I think part of the reason I majored in art history was because of the beautiful books: sturdy, cloth-bound volumes with thick pages and large color plates. I generally enjoy reading, but given the choice between studying images and text, I will choose images.
Lenore Tawney: Signs on the Wind--Postcard Collages (2002) is a beautiful book. A brief but informative essay by New York Times' Art Critic Holland Cotter introduces Lenore Tawney and her work. The remaining 80 pages of the this 95-page publication each contain a photograph of a postcard collage created and mailed by Tawney between 1961 and 1990. All arrived intact at their destinations, despite containing some rather fragile elements. Since reading that she "considered the postmark itself an essential collage element," I hold her in highest esteem. Every time I peruse these collages, I find something I missed before.
It is a joy to discover an artist I never had the chance to study, to explore and fall in love with their work, and glean inspiration for my own correspondence art.
