Long before ebooks revolutionized publishing, artists were doing it the hard way: thinking outside the lines of the traditional to create handcrafted chapbooks, design zines, create extraordinary photo books and otherwise gather their works into one-of-a-kind, beautifully bound collections.
Today, services like Blurb—which was founded by a photographer–make it incredibly easy for artists to publish and distribute their work.
If you’re looking to add some visual verve to your library, check out some of the art books we’ve gathered below.
A Thousand Ways to Kiss the Ground by Sargam Griffin
A small, 20 page book with a lot to say, A Thousand Ways to Kiss the Ground features beautiful and hypnotizing paintings–each made up of at least 40 layers of paint, varnish, and resin.
Griffin’s paintings feature delicious, calming color palettes, and the original poems that go with each provide a deeper insight or point of entry into the art. It’s a good day-starter: pick a random page at breakfast and meditate on it throughout your day!
Homeland by Florian Paul Koenig
Koenig’s book is a time capsule: while cleaning out her “nana’s” house, she discovered a box of old photographs six decades old.
If you miss the days of vintage photo albums or enjoy voyeuristically observing a far-away land (in this case, Rehetobel, a small municipality in Alps of Switzerland), you’ll love paging through Homeland. There are stunning black and white scenes of sweeping landscapes, majestic snow covered mountains, engaging portraits and village life.
Rosengard Special by Misaki Kawai
Rosengard Special is a set of eleven zines, with an authentic, handmade look and feel, created by the Japanese artist Misaki Kawai and published on the occasion of the Wall Mural & Zine Workshop, with local youth in Malmö‘s Rosengård community.
Like most of Kawai’s works, the zines are filled with colorful characters, who appear to come from the dream world of film, music and comics. Strongly influenced by today’s consumer society – of which she herself is a part – Kawai fuses East with West, humor with seriousness and dreams with reality. The result is both chaotic and exuberant.
The Habit by Julia Sherman
The Habit is a catalogue of Julia Sherman’s project exploring the nun habit, or the typical nun dress.
The project features photographs of dolls donning the robes–the only surviving patterns for some centuries-old habit designs–and the artist trying some habits on herself. Those are the most striking images, but there’s more–chronicles of Sherman’s work with a nun order to make a line of facial creams, for instance–making this an interesting insight into the overlap between fashion and the religiously devout. Find out more about the project in this Paris Review writeup!
The Note to Self Project By Various
The Note to Self Project is a portrait and social history project conceived of by photographers Angela & László Dukat that began in the winter of 2015.
Participants–101 altogether–sat for a portrait with one of eight photographers, submitted a childhood photo and put pen to paper to write a note to their childhood selves, communicating words of wisdom or hindsight.
The result is a combination of compelling photographs and a rich, multi-generational social history, imparting wisdom from lives well lived.