School of Art, Media and Design, UWE Bristol:
Loretta Cappanera
The artist’s book
4th June - 14th July 2007
In 1992, coming from a background as painter, I started to attend the International School of Graphics of Venice (Italy) to deepen my knowledge of the techniques used in contemporary graphics. In 1994, after I came in contact with the Master and friend Franco Vecchiet, I was introduced to the artist’s book, which eventually became the expressive field most used and loved by me. Since 1998 - when I was invited by the Director of Art Courses; Matilde Dolcetti - I have been working at the International School of Graphics, as teacher by project on the annual Artist’s Book course.
Some years ago the International School started some collaborative study programmes with universities of art, such as Boston University, and the University of Massachusetts, to name a few. Consequently, I had the opportunity to come in close contact with artists visiting from these affiliated universities, and working in a stimulating environment where tradition and innovation melted into a harmonious and productive synthesis.
Amongst all the artists I have met, I would like to mention Carrie Galbraith, who came from the University of Fine Arts of Philadelphia, USA. In 2001, Carrie Galbraith was invited by our School for a Graduate Fellowship - to teach print techniques and artists’ books; a role covered by her for 3 years. Carrie conveyed to me a lot of her way of making/thinking/book, day by day. Carrie introduced me to the Centre for Fine Print Research, at the School of Art, Media and Design, UWE, Bristol and to Sarah Bodman - and I have gladly accepted her invitation to show my work at the Library.
So what is the artist’s book for me and why do I use it?
Franco Vecchiet, introducing my work, wrote:
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“In a restless society,
split and in perpetual motion, where we also are witnesses or unwilling
actors, not even Art can take possess of the All, but finds
its strength by expressing itself in partitioned shapes, miniaturised, and Loretta Cappanera chose the artist’s book as her expressive form”
The artist’s book cannot be understood in relation to the big audience, but addresses itself to one person at time, in an innermost relation of senses and thought, through an endless exploration of shapes and interpretation of dreams, and is able to create new alphabets of communication that can be touched, listened to, tasted, watched, or at least read, thus abolishing distances and barriers.
In 2002, following my discovery of the book, I began a project, together with Andrea Zuccolo - poet and actor - to create a small publishing house: the CappaZeta Press. This has become a small home to books of poetry published in 25/35 copies whose purpose is to promote, by means of inks, the poetic word, the paper, the threads and the bindings, the emotion and experience of the book, in order to think with all the senses.
My love for the artist’s book became deeper and deeper, and the words of a great poet, Jack Hirshman, made me know, in the act of “sewing and binding” the roots of my way of making books.
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“And yes. She's / there, with you, never with /
l'amôr cence 'môr,*
always with /pietat gazing straight / upward and ecstatically down /
as one beholding a book / of delicate papers, tesserae, / gathered and sewn / like limbs of what's dismembered, /
re-spined, compaged / and rendered wholly manifest, / open upon her lap.“ **
* 'love without love'.
**Jack Hirschman, 12 ARCANI, Multimedia Edizioni, Salerno, 2004. The Vinodiviodi Arcane, p. 72
There is a time for living and a time for witnessing of living. Moreover there is a time for creating, and that is less natural. I am enough to live with all my body and to witness with all my heart. Living, witnessing, and the work of art will come consecutively. In all of this there is a kind of freedom.
In the artist’s book I find such a freedom. Since 1994, I have published 45 books, of different sizes, shapes and dimensions, some of them are unique books, while for some others I felt the need to print more copies (min. 5, max. 20). That is it: taking the pages and laying them in front of me, it repeats the wonder of putting together, sewing, binding, and the Book opens its arms wide.
Loretta Cappanera
Loretta Cappanera lives in Udine (Italy) at 11/7 of Via E. di Colloredo. She currently works both in her studio in Udine, and at the International School of Graphics of Venice (Italy). Her art works are in the public collections of: - Scuola Internazionale di Grafica di Venezia, (Italia), - Biblioteca Museo MART di Rovereto, (Italia), - Collezione Libri mai, mai visti, VACA, Russi-Ravenna, (Italia) - Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale – Roma, (Italia), - Biblioteca Casanatense, Roma, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, (Lithuania), - St.Istvan Kiraly Muzeum , Székesfehérvár (Hungary), - Collection Sarah Bodman, Centre for Fine Print Research, University of the West England, Bristol (UK), Collection City Lights Bookstore by Lawrence Ferlinghetti San Francisco (CA, USA), and private collections.
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