Lois Morrison

Books available from the agile hands and mind of Lois Morrison. (Lois's impressive vitae follows her book list.)

1. In Adam's Fall 1989 [ed. 43], 4 1/2" W X 6" H X 3/8" D.
Written, illustrated, hand cut and published by Lois Morrison. Printed on Lenox 100 by Julie Chen's Flying Fish Press. This is a Jacob's ladder book in which cut out couples literally "fall" through Adam's guilt but are redeemed by Eve's perspective.

2. The Hollow Dolls 1996 [ed 18], 4 1/4" w X 9 7/8 h X 1 1/8" d. 12 pages. Written, illustrated, handcut and bound by Lois Morrison. The text’s background is color-copied. Photographic leftovers have Gocco-printed inserts. Parts are grommeted. The papers are Canson mi Tientes and Masa. The covers and boxes are Indian Bagasse and Moriki over board. The broken dolls from "After" lie in one flat box, the text in another. The book form is a magic purse that releases only one box at a time, depending on which side is opened.

3. Love Re-Turned 1996 [ed. 25], 4 1/4" X 4 1/4", 14 pg.s with 7 movable sections. Written, illustrated, handcut and bound by Lois Morrison. This shaped book is printed with a Gocco printer on Lenox 100, Utrecht Sketch 100, Crosse Point Passport Sandstone, and Fabriano Tiziano. One piece is grommeted to make a flexible worm. The typeface is Kids. A brightly colored, spool-knit worm keeps closed each copy of this shaped, pop-up, accordion-fold book. An e-mail "animal fact", that worms have ten hearts, was sent by Tamara Panteon in Chile to her father in the U.S.A. Their fantasies joined by mine prompted this exploration of just what, romantically, this fact could mean to worms.

4. The Egg Queen 1998 [Ed 25], 4" W X 6" H
Like the preceding book, this is a three-section, three-layer modified carousel book. It is printed with a Gocco printer, on Strathmore 400 series paper. The eggs are color-xeroxed from a volume of the Book of Knowledge that was found on the street. Text, illustrations, hand cutting and assembling are by Lois Morrison. The egg queen herself is derived from an overalled woman depicted on a chicken feed sack. She has been redrawn and given a crown of small bird’s eggs. On varied green stems, all the rest of the eggs twine and lean yearningly towards her.

5. The Mechanical Baby 2000 (ed. 25), 6 1\4"W x4 1\2"H x 5/8" D
An eight part, accordion-fold book, written, illustrated, hand cut and bound by Lois Morrison. It is printed with a Gocco printer on Magnani Pescia, the colophon on Masa. Color copied photos are mounted on acid-free drawing paper and pop up. The typeface is Amherst. It is bound with Gocco-printed, hand colored muslin over board and tied with a vari-colored ribbon. The headless mechanical baby, raised on tabs, crawls through a black and white landscape, not knowing where she’s been.

6. Changelings 2001 [Ed. 25], 2" X 2"
This book is printed with a Gocco printer, gone back into with Pigma pens and watercolors. The paper is Crossepoint Synergy (from Sally Lowe) and Utrecht. The cover is paper over board. The text is hand-lettered and the book is hand-cut and assembled. "No one guessed the shape-changing clouds were never the babies and bunnies they projected but were truly changeling monsters, dropping softly to the ground, surrounding and muffling all cries with dense fog". This is a colorful, star-carousel book with three layers: one, the dirt road’s edge and the landscape of my Virginia home, and two layers of pastel-stippled clouds.

7. After Water Aerobics 2002 [Ed. 14], 17" H X 8" W X 6 7/8" D
Text and illustrations by Lois Morrison. It is printed with hand-carved rubber stamps and a Gocco printer on Cross Pointe’s Synergy and Passport papers (kindness of Sally Lowe). Boxes, foam board inside and Davey board, are covered with cave blue jean paper. Screws, washers, acrylic stained tyvek and yellow painted wooden handles and balsa strip complete the materials list. The typeface is Expo. It is hand cut and assembled. Conveyor boxes made by these men from the Heath Village Men’s Club woodworkers. Edwin Lincoln, John Nankivell, William Sly, Harry Berardesco, Paul Whitney, Robert Gowling, Walter Jordan, Lester Gurney and Henry Hagedorn. Box covers by Edwin Lincoln, John Nankivell And all of this, kindness of Edwin Lincoln. This is based on an old winding/box toy. The figures from a water aerobics class and the text rise up go across and disappear as the conveyer belt they are on is hand cranked.

8. Oblivion Lost 2002 [Ed. 25], 6"H X 4" W X 2" D
This book was printed with a Gocco printer on oriental paper, Niddegen and Cross Pointe’s Synergy (thanks to Sally Lowe). Gone back into with Pigma Micron pens and water color (beaver’s teeth). It is hand cut and assembled. The typeface is Brunswick italic; the text by Morrison. .005 music wires support the skulls, and balsa strips support the wires. The covers are African cloth over board, held together with hand-dyed, rayon seam binding. It is made up of drawings of exposed tree roots beside the roaqd to my house in Virginia and of skulls from my small collection.

9. In the Land of Shadows 2003 [Ed. 25], 8" H X 10" W X 5" D
The backgrounds of each section of this book are color-copied, the green layers are linoleum cuts, printed onto Tyvek. The figures are Gocco-printed onto Cross Pointe’s Synergy ( Kindness of Sally Lowe) and the text onto oriental paper. The figures float on .007 music wires. The typeface is Kids; the cover is hand-dyed ticking over board. Everything is entirely hand cut and assembled within crudely hand made boxes. Text and drawings by Lois Morrison. Japanese screen hinges allow this six panel book to be folded in two directions. It is a book of four shadows; two are physical—the actual shadow that light throws and the cut-out outline of each figure. Two are psychological---reflections of events: one, the shadow of what had happened earlier to cause them to be assembled so bizarrely; the other, the arrival of the black menace that hangs in the sky over their heads.

Curriculum Vitae
1934 Born February 1,(Belgian Congo), Zaire
1956 B.A. Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, Virginia
1959-63 Graduate Work, Indianna University, Bloomington, Ind.
1965 M.F.A.,Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond,Va

Selected Exhibitions
1998
--In Relief, a travelling show, Hastings College, Hastings, Nebraska
--Books from the Jaffe Collection, Broward Cty. Library, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
--Textiles/Fibers/Threads: The Book Show: Center for Book Arts, New York, NY
--I, Object Sophie Gimbel Design Library,Parsons School of Design, New York,NY

1999
--Glorious prints: Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ
--Libros realizados por Artistas Plasticos. Librerio Pegaso en Casa Lamm, Mexico City
--Sight/Insight:Visual Commentaries on the Physical World, New York Public Library

2000
--Where are all the books, Skillman Library, Lafayette College, Easton, PA
--Book as Art XII, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
--Lois Morrison, Books by the Artist 1990-1999 Adam and Sophie Gimbel Library, Parsons School of Design, New York, NY

2001
--The Fabric Books of Lois Morrison¸ John Cotton Dana Library, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ

2002
--Rare Books of Future, The Center for Book Arts, New York, NY.
--Parallel Botany, Bryn Mawr College Library, Bryn Mawr, PA

2003
--Artists & the Art of the Book. (Travelling Show): Lafayette College, PA

SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Tate Gallery, London
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England.
Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
The Ruth & Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Miami Beach, FL
Bruce Peel Special Collection Library, Univ. of Alberta, Canada
Cleveland Art Institute, Cleveland, OH
The Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York, NY
University of California, Berkely, CA
Dartmouth College, Hanover, N H
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Newark Public Library, Newark, NJ
New York Public Library, New York, NY
Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, England
University of North Carolina: Greensboro; Charlotte, NC
Getty Center Library, Santa Monica, CA
Auckland Institute and Museum, Auckland, New Zealand
Yale University Library, New Haven, CT
Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, MN
The Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
The Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Anchorage, Alaska
Stanford University Libraries, Palo Alto, CA
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The Mata and Arthur Jaffee Collection of Artist’s Books, Florida.
The Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco CA
Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D. C.

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