At times books feel like lifeblood; never more so than now.
And while I’m not yet at the point of thinning out my library, I am making a real effort to not bring too many new books onboard…unless they’re digital.

As an aside… I love digital books for a number of reasons. First, they take up no physical space so there are no worries about where to store them. This is particularly helpful for reference books — the big, heavy ones that aren’t often needed, but which one still wants to have readily available on the “shelf”.

Digital space-saving also makes it possible to bring a ridiculous amount of reading material along when traveling (remember traveling?) so there are myriad options to choose from on a long flight, during an unexpected delay, or on a rainy day. I should have had my Kindle with me on this trip.

Finally, I love that because of the back lighting, colored images are enhanced and come alive when viewed on an iPad. The ability to zoom in to see details is a wonderful advantage. I’m embarrassed to admit that more than once I’ve caught myself spreading out my thumb and index finger over an image on a paper page in an unconscious attempt to get a closer look.

But I digress.
The main point of this post is that this week, for the first time since I can’t remember when, I actually bought an in-the-flesh exhibition catalog. A Hyperallergic article about a show of Aminah Robinson’s (1940-2015) work, currently at the Columbus Museum of Art, sent me on a search to find out as much as I could about this prolific artist – previously unknown to me, but a cultural icon in her hometown of Columbus, OH.

I was blown away. The scope of Robinson’s work: painting, sculpture, textiles, book art, illustrations, mosaics, and on and on and on… is remarkable. So I ordered the catalog from the Museum (better to support them than the huge entity that will go unnamed) and now I’m just waiting for its arrival.

So far it’s been a fruitful month for exploring the work of women artists. A few more I’ve been learning about:

• Bisa Butler – Dynamic portraits in cloth that tell the story – the African American side – of the American life
• Georgia Rowswell – A mixed-media artist whose environmentally conscious work celebrates the beauty of the Wyoming landscape. Her website alerted me to the documentary The True Cost, a stirring commentary on the human and environmental after-effects of fast fashion.
• Suzan Frecon – Color is her driving force. Her approach, unlike Robinson’s, is that art should not need the embellishment of story; that it has the singular purpose of speaking for itself.

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And finally, Unmasked: Artful Responses to the Pandemic opens this coming Saturday at the Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, VT. It is a safe and in-person exhibition that reveals how the challenges of COVID-19 have impacted artists’ practices and output, while also demonstrating that art-making & creativity can offer a form of protection against the negative effects of the coronavirus.

The selfies of friends (5 of which are included in this show), and the little houses I’ve been making this past year, have certainly proven to be a bulwark for me during this trying time.