Mirel Fraga, Bosque Tropical (Tropical Forest), Polvoh Press, Oaxaca, Mexico, 2022, 2nd edition

This is a beautiful and wonderfully vibrant screenprinted accordion from this artist based in Oaxaca, Mexico. Fraga has worked as a designer and illustrator, coupled with textile, editorial and graphic design projects, as well as having worked at a number of important cultural institutions in Oaxaca City and the surrounding area. She's also been influenced by her time working in an artisan workshop in the village of San Martin Tilcajete, famous for its multicolored and carved wooden alebrijes. Fraga says she was influenced by these artisans' use of color, saying "you can see it in my work: in the shapes, the colors, and in certain psychedelic elements, because I think they (the alebrijes artists) have a psychedelic side." Fraga is also the co-founder of Polvoh Press based in Oaxaca City. [Powder Press]

Here's a link to an interesting article about Fraga that gives an excellent account of her background, artistic interests, as well as her thoughts about color and its importance for her and her art: The Many Colors of Mirel Fraga | Hecho a Mano

6 double-sided pages, individually 6" x 8.25", and when fully opened 39" (including title fold)

reverse side

back cover

Alfred Mason Amadon, M.D., The Fold-Out Atlas of the Human Body, Bonanza Books, New York, reprint 1984/1906.

In my recent researches into all things accordion and folded, I stumbled across the genre of anatomical flap books, also known as fold-out books. Variously described as virtual autopsies or knife-less dissections, books using flaps make their first appearance in the late 16th century with a flap book of Euclid's Elements of Geometry (1570), and in the medical field in 1583 with a flap book on the eye. In the latter part of the 1800s medical flap books became especially popular and by 1900 all sorts of flap-books were being published in Europe and North America. 

This particular book is a reproduction of its original 1906 edition. As you can see they're really quite extraordinary publications with fascinating layers of flaps revealing the deeper recesses of the human body. They would also appear to be quite labor intensive publications and I'm sure the $3 I paid for this one on Amazon is not truly reflective of all the delicate work needed in its construction!

For a particularly interesting text about the history, development and uses of flap books and fold-outs see Simone Schlepers' 2014, article "Knife-less Dissection: Functions of fold-outs in 19th century anatomical culture," at: ‘Knife-less’ Dissection: Functions of fold-outs in 19th century anatomical culture – Shells and Pebbles

The Getty has just posted a cool video about flap books, here's the link: Video: Flesh and Bones Flap Book | Getty News

Lillian Sizemore, Driving to My Boyfriend's House, Madison, 2022

On February 14th, Lillian, my girlfriend surprised me with this really sweet accordion that she had made in celebration of our 5th year anniversary — what more can I say!

8 double-sided pages, individually 4.75" x 6.75" and when fully open 4ft 6".

we're having some repairs to the street at the moment, 

so of course the final part of the route is blocked!

reverse side

back cover

Chet Phillips, Kaiju Sushi, Dancing Cat Bindery, 2018, ed. 30

foil stamped slip cover by Julie Sullivan

A really beautifully crafted accordion that tells the tale of how the giant-sized monsters known as Kaiju, were pacified after the world's alchemists found a solution by creating massive mutant sushi, and these delicious treats changed "...their dispositions from ferocious to peaceful and gratified."  Three stickers of Kaiju's come with the publication.

8 single-sided pages, individually 4.75" x 4.5", and when fully opened 3ft

cover

3 stickers of Kaiju are included with the accordion

Dogan Surek, Real Time, lino-cut, 1998

Always nice to find a Surek accordion, check out the others in this blog. This is a rather intriguing one, however, I'm finding it hard to decipher. The red band from California to Thailand on pages 3 & 4 covers a total of 18 times zones, with 9 hours on either side of the Greenwich Mean Time line. And then there's the book's title printed across another four pages, with another four pages in the latter part of the book filled with images that would seem to take the viewer into the larger galaxy beyond our world. The backwards title introduces another indecipherable clue as to the book's theme. If any readers can help me with this please respond at the end of this post!

12 single sided pages, individually 5.75" x 4", and when fully open 4ft.

John Shimon, Untitled, cyanotype, 2021

Front cover

The first cyanotype accordion for this blog! This work was sent to me by my friend John Shimon, an offbeat and well established Wisconsin photographer based in Appleton. Accompanying the accordion was a postcard with a note stating, "An experiment with the accordion form!" This monochromatic work is a delight with a gestural subtext that imbues the work with both depth and movement. Don't stop there John, I want to see more!!

8 pages, individually 7" x 5", and when fully opened 3ft 4".

Reverse side of accordion

Back cover

An example of a cyanotype end of the year card (2021) 

from John and his partner Lauren Semivan

Anders Nilsen, ABRAXAS: Box landscape with chase scene, 2019, ed. 250

Front of the wraparound cover

I'm posting Anders' story of how this book came about and where it fits in with his other book projects, as well as the technical issues involved in publishing it. 

"One day back in 2012 I got an email from my friend Monica Choy, inviting me to participate in a group show. She was sending several artists small blank hand-made accordion books, asking that we keep them as sketchbooks for a month and then send them back to be shown in the show at Hellion Gallery in Portland (I was living in Minneapolis at the time). After one or two false starts I ended up doing a long, continuous landscape drawing, depicting a chase scene unfolding through the landscape, populated with weird flowers and colored boxes. I was about to publish Rage of Poseidon at the time, also an accordion (see this blog), and was interested in exploring the form a little more. I got into it enough that I ended up attaching a couple extra feet of paper to extend the scene.

The piece ended up having resonance in my other work for the next several years. The fantastical plant forms, and the idea of a long continuous landscape are recapitulated in A Walk in Eden, the coloring book I did in 2016. And the characters and the boxes feed pretty directly into Tongues. In retrospect I think of the piece as a sort of 'proto-prequel' to that book both visually and thematically.

The original piece was later shown in Minneapolis in a book-arts-and-comics exhibition called The Book in Extemis at MCAS during the PFC residency in 2015, and again at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth in their Comic Tragics show in 2015. Showing the original as an object or as a drawing was great, but I've wanted to figure out a way to publish it ever since the Hellion show. That was easier said than done. Printing and folding a seven foot long accordion is not a simple or cheap proposition. And figuring out a good binding is even less so. I played with various ideas and prototypes over the years and taught myself some rudimentary bookbinding techniques, eventually settling on a more or less workable compromise. And so now its available..."  New Accordion Book: Box Landscape with Chase Scene — Anders Nilsen

15 single-sided pages, individually 5" x 7.25", and when fully open 6ft 2".

Front page of the accordion

Back of wraparound cover