Libby Barrett ~ Maine

Finale
By Libby Barrett
Cape Elizabeth, Maine: Libby Barrett, 2009. One-of-a-Kind.

18 x 6 x 9"; 16 pages. Star-shaped carousel structure. Photographs are inkjet prints. Flower names screen printed. Materials: papers, bookcloth. Bound in cloth boards with stitched binding.

Libby Barrett: "A book of photographs of flowers at the end of their season. No longer colorful, but no less beautiful. Photos tipped in and Latin names screen printed on pages in silver."
$250

Rat Race
By Libby Barrett
Cape Elizabeth, Maine: Libby Barrett, 2008. One-of-a-Kind.

11 (h) x 12 (l) x 6.75" (w) boxed. Construction of basswood platform with hamster wheel (7" diameter) attached. Gray-green textured paper-covered box with artificial rubber rat attached to top. 25 pages (each 2 x 2.75") attached to rungs of hamster wheel. Other materials: binders' board and hardware.

Libby Barrett: "[T]his book explores the idea of how the American dream has gone from 'having enough' to 'having it all.' The dream used to be to provide food, clothing, and shelter for your family - and if you could manage it, higher education for your children. Now it's not just a home - it's a bigger home; it's not just clothing - it's brand-name clothing; it's not just food - it's food shipped from all over the world; and it's not just education - kids have to tailor their school and extracurricular activities to make an impressive résumé for college - the RIGHT college. It's a rat race out there!"
$500

Waiting to Be Revealed
poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley
book by Libby Barrett
Cape Elizabeth, Maine: Libby Barrett, 2008. One-of-a-Kind.

5 x 5.75"; 6 pages. Accordion structure. Manipulated image transfers. Inkjet printing. Materials: binder's board, papers. Bound in paper-covered boards with title tipped on cover. Signed and dated by the artist.

Libby Barrett: "This book was made for the exhibition Re: held in 2008 at various locations in England. Artists were to choose a word starting with the letters re and create a book with that word as the subject matter. Because I have a collection of seeds and pods and am fascinated by the structures that protect seeds as well as the incredible cycle of reproduction, I decided to use them as the focus for my book. The poem by Percy Shelley expresses perfectly how these seeds lie dormant - waiting for their 'tree-ness' to be Revealed - until the conditions are favorable for their successful growth."

The excerpt is from Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind."

O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth.

$200

Wish You Were Here
By Libby Barrett
Cape Elizabeth, Maine: Libby Barrett, 2006. One-of-a-Kind.

5 x 7"; accordion of 6 pages with pockets attached. Materials: photographs, inkjet prints, bus and train schedules, binders' board, papers. Boards covered with paper maps. Banded paper closure with printed title. Signed and dated by the artist.

Libby Barrett: "This is a little travel book made while living in England. It includes train and bus schedules as well as postcards made from photos I took on my journeys. Also included are notes which I wrote to my daughter about my adventures."
$200

Chocolate
By Libby Barrett
Cape Elizabeth, Maine: Libby Barrett, 2005. One-of-a-Kind.

5.5 x 5.5 x 2.125" box with pamphlet and five bon bons (ping pong balls). Constructed to simulate a box of chocolates, including gold/silver foil over faux chocolates and ribbon with seal around the box. Pamphlet: 4.5 x 4.5"; 12 pages; digitally printed.

Homage to chocolate. The pamphlet contains factoids about chocolate, from the times of Cortez in Central America to Victorian England.
(SOLD)

Dewey Decimal
By Libby Barrett
Cape Elizabeth, Maine: Libby Barrett, 2006. One-of-a-Kind.

5.375 x 12 x 11" lidded box with 6 titled sections divided by a tab card and a pamphlet. Each pamphlet: 4.5 x 4.5"; 4 pages; paper wraparound stitched binding with inkjet printed manipulated photograph. Paper-over-binder's-board box with faux suede-covered lid has file drawer hardware with paper title slipped in.

Libby Barrett: "Meant to represent a drawer in the card catalogue of the Dewey Decimal System, this box contains six areas of interest to me: birds, butterflies, beetles, mammals, flowers, and celestial navigation. Each section holds a small book which contains a general description of the subject matter filed under that catalogue number."

For example, the pamphlet for Beetles (595.76) contains a general introduction, "Anatomy," "Development," "Physiology," and "Scarab beetles in Egyptian culture."

Libby Barrett: "The source for all material contained Dewey Decimal is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page."
(SOLD)

A Little Light Reading
By Libby Barrett
Cape Elizabeth, Maine: Libby Barrett, 2010. One-of-a-Kind.

A construction (6 x 6 x 7") with painted black wooden base (6 x 6 x 1.65") and CFL (compact fluorescent light bulb). Bulb assembly attached to base with two screws. Bulb cover made with corrugated papers and lined with bubble wrap. Printed paper title slipped into a drawer label holder attached to base.

Libby Barrett: "The text on the light bulb follows the development of the light bulb beginning in 1809 with the creation of an arc lamp by an English chemist named Humphry Davy through the creation of today's compact fluorescent light bulbs."
(SOLD)

Production Standards
By Libby Barrett
Cape Elizabeth, Maine: Libby Barrett, 2009. One-of-a-Kind.

5 x 7.75"; 12 leaves. Grid paper pages. Egg drawings in watercolor. Text in pencil. Spiral bound. Signed and dated by the artist.

Libby Barrett: "This book is a sort of manual of architectural and production standards for common Maine birds: preferred habitat, elevation of the nest, size and color of the eggs, and length of incubation."

Each of the 12 pages contains an original watercolor of the bird's egg with standard commercial production specs: "Project Manager: Rose-breasted grosbeak; Site Location: Second-growth woods: Elevation: 10-15 ft.; Size 24.6 x 17.7 mm; Siding: Pale gray/heavily marked; Project timeline: 12-14 days."

This book was produced for the exhibition Bird Sightings at the University of Southern Maine in 2007.
(SOLD)

Protected
By Libby Barrett
Cape Elizabeth, Maine: Libby Barrett, 2007. One-of-a-Kind.

5.5 x 7 x 1"; 15 loose leaves. Images slipped in individual sealed clear plastic envelopes. Black foldout cloth box with button and key clasp. Signed and dated by artist.

From umbrellas to condoms.

Libby Barrett: "Images of items that protect us from all manner of things - chemicals, thieves, disease, fire, etc. And because you can never be too careful, each photograph of a protective device is, itself, protected by a clear plastic envelope."
(SOLD)

Songs our Mother Taught Us
By Libby Barrett
Cape Elizabeth, Maine: Libby Barrett, 2008. One-of-a-Kind.

11.5 x 4"; 13 pages. Painted pages.

Produced in conjunction with the exhibition Bird Sightings (Atrium Art Gallery, Lewiston, Maine, 2007).

Libby Barrett: "Each page is a painted interpretation of bird song on a musical staff which was created while listening to field recordings, and the colors used in the painting are representative of the feathers of that particular bird. Each song was given a title by anthropomorphizing these unsuspecting songsters and assigning them a human musical term, such as serenade or rhapsody, that seemed most descriptive of their performance. The paste paper cover was created using marks and color to simulate the weaving together of nesting materials."
(SOLD)

Worcester Cathedral
By Libby Barrett
Cape Elizabeth, Maine: Libby Barrett, 2006. One-of-a-Kind.

7.75 x 9.375" tunnel book of the interior of the Worcester Cathedral. French door binding construction. Photograph of the exterior of Worcester Cathedral covers the front boards. Digital printing. Signed and dated by the artist.

This tunnel book memorializes a five-month period Libby Barrett spent in England in 2005 discovering as part of two choirs the magic of singing in British cathedrals. The Worcester Cathedral is one marker of her experience: "... I spent much of my time at the Cathedral. The people in these choirs became my England family, and the Cathedral one of my favorite places to be - for its architectural splendor, its wonderful music, and the friendship I found there. The layers which add visual depth to this book also represent the depth of knowledge and love that I have for this place and the people who became my friends."
(SOLD)

Web Site
By Libby Barrett
Cape Elizabeth, Maine: Libby Barrett, 2010. One-of-a-Kind.

5.5 x 5.5 x 4.25"; four-sided drop box with lid. Origami spider. Paper cutting. Arches Text Wove over binder's board. Outer cover hand painted. Paper title label tipped on lid. Poem by the artist.

Libby Barrett: "This book is a whimsical interpretation of the theme of an exhibition entitled Spineless Wonders: Invertebrates as Inspiration for which the book was designed. The poem describes a watchful spider waiting for dinner to arrive in its web."

The web trembles
dinner has arrived
on today's menu
bluebottle fly.

(SOLD)