Studios > Studio Pages > Kathryn Okeson
Kathryn Okeson
I want to make a book. Another one. Bigger. The pages disambiguated, not bound. Hung. Handled. A maze. I am the mouse. You too. Follow my life. Left turn after adolescence. And meet me now. I will be making a book that dismantles book, that alters the surface which is read. Inter/feres with the act of reading. These pages, graphic. Novel. An artist’s book. Yes, really. Art. I swear! Real art processes will be used! Drawing! Photographs! Alternative means of printing! I mean it! I will im/prove myself! I am a real artist! I have skills! And ideas! I will use them together!
The community. I am around educators. All of the time. Not artists. And while I am working with kids to become artists, they still struggle with critique. I need the access to conversation, reflection, constructive critique. Plus, I really don’t want to flesh out autobiographical stuff with 17 year olds. I need the immersive experience which re-orients the creative process that happens by being in a location associated with artmaking.
Previous projects and books I have made are small, precious, quick-put-away-the-knife-and-oh-dear-the-expensive-paper-too size. I have made work which begins dialogue, which pursues a question, and resists an answer. I have made work which creeps into public spaces, that whispers: bookmarks in the library, rubber bands at the post office, photographs which document the body politic. With this project, I want to make a book which says “Let us stop keeping too much information. Let pages be released of their responsibility as narrators, and instead simply bear witness.”
