We Shall Always Return / Bookseeds I / Bookseeds II : Nancy Bardos, Ashland, Oregon, USA, 2013
Lovers of books. Those were the people who populated al-Mutanabbi Street for centuries, gathering to buy and sell books, to read and discuss the ideas and ideals their authors extolled. All that ceased on a dark and dangerous day in March 2007.

Through my artist books, We Shall Always Return and Book Seeds I and II, I honor the human lives lost and the unimaginable suffering that occurred that day. I pay homage to the sharing of ideas and the freedom to explore cultures, opinions, art and history that the al-Mutanabbi Street book lovers hungered for and embraced.

In the beginning, I had difficulty defacing the books used in my project. But by doing so I watched them slowly transform into symbols of the renewal and rebirth that will surely happen no matter how many books are banned or burned or blown up due to narrow worldviews. I relish the process and the certainty that the roots and seeds of ideas will always yield harvests. Writers will always write. Readers will always read their words.

We Shall Always Return, Dimensions: 10 ¾ inches X 18 X 10 inches (to top of tree); Medium: deconstructed book, inks, handspun Uruguayan wool, clay, book pages

Bookseeds I, Dimensions: 7 ½ inches X 5 X 7 ¾ inches (to top of seed packet); Graphic Designer: Judy Scott Novak; Medium: deconstructed book (Goethe. Thomas. circa 1930s), book pages, inks, printed graphics, coffee stir sticks

Bookseeds II, Dimensions: 9 ½ inches X 7 X 7 inches (to top of seed packets); Graphic Designer: Judy Scott Novak; Medium: deconstructed book (A Library of Poetry and Song. William Cullen Bryant.1871), book pages, inks, printed graphics, coffee stir sticks

Nancy Bardos has had a lifelong pursuit of photography. In recent years she has added mixed media and artists' books to her repertoire. Following course work at La Romita School of Art in Italy, she assisted in managing Gallery DeForest in Ashland, Oregon, co-hosting shows dedicated to mixed media and works on paper. Thus began a collaboration partnership with owner, Cathy DeForest. Besides work with visual arts, the pair started a winter series of poetry readings and a citywide happening every April called 'Poets on the Loose' to celebrate National Poetry Month.

A former peace award winner for her work with Women in Black, Bardos was also a founding member of the Peace Fence/Peace Wall, a public art installation in Ashland. Nancy is currently enamored with iPhoneography and has been exhibiting locally.

Nandiane33@aol.com