Conor Plunkett’s exhibition is a collection of 32 original pen and ink drawings displaying cityscapes of Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Each piece was created using black India ink on white Bristol vellum surface paper.  The 11×14″ framed drawings depict well-known places throughout both cities drawn in intricate detail.

About the artist: Newtonville Resident, Conor Plunkett, has lived around the greater Boston area since 1974. Widely traveled across the United States and Europe, over the years Conor has grown to appreciate the beautiful parks, skylines, and local architecture that Boston has to offer. With an endless array of historically interesting buildings easily accessible, he decided to focus his creative efforts at capturing Boston via the medium of pen and ink. Using black India ink on white Bristol vellum surface paper, Conor’s gallery of Boston scenes continues to expand every month as he explores the city (and Cambridge, as well), seeking new and fascinating subjects.

Every once in a while, the archivists come across a preservation issue that’s worth sharing with the public.  We have shared one of those with you this month in the upright display case near DVDs at Brookline Village: The dreaded sticky-back album! Stop by and find out more about why they are a preservation nightmare. Ask an archivist if you have more questions.

Brookline’s fall and winter town meetings are coming up, and in honor of those events, Special Collections has put together information in our small display case to help remind folks of the resources we have. Stop by the display case by new fiction to check it out and contact an archivist if you have any follow up questions.

Laurie Alpert makes Artists’ Books because, for quite some time, her prints had included music and a variety of different types of text. Each piece was sequential, but confined to the rectangle, and it made sense to her to transform the work into book form. While experimenting with a variety of Artists’ Book structures, she became more interested in sculptural forms and the different ways in which books can be bound (or unbound). The work asks the question as to whether each “page” can exist on its own as a strong and resolved image; or whether it needs the sequential context in which to exists. The images in the books begin with photographs that she’s taken, either of her studio floor, architectural structures, a bar of soap (yes, soap!), or other seemingly mundane things that she happens upon. She then manipulates them in Photoshop and turns them into Polyester Plate Lithograph prints or sculptural, unique books. The origin of the work is inconsequential – it is the alteration that gives the image its new life.

Laurie Alpert is a Printmaker and Book Artist from Brookline, Massachusetts. She has her BFA in Painting from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and her MFA in Painting from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Alpert’s professional affiliations include membership at the Bromfield Gallery in Boston’s South End, and the Full Tilt Print Studio, a professional printmaking cooperative in Dedham. She is also a member of the Boston Printmakers, the Monotype Guild of New England, New England Book Artists and the New York Center for Book Arts. Alpert has exhibited nationally and internationally.