Exhibition case
Book in case
Liz being introduced by William Dane
Liz smiling
With Bonnie Berkowitz
Artist's Statement (word document)
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Liz Mitchell, who grew up in Bernardsville, is influenced by nature, particularly by insectss, which figure significantly in
her books and in her collages. Images of bugs and other objects tend to come from geography books, geometry books, spec.
drawings for building construction, and short hand books, although her work also includes prints of her own making, and
rubber stamps produced for her. A collagist as well as a bookmaker, Ms Mitchell said that each process informs the other,
that the "movement between books and collages goes back and forth." The books discussed tended to be either altered books
or books that started out to be altered books (her Fragments had been intended as an altered dictionary and,
disintegrating in the altering proces, "became something else"). Most of her books are made without texts, including
Time Worn, which includes copper plates embedded in the pages, and Into the
Woods. Ms Mitchell noted that the title for Into the Woods refers back to her childhood experience: whenever
she or any of her siblings left the house, they would say goodbye by telling their mother they were going "into the woods."
Ms Mitchell also discussed her Cathedral Book, which celebrates the work of her
great grandfather and her grandfather, who helped to build the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Newark,
the world's fifth largest cathedral, beginning in 1899 and
concluding in 1954. Ms Mitchell ruefully noted that the cathedral was perhaps best known for its appearance at the beginning
of The Sopranos television series. In addition to printmaking, Ms Mitchell's work is supported by her facility in
low fire ceramics.
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