Shelter

Description:	Shelter came out of an exploration of losing faith and questioning one of its opposites: the process of finding faith and religion. This content of the text came out of watching my dying father, who was never religious when I was growing up, become increasingly interested in faith and salvation as he became sicker from heart disease and cancer. I saw the desert with its unfriendly flora and harsh environment as a metaphor for the difficult worldview towards the end of many peoples lives. The desert is also used in many religious tracts as a place for comtemplation and mortification. In this work roadside shelters and gospel ministries were used as signifiers of ways and places where people look (vainly?) to relieve the stark prospects of their approaching death.--Artists statement from Vamp & Tramp Booksellers website (accessed July 19, 2018)A wondrously complex book aptly suited for the knotty subject of dying (very much different than death and its aftermath). Turn the pages and cloud-laden skies, always with a gray cast, provide framework for an alternating chain of Southwest borderland secular shelters (Wayside Stops or Rest Areas in some parts of the US) and churches clad in the look of evangelism. Text at the bottom of most pages contains the tortured musings of a man with the inevitable irritability that comes with a body surrendering to age, a man who would like shelter and comfort: peace both physical and spiritual. The book structure suggests that the comfort may be difficult or impossible because the beauty of blooming cacti is present but almost impossible to see. The final page contains the last lines from William Cullen Bryants Thanatopsis, a wish perhaps from Zimmermann to his father – no promise of an undiscovered country, but solace as a kind of shelter in the last moments on this side of the border.--Vamp & Tramp Booksellers website (accessed July 19, 2018).Twenty-six pages of illustrations and text, each page with a cut-out element in the center measuring 13 x 10 cm. through which an accordion fold strip of colored illustrations pops out, thus creating a book within a book. Hand-sewn binding with illustrated boards and cloth spine. Issued in corrugated board box, with a separate sheet titled Collectors, Libraries + Special Collections: Artists Book Publication Information Sheet.... [F]ifty signed and numbered handbound copies printed by HP Indigo digital printing on Mohawk Superfine archival paper. There are also ten numbered and signed copies of this handbound book printed in archival Ultrachrome inkjet on Hahnemulle Rag Duo paper.--Page 3 of cover.I-ART: Library has copy no. 40.
Origin:	2009
Created By:	Zimmermann, Philip
Publisher:	Tucson, AZ : Spaceheater Editions, 2009.
Source:	http://iuidigital.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/BookArts/id/1524
Collection:	Herron Library Fine Press and Book Arts Collection
Rights:	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Copyright:	In Copyright
Subjects:	Zimmermann, Philip. Deserts--Arizona--Pictorial works. Deserts in art. Photography, Artistic. Artists books--Specimens. Pop-up books--Specimens. Pop-up books. Artists books. Conceptual art. sewn binding Mohawk Superfine paper

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