#MovableMondays: A Pop-up Field Guide to North American Wildflowers
āArtistsā books can uniquely communicate complex narrative concepts through image-based and text-based channels. Within the book arts, I am most attracted to creating pop-upsāI enjoy working sculpturally within the book format. I enjoy the engineering challenge involved in developing intricate dimensional forms that fold flat.ā
āā combines the talents of artists Shawn Sheehy, creator and designer behind the book, and Sarah Vogel for her letterpress printingāa process that transformed printing in the Western world during the 1400s. In todayās world, that technique is still appreciated for its attention to details in the properties of color and texture.
According to Sheehy, his engineered structures are not only meant to be a field guide for flowers, but also a cultural study as it relates to the wildflowers of today and of years gone by.
Housed in the Mahn Center for Archives & Special Collections, OHIO Libraries owns copy two of 30 books originally printed of Sheehyās Field Guide to North American Flowers. A beautifully engineered structure, the book is a celebration of the simplest of flowers to the most spectacular in natureās garden of florals.
āShawn Sheehy is a contemporary artist, a book maker and paper engineer [who uses] handmade paperā[and] everything is hand cut and hand constructed,ā said Miriam Intrator, special collections librarian. āWe are very lucky to have one of Shawnās original books.ā
An interesting facet of the book is Sheehyās political twist in his essay titled, āA Language of Flowers for the 21st Century.ā
āWhen you read the descriptions of the flowers in the back you can see there is a political human touch that you would not see in a historical field guide to wildflowers,ā said Intrator. āSo it is both beautiful to look atāthe flowers are very striking as they pop outāand there is a lot of meaning inside the book itself.ā
Please continue to follow the #MovableMondays series on the Librariesā social media accounts: , , and .
Here is what you may have missed: āAstronomicum Caesareum;ā&²Ō²ś²õ±č;The Daily Express;ā and āMariners Compass Rectified;ā and āA Series of Amusing Transformation Scenes.ā