to: Craft > #28 - Sliced Book Stack
Colleen Ramsay Hoesch, Sliced Book Assemblage, 2021, paper, glue, thread, elastic cording, plastic toggle cord lock, 19 x 22 ½ inches, photo: Colleen Ramsay Hoesch
Sliced Book Stack
Colleen Ramsay Hoesch
In the MA in Critical Craft Studies program, we share what we are reading through photographs of book stacks we post on Instagram because we are physically separated by distance and time zones. Sometimes our book stacks are an ordered tower of spines, other times they are a chaotic aftermath of excitement, frustration, or a pet seeking attention. My interpretation of a book stack is an assemblage of the sliced books that I make; I cut used books into thirds on the bandsaw, then add an elastic cord and a toggle cord lock, to keep them closed and silent.
When the sliced books are opened and their gutters are aligned, the pages flirt. I think the convergence may hold clues to the mysteries of the universe, if only I could decode the message. The sliced book assemblage is temporary, meant to be folded up and put away like a board game.
Our cohorts’ book stacks, too, hold clues; the anthologies are solar systems, a book on braiding sweetgrass is a planet, and Ms. Turabian is our spacecraft commander.
Biography
Colleen Ramsay Hoesch
She/Her/Hers
written by Kate Hawes
Colleen Ramsay Hoesch practices an eclectic mix of architecture, DIY book slicing, craft school board-sitting, community revitalizing, and map drawing. She is someone I would like to go on a road trip with or meet in a library. Some of the things that make her tick are the paper dresses of Isabelle de Borchgrave, the back span of a cantilever, strangely dyed garments, Edith Heath’s extruded ceramic blocks, Ernest Shackleton’s camp stove (which was actually made for Swedish women who sold produce at outdoor markets), and other worthwhile rabbit holes. She speaks modestly about the groundbreaking research lab she designed for the University of Pittsburgh, which allows students to observe how the lab functions. She designed the building with cameras everywhere and stainless-steel ductwork that was welded together as one piece and lifted up into the ceiling.
Colleen lives in Chalk Hill, which is in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. It is a town of under one thousand people, so it does not surprise me to see The Power of Place and Cool Town in one of her bookstacks. Her house is in a one-hundred-year-old planned community called Deer Lake, which means there are rules and, as Colleen says, “It’s very rural, but I can’t have livestock.” She finds the presence of deer around the house “acceptable.” She lives with three cats, Tate, Noodle, and Shoo, one of which is on permanent loan. She has been known to refer also to a husband named Doug.