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.

In recent years, Rux Darie shifted from representational art to abstract art. For her, the viewer’s interpretation and engagement with her work is an integral part of the creative process, transforming the artwork into a collaborative effort between herself and the audience.

About Dutch Bloom, she says, “I am deeply interested in the role that colors play in evoking emotions and provoking different reactions. I use vibrant and dynamic hues to create a sense of movement and energy on the canvas, drawing inspiration from the natural environment.

Norberto Fabian Xuana, son of the late master carver Ventura Fabian, from San Martín Tilcajete, Oaxaca, Mexico, is proud to carry on in the tradition of his father as a “campesino-artesano.” Their carvings are renowned for their originality, humor, and charm, and present an unusual mix of everyday life and phantasmagoric creatures. Norberto’s inspiration comes from his father and the love of his children, which “unite my mind, my heart, and my hands.” Much of the work is decorated by Blanca, Norberto’s wife, a skilled and meticulous painter, whose inspiration for her designs comes from the family’s Zapotec ancestry. The artists’ goal is to create work that dissolves borders and breaks down walls among the people of the world.

All are invited to join Norberto and The Visiting Mexican Artists Program for a demonstration of his work and a Q&A session on Saturday, November 4 at 2 PM.