Amanda Nelsen - Practice

Amanda Nelsen is a bookmaker who dwells in a depository of paper fed by profligate advertisements, the modern day nuisance of recurring junk mail and the loading of the mailbox with banal information. Juxtaposing a historic structure such as a book form, with the contemporary terrestrial materials of weekly circulars, she locates the colors, texts and textures within credit card offers and coupon books and converts them into time-honored book forms. By following the traditions and conventions of a treasured form, she challenges the standardized fallow use of paper and printing resources.

From Amanda:
My art practice involves collecting, culling, editing, and assembling. In order to gather and bind paper my hands must fold, score, and jog; my knife must cut; my awl must punch; and my needle and thread must dance in a pattern--in, out, and around; in, out, and around. This repetition requires attention in each step and mindfulness of the building up of materials--the growing of the piece. The manner in which an idea grows and the point at which a piece is complete depend on the materials involved. Through this repetitive work with the materials, the rhythms in print become the marks of other creations.

Amanda  is currently the Program Director at Rare Book School in Charlottesville, Virginia. She moved to Virginia from Cambridge, MA in 2010 where she taught courses at the Art Institute of Boston and New England School of Art and Design as well as bookbinding workshops through North Bennet School in Boston; worked at Quercus Press in Waltham; completed an Artist-in-Residence project at Wellesley College; and maintained a studio in Somerville. Amanda is a Studio Art/Art Education graduate of St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN and received her MFA in Visual Arts from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. In 2007, she earned a certificate in Bookbinding from the North Bennet Street School and was a 2008 Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant Recipient. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently at the Corcoran School of Art and Design in Washington, DC.

PRACTICE

 Nave Gallery Annex

March 12 - April 5, 2014

reception: Wednesday March 12, 6-8 pm

artist talk: Friday March 21, 7 pm

story slam: Monday March 31, 7 pm

Click here and here to learn more about Practice.

I will be introducing each of the six invited artists of Practice over the next couple of weeks leading up to the opening on March 12. For more info read about Caleb, Stephanie, Hannah, Zsuzsi and Julie.