Book art, a form which has gained prominence in the last 20 years, is rather loosely defined. It includes oddly shaped or sculpted volumes in which the book is the mysterious keeper of secrets. It connotes books written and illustrated by an artist, and artist/writer collaborations. Narrative, sequence, the passage of time are often dominant themes, employing the real time passage experienced by a reader seated in an armchair, handling a special book, turning its pages (a pleasure only to be imagined in the museum setting). Small intimate, eschewing bombast, it is a private doorway into an artist's mind. The form vibrates with a personal stamp that eludes much public work and thereby lends itself to the introspection common to much women's art.
For the next few months an international show of book art, "Book as Art VIII," is at The National Museum of Women in the Arts.
Ann Zahn, a printmaker whose studio faces the Carousel at Glen Echo Park, has made a Dentzel Carousel calendar, a series of woodblock prints laid out in accordion fashion. Each month features an animal from the wooden menagerie. Seen from the low viewpoint of a child, the brilliantly colored animals tower, alive and galloping. August, the month of Leo, produces a roaring orange lion against a violet ground (a hint of gold at his head bespeaks his kingly crown). His bellows deliver a frisson of scary delight.