After she had whetted our appetite with the samples from the show, we were eager to visit the gallery for a reception later that afternoon. (And I later learned that many of our more curious collectors had toured the exhibition as soon as they arrived in Portland to get a sneak peek of the works.) But we still had a full day of programming to get through and as folks shuffled restlessly in their seats, Laura announced the half dozen prize winners of the juried art show. Pop-up Now! was judged by a three person panel comprised of book artist Jill Timm and MBS boardmembers Ellen “thepopuplady” Rubin and Larry Seidman. Fortunately for the conference, two of the winners were in attendance and were able to share their work in person. Mary Jeanne Linford won Best of Show, Editioned Book for her wonderful book titled Tool Box.
And Elsi Vassdal Ellis received the Gallery Choice Award for her detailed work entitled There Goes the Neighborhood. () A complete list of the winners as well as an online version of the catalog can be found here.
Of course seeing pop-ups online is a poor substitute for the real thing so if you are in the Portland area be sure to stop by 23 Sandy Gallery and check out the show yourself.
~Kyle
...random positive messages on signs...
...a fountain...
There is too much info for one post so I thought I would break it down and share some details from the first day.
Our conference kicked off with a talk given by the talented book artist, Colette Fu . I have been a fan of her work for a number of years and was blown away at the subtly and depth of the narratives that exist in her one-of-a-kind paper engineered artist books. Dressed in traditional Yunnan Province style clothing, Colette detailed her process of documenting the 25 ethic minorities of her mother’s hometown in China. By combining her striking color photography with massive pop-up spreads, Colette brought a distant people to the forefront of our consciousness.
She went on to describe her process of creating a series of large format pop-ups of various spooky locations in Philadelphia and a series of collaged photographic pops that focused on beauty, materialism and the colon. At the conclusion of the evening, when our dinner plates were cleared away and the Portland skyline twinkled at us from our perch atop the Hilton Hotel, Colette shared with us a charming collection of commercial advertising that she recently collaborated on for the Children’s Medical Center. Check out Colette Fu’s website to view the 30 second commercials and videos of her other work and learn more about this up and coming pop-up artist.
- Kyle Olmon
She creates drawings of things or services she has purchased and has done so since 2002. And they're really fun. You might think that someone taking on this type of task would draw each one within the same layout, but Kate plays around depending on what the object is (see eye brow wax picture).
I was recently introduced to a killer book. It was a gift, but not for me, so tempers flared when I got my grubby mitts on the hardbound book, but fear not I handled it like the gem it proved to be.
Killer Kaiju Monsters: Strange Beasts from Japanese Film was released in 2009 and compiled by Ivan Vartanian. I must say that Ivan did great job in developing this love note to Kaiju, which is simply translated from Japanese as ‘monster’. Now, I’ve been working on a pop-up project with monsters for a number of months now, but none of these bad boys ended up in the encyclopedic book. I’m talking about the ones from the 1950’s film that would play on Sunday afternoons in my youth. I’m talking about…oh my god…what is that….GODZILLA! I miss the simple pleasures of youth, yet I digress, so back to the book.
Not only is this book filled with classic movie stills and great photos but also other expressions of the kaiju culture. These include cut-away cross sections of Gamera and his gang, dissections of kaiju creations split on sheets of transparent paper, funky cut paper drawings, and a great papercraft lizard. Karikuri Kaiju was designed by Keisuke Saka who creates very inventive paper automata and some mind-boggling paper sculpture.
Anyone with fond memories of Godzilla battling Mothra would be proud to own this title, and I would be proud to call them a friend. Now let get out of this miniature cardboard version of Tokyo before he returns!
~ Kyle
