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Marcia Weisbrot ~ California
(Pencilhead Press)
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Marcia Weisbrot: “It was during the making of artist’s books that I became interested in dresses as art objects. The meeting place of paper, shape, color, design and history struck me as an ideal venue for story telling. Using the empty dress as an icon, I explore female identity, memory and history. I challenge cultural assumptions, consumerism and materialism, while recording women’s lives through the mediums of book and paper arts.”
Verdad Magazine: "Marcia Weisbrot works with paper, including artist's books, narrative paper textiles, collage and stitched paper; all of which describes her observations about female identity, both historical and contemporary." |
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Dress Stories, Collected Memories
By Marcia Weisbrot
San Francisco: Pencilhead Press, 2024. Editions of 20.
5" x 5" closed, extends to 60". Digitally printed. Accordion fold with removable spine. Cover hand made with stencil illustration with title letterpress printed.
Marcia Weisbrot: "I have a special interest in celebrating women's lives and history through constructions of paper dresses. This time I have created a book of dresses. … ‘Dress Stories, Collected Memories’ features eight vignettes illustrated with fabric and mixed media collages. Each illustration depicts a unique experience, a memory of the time and place it was worn.
“The cover is entirely hand made with one stenciled dress (and bird!) and added drawing, on Arches paper on a background of Cranfield inks. The structure is an accordion fold with a removable spine that allows for extended display.”
Marcia Weisbrot, introduction: “’Dress Stories: Collected Memories’, emerged from a series of work on paper dresses that I had created. A call for submissions went out to everyone in my contacts asking for an image and text about their favorite dress.
“Over the course of a year a variety of stories arrived. Everyone wrote about a dress they had worn in their past. Clearly, clothing contains memories, holding a sense of place, time, and emotions.
“During the next several years as I started, stopped, restarted, interrupted, disrupted and struggled to complete this book, it became a repository of memories for me as the lengthy, laborious process proceeded, mirroring moments in my life.”
“Mom’s Dress; a Legacy”: At the bottom of the old cedar chest was a shimmering pile of champagne colored fabric. I gasped as I pulled out the dress that my mother wore on her wedding day. ….”
$125 |
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it's Her house now
By Marcia Weisbrot
San Francisco: Pencilhead Press, [2011]. Edition of 25.
5 x 6"; 14 pages. Flutter book. Digitally printed. Handmade cover paper with title label tipped on. Bound with twisted paper ties which can be untied so that the book folds out.
Marcia Weisbrot: "it's Her house now is an illustrated story of twelve images describing what happens when the spouse/lover/partner (or even, roommate!) moves out and She takes over the house. It's a universal story we can all relate to and understand.
"The illustrations are made from monoprints, altered with collage and other media, scanned and digitally printed, and bound in an accordion structure. The cover is handmade paper, by the artist, embossed and embellished with a relief printed window shade."
$ 250 |
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Confessions of an Anti-Shopper
By Marcia Weisbrot
San Francisco: Pencilhead Press, 2002. Edition of 20.
5.5 x 4.5". Letterpress printed pamphlet. Housed in a shopping bag.
"I hate to shop" is the opening line of this little book The artist and printer Marcia Weisbrot wrote, designed and hand illustrated this inviting book to relate an assortment of shopping experiences from Costco, to the Mall, to Safeway, Macy's and on-line.
$150
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The Glamour Sisters
By Marcia Weisbrot
San Francisco: Pencilhead Press, 2000. Edition of 20.
6 x 10” pamphlet. Written, illustrated and designed by Marcia Weisbrot. Color copied from original watercolor, pencil and ink drawings. Screenprinted cover. Pages are aptly stapled-in recalling the paper doll books of childhood.
"Seven kids and everyone of them is good looking! Not an ugly duckling in the bunch." Listening to her mother's repeated comment about her own brother's children planted a seed that sprouted in the artist's imagination as this book. Here, Weisbrot focuses on her four female cousins—Doni, Linda, LuAnn and Gina—dynamic and glamorous women all. Perhaps the most startling and intriguing of the bunch is LuAnn, a former barber, butcher, and hair salon owner who recently moved to Idaho where she is "dating a pilot and selling sex toys to all those good Mormon wives!" Small objects hint at each sister's character. The modestly portrayed pack of rainbow condoms and (oh, yes that is a) dildo clutched against Lu's pink suit and pearls are a hoot. Dolls are printed on the inside flap of the cardstock cover. They feature a modified photographic image of each sister's head set upon a hand drawn body dressed in characteristic undergarment. Inner accordion pages are a mini fashion show of two outfits each with brief textual introduction to that sibling. Cutting out and dressing the dolls can be fashionable (and nostalgic) fun. But the costume changes also reveal subtle generational shifts from oldest to youngest sister as, in addition, they comment on the enormous changes in women's lives over the last quarter century.
Delightful and humorous.
$70
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| Out of print / Sold titles by Marcia Weisbrot: |
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Looking at Makeup
By Marcia Weisbrot
1998. Second Edition, Edition of 25.
Three inch double-sided round accordion is pasted into the base of the plastic compact. The interior cover of the book is the familiar, beige foam pad used for applying color. Compact is housed in a gold fabric sleeve (three inches square) with printed title. Minion type on Strathmore paper. Hand colored pictures of women applying blush and tweezing, a heavily made-up face, and a tabletop array of cosmetics.
This small book housed in a mirrored compact expresses Woman's ambivalent relationship with cosmetics as both agent of transformation and of potential denial and constraint. Brief reminiscences of Charm School and of one sister tweezing another's eyebrows depict make-up's function as a rite of passage for girls, a chance to choose their own personas, what faces they will wear in the world. Make-up is part of the private language of women, a modern day initiation which we embrace or reject. As you read, peer over the top of the book into the mirrored lid at your own natural or made-up image and reflect on your choice.
(SOLD) |
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When
By Marcia Weisbrot
San Francisco: Pencilhead Press, [c 2004]. Edition of 15.
8.25 x 4.5"; 6 pages. Accordion fold. Photography, design, text, and binding by the artist. Letterpress printed in Century. Images machine stitched to paper. Bound in handmade paper wraps with title embossed on front cover. Pamphlet stitch binding. Signed and numbered by the artist.
A photo of San Francisco's 8th Street near the intersection of Carolina and 15th Streets stretches over four panels. An artistically posed question about homelessness: "When you are sleeping where are they?"
(SOLD) |
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| Page last update: 10.15.2024 |
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