Conclusion/Overall Thoughts:
Reflecting on my Pet Book project, I think I enjoyed looking more closely at this book. I think it has taught me to just in general look more closely at books. For example, I was at the library today and noticed a spine of a book was in velvet which led me to wonder why the author would choose that material and how it would contribute to the reader’s experience holding the book in their hand. I don’t think prior to this project I would have given it much thought. I particularly enjoyed looking more closely at Acorn because it was a gift from my husband so I think by studying it more closely I’ve been able to contemplate my own history and relationship with the book. I think when we look more closely at objects it allows us to have a deep appreciation for that item and generally recognize how it fits into our own world, specifically because this is a book that I own. However, I think looking back, part of me wishes I would have chosen a different book. I think I would have been more successful with the assignments with a book with more history, perhaps something that was less contemporary or perhaps something that was more outside of the traditional book making world.
Afterlives:
Although this book is not particularly old, and I’m the only owner of its history, it’s not particularly beaten up so to speak. There’s a water stain on the cover and the metallic text of YOKO ONO has chipped away in some areas on the cover and along the spine. There’s a black smudge or mark on the back cover that looks as though it may be some sort of art material. It does make me think of the life of this book thus far. As I said it was a gift from my now husband back when he was my boyfriend. He gave it to me as a birthday present when I had just graduated from college and was living in an apartment for the first time. So it does make me reflect on how this was one of the first objects that I owned that came into my life as an “adult” and in a way marked the beginning of the collection of objects that reflected who I was now in this phase of my life. It also was a time where I had first been exposed to conceptual art and Yoko Ono as an artist which really opened up my life in a particular way that has shaped the way I create and interact with art. When we think about our lives as scrapbooks I like being able to look at objects that embody particular time periods of our personal history and how it reflects that moment.
When I think about the future of the book I think about how it will exist in my library of books in my house and who might pick it up and read it next. We have an area in our house that is made up of bookshelves and many of the books are artist books, Yoko Ono’s Acorn is one among them. I’m having my first child in January and I wonder if she might someday find this book and if it will resonate with her. Both of my parents are artists and I was always surrounded by art books. I see those books as an adult and think back to what my perception of them was as a child. So I wonder how this book will fit into her life.
The overall concept of this book is to prompt and invite the reader to take part in the art piece, the conceptual instructions given throughout the book. As I discussed in a previous blog post, in Yoko Ono’s introduction she implies that the dynamic between word and image is presented as “brain work” for the reader. I think it would be impossible not to imagine how others have sat with this book. Have they attempted her prompts, has it brought them any new realizations? And since the words and images in the book help to reinforce the conceptual prompts, (as I discussed previously in the text, the instructions for these conceptual instructions are neither simple nor straightforward and the images are meditative dot drawings supporting that “brainwork”), I wonder how the images influences people’s experience of reading the text. For me, the fluidity of the dot drawings support the fluidity of the prompts.
Finally, how might a plant, animal, or alien relate to the book? Well, I think since so much of this book is conceptual, I like the idea of the book decomposing into the earth. I think if the book was left to the elements it would eventually break down and turn into the earth. There are many “Earth Pieces” in this book that ask us to think about our place in the universe. So there’s something circular about this book going back into the earth.
