes. Her books evolve from personal experiences of beauty, nature, and pattern, and a desire to communicate that vision.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
I have always loved paper, the feel and sound of it as it’s manipulated and it’s wondrous adaptability beyond two dimensions. Appreciating those qualities led me to the practice of origami, and later, to independent studies in the book and paper arts at the Garage Annex School for the Book Arts in Easthampton, MA. Besides making books, my creative experimentations today also include collages, miniatures, assemblages, and surface design.