Unbound

Moving through Time, Memory & Place in Modern Book Arts May 3 - June 14, 2013 Donohue Rare Book Room Gleeson Library University of San Francisco

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Some photos from the Unbound reception!

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Thank you.

The students of the University of San Francisco's Museum Studies 1 course of Spring 2013 would like to give a special thanks to our professor, Kate Lusheck. We could not have asked for a better professor to share her knowledge and experience, and we appreciate all of the encouragement she has given us throughout this semester-long process. We would also like to thank: The Art + Architecture Department John Hawk who is the curator of the Donohue Rare Book Room and was gracious to allow us into that space. Additional thanks to: Professors Scott Murray and Stuart McKee for sharing your insights during the preparation process. Edward Von der Porten for his expert advice about tombstone and object labels. Lastly, thank you to all of those who came to our exhibition reception or who have seen our class curated exhibition.

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PR member, Katie, needs some space to think. She continues to market this great class exhibition!

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Student Curators have to inspect every part of the exhibition before it is done, including placement, and tombstone labels.

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The PR/Design team puts up the didactic materials in the Donohue Rare Book Room.

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Top: PR/Design Team working on the finishing touches. Bottom: Our amazing Unbound designer!

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Student curators are in awe at the artwork in front of them.

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Top: Student curators have to choose just the right spot for their objects. Bottom: Student curator beams with excitement before installing the thematic panel.

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Student curators explore the rare books of the University of San Francisco's Donohue Rare Book Room.

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PR/Design members for the Unbound: Moving through Time, Memory & Place exhibition.

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Student curators of the Museum Studies 1 course at the University of San Francisco.

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Walt Whitman Wrenching Times: Poems from Drum-Taps Edited by M. Wynn Thomas With Woodcut Engravings by Gaylord Schanilec Newtown: Gwasg Gregynog 1991 Detail This intense, color wood engraving displays a peaceful night sky with a full moon rising, shining light on the bodies of deceased soldiers splayed across the foreground. During the Civil War, Walt Whitman visited wounded soldiers at hospitals in the Washington, D.C. area. While consoling the sick and dying, Whitman carried around dozens of notebooks in which he recorded the recent horrors of war on American soil. From these notebooks stemmed Drum-Taps (1865), a convincing and thoroughly compelling poetic account of men at war. M. Wynn Thomas presents the poems in a new and illuminating sequence. With Schanilec's color wood engravings, they emphasize the horrors of war.

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Amy Webb The Knell of Cock Robin With Original Woodcuts by Amy Webb Oakland: Patterson Press 1986 Detail photograph The Knell of Cock Robin is based on an anonymous 18th-century “toy book” (or illustrated children’s book). Written in rhythmic fashion, the poem portrays the ritual sacrifice of a bird, Cock Robin. The Mourning Dove (or “chief mourner”), seen here sitting on a tree branch with head bowed low, represents notions of community, love and grief. This story is often said to have originated from a mythical “apple cult” in Britain that celebrated the harvest by roasting apples and toasting to the good health of the tree spirits. Birds were believed to be the personifications of tree spirits and therefore would be sacrificed to ensure the health of future crops.

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Lawrence Van Velzer and Peggy Gotthold The Tower of the Winds With Illustrations by James Stuart and Nicolas Revett Santa Cruz: Foolscap Press 2002 This contemporary scroll presents the historical tale of the Tower of the Winds, an ancient, octagonal, marble tower erected on the agora (market) of Athens. Though its function still remains largely a mystery, the tower was likely a monument to the ancient Greek interest in the cosmos. Shown here is Zephyrus, the West Wind, bringing in pleasant, warm weather in the spring and sultry weather in the summer. Depicted wearing a garment filled with flowers, Zephyrus miraculously generates lush vegetation. Next to him is Sciron, the North-West Wind, who brings cold weather in winter and unbearable heat in the summer. In this 25-foot panoramic scroll, readers are introduced to the mechanical and spiritual aspects of the tower through the voices of later observers, including early Romans, a seventeenth-century Turkish traveler and modern scientists. The tower imagery is inspired by 18th-century architectural designs.

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Robert Louis Stevenson The Silverado Squatters With Photographs by Michael Kenna San Francisco: Arion Press 1996 In 1880, Robert Louis Stevenson recorded his travels from San Francisco to Calistoga and Mount St. Helena in Sonoma County, California. In 1996, photographer Michael Kenna made the same trek, photographing the same locations that Stevenson wrote about in The Silverado Squatters. This volume joins Stevenson’s late 19th-century account with Kenna’s modern photographs of this northern California landscape. The Schramsberg Winery in Napa Valley gained significant popularity when Stevenson visited it in the 1880s. Taken over 100 years later, Kenna’s photograph of the winery presents a modern view of the same area. However, the timelessness of the northern California landscape, as well as the sepia style of the image, makes the photo appear as old as the text.

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Mark Twain Extracts from the Diaries of Adam & Eve Illustrations by Charles Hobson San Francisco: Charles Hobson / Pacific Editions 2003 Mark Twain wrote this fictional account of the Genesis story in the form of two diaries written by Adam and Eve over a fifteen-year span. Eve’s character was heavily influenced by Twain’s late wife, Livy Clemens. The “French-door” format allows the volume to be displayed flat, thus allowing the two Eadweard Muybridge-inspired figures to be viewed together. It also has accordion (concertina)-styled pages that allow the book to be displayed standing in a circular format. San Francisco Book artist and publisher Charles Hobson added verses from The Book of Genesis, as well as reproductions of hand-written letters by Twain and Livy on the inside folds of the accordion pages, bringing ancient beginnings and the present together.

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Gertrude Stein Paris, France: A Memoir With Illustrations by Ward Schumaker Covelo (Calif.): Yolla Bolly Press 2000 Originally printed in 1940 on the day Paris fell to Germany in WWII, this volume is author Gertrude Stein’s commentary on the Parisian way of life at that time. Through a comparison with her time spent in San Francisco as a child, Stein portrays a Paris all her own where a French espirit is found in all corners of life, including the behavior of cats and the frail shape of women’s arms. Stein even describes Parisian knives and forks as particularly and “passionately” French. Stein’s playful and sometimes mundane characterizations, accompanied by Ward Schumaker’s cartoonish illustrations, evoke a Paris c. 1940 that does not seem so far away after all.