L J Douglas, Illinois, USA
I wanted to create a bookmark that was a mini-artist's book. It addresses ideas about living in Illinois, in the Midwest United States.
Illinois is part of the “ocean of grass” that early settlers saw when they first came here. The prairie covers 1.4 million square miles, from Canada to Mexico. Almost all this native prairie is now gone. In Illinois, private and industrial farms have replaced native prairie.
Original settler, Christiana Tilson, wrote the letter I reproduced. Tilson was a Yankee, born in Kingston, Massachusetts who at twenty-six, married, and traveled to Illinois. The Tilsons build a house and established themselves. As New Englanders, they were in the minority since most of their neighbors were from the South and had Southern values. The Tilsons were well educated, hard working, and independent minded. Christina's letter reflects her surprise at facing an unexpected situation.
The third image is of a child's stamped depiction of a farm. The farm image is ironic. We have destroyed over a million miles of prairie, uprooted the native people, and created an industrial farming empire that supplants the natural environment. Yet we (Americans) childishly hold dear and mythologise the idea of the farm as the “perfect” state of life.
My artistic practice is wide-ranging. I create paintings/drawings, prints, animations, artists' books, and collaborative projects. In my paintings/drawings, prints, animations I use the language of abstraction to talk about aspects of the body. The artists' books take place in time and are performative, they give me a forum to express ideas other than those espoused by my traditional studio practice.
www.ljdouglas.com
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