27-72
27 - 72

Poems by Alex Appella
Illustrations by Eve Slinker
Icho Cruz, Argentina / Enterprise, Oregon: Transient Books, 2006. Edition of 3.

9.25 x 9.25 x 4.5"; 14 pages. Accordion. Acid-free materials. Giclée prints printed on an Epson Ink Jet Printer. Text and images tipped onto pages of red, blue, green, brown, or rose bookboard pages bound with 1.6" black ribbon. Housed in a black paper-covered clamshell box. Designed and bound by Alex Appella.

Two women: aunt / niece; Oregon / Argentina; artist / writer-bookmaker.

Alex Appella: "From April 2001 to April 2002, Alex Appella and Eve Slinker maintained an artistic exchange through the mail. Alex was living in the sierras of Córdoba, Argentina. Eve Slinker was living in Wallowa County, Oregon, USA. Alex sent a poem, Eve responded with a painting, and so on over the course of a year. They did not discuss the exchange outside of the artistic responses they sent back and forth.

"The book’s title reflects the ages of the artists: Alex Appella was 27 at the time, and her aunt, Eve Slinker, was 72. The exchange itself mirrors a relationship of mutual inspiration. It is a conversation between the hope of over 7 decades, and the despair of nearly 3.

"In October of 2002 the original paintings and bound poems were shown at the Pendleton Center for the Arts in Pendleton, Oregon."

About the Artists:

Alex Appella, originally from Oregon, began binding her books on a boat in Alaska, with the idea that original literature should be accessible, both for the writer and for the reader. After traveling half-way around the world with a mini-bookbinding workshop on her back (including a typewriter), and selling her artist’s books on the streets and plazas of Latin America, Alex now creates them in her studio in Argentina, and offers them through internet. Alex’s varied collection of artist’s books can be found in public and private collections throughout the US, and beyond.

Eve Slinker: “The arts have been a part of my life from the time I was a child until now, when I am a senior citizen. It wasn’t until I missed yet another complicated run in a two-piano piece that I decided, definitively, that I would switch to the visual arts instead of music. Music travels through time and space and leaves nothing but a feeling behind. It can be glorious. With visual arts there is something tangible, good or bad, that leaves a feeling as well an object that can be touched and felt. I needed that concrete evidence.

“When I went back to school, after raising my children and being a housewife, mother, companion, and “looker after,” my thoughts were to be more sophisticated than I had been with the arts, and to expand my watercolor background to include oils, drawing materials, and water miscible media to further my endeavors.

“My inner life has been foremost in my imaginings. Religion and politics are other persons’ subject matter. It’s my family and myself that has been the subject of my paintings, whether the actual picture is of birds, trees, interiors, or the Snake River. Whether there has been guilt, sorrow or happiness expressed, color has a great deal to do with my feelings.

“I used to wonder about painting things that represented other ideas. As I get older I wonder less. I look back at things I’ve painted and recognize that they represented a period of my life. Not being a wordsmith, I put things into paintings, choosing the media according to what would express the feeling of the painting best – not that there were conscious decisions. Things just happened. Now, I believe that there are no accidents, the right people show up at the right time and we all have a higher power that/who has an influence on our lives.

“It is up to us to trust and it is our honor to be creative.”
$800 (Last Copy)