The Daily Palette Vintage

JULIA LEONARD
Fifty-two words, Stiff leaf binding, laser print text, cut outs, japanese dyed papers, 4"x10" (closed), 2001

Julia Leonard graduated with an MFA in design from the University of Iowa in 2001. She now operates a binding studio in Iowa City and teaches Bookbinding and Graphic Design at the University of Iowa. She works on her own one-of-a-kind and editions artist' books, as well as commission , limited production and edition binding. Her work has been shown nationally and has been acquired by private collectors and special collections libraries.

"Making use of the book as an artistic medium is possible partly because of what we (Westerners) bring to the book, our collective connection with it ... Experiencing a book is a tactile, intimate and private activity. It requires time, a slowing down and settling in. Nooks can act on us as an icon or reliquary does, evoking a spiritual reaction a contemplative psychic space. For me, books speak of the past, of what is gone or perhaps never was: a kind of slow beauty, longing and melancholy. I am drawn not only to the stories within, but the texture of the type, the smell of the paper, the fell of the covers, the physical presence of the book. Drawing on these impressions, I am looking at the visual quality of writing, language in its physical form ... Text, visually, can weave its own stories. In much of my edition and one of a kind work I am using words and the book, its physical form and textual content, as image, in order to weave a meaning that can be sensed rather that literally understood."

This page was first published on January 11, 2005.