Can’t judge Utah artist’s books by their covers

Friday, Aug. 24, 2001 | 9:53 a.m.

As a fine artist studying narrative painting during the early 1980s, Utah artist Sue Cotter was always looking for a better way to communicate with people through her artwork.

"When you just do a painting and hang it on the wall, no one quite got the story," Cotter said, referring to her early struggles.

Today she doesn't have that problem as much. Her mixed-media "artist books," made from found items -- either man-made or natural -- tell more direct tales.

An exhibit of Cotter's work, titled "Books and Boxes," is on display through Monday at the Charleston Heights Arts Center Gallery.

The exhibit features interactive works, such as "New World Sticktionary: A Guide to the Language of Trees and Shrubs," a piece Cotter constructed from Mexican bark paper and small broken sticks found in a creek bed near her home in Parowan, Utah.

Tied to the pages with waxed synthetic linen, the sticks hold words spliced from dictionary pages that Cotter said suggest what a tree or shrub would speak if expressing itself about the way it had taken form.

On Saturday and Sunday Cotter will conduct two sold-out bookmaking classes at the center. Students will learn book structure, how to contruct and embellish hard covers and sew together pages.

"Once you have the skills for cutting paper, folding and stitching, you can just take off," Cotter said in a recent phone interview from Salt Lake City, where she was attending a bookmaking class.

Cotter's own interest in creating art books began in 1989 when she enrolled in a letterpress course at University of Nevada, Reno that introduced her to bookmaking.

"I knew immediately that's what I wanted to do," Cotter said.

"But coming from a fine-arts background I had a free-form approach to my books. I started using all these weird materials, making my own paper ... using sagebrush, sticks and bones."

Flash floods that occur near her home provide her a constant supply of new sticks broken from ash trees, sagebrush, cottonwood and pine trees.

Other items, such as rusted metal, broken dishes and scratched jewelry, to name a few, are found in ghost towns, sidewalks or anywhere she happens to be wandering (including the dumps where she brings her garbage).

"I collect things as I go through life," Cotter said. "I love to hike and be in nature. You can't do this without picking things up."

Although some of the pieces she creates take the form of boxes and sculptures, Cotter said she considers all of her works to be books.

"They're always interactive," she said. "There are pages that need to be turned (and) doors (that) open."

"New World Sticktionary" is actually the pocket edition of an unabridged dictionary Cotter created. The larger is a deep box covered with Mexican bark paper that contained sticks set similar to how she found them in a creek bed.

"Kore," a piece inspired by the moon that Cotter said reflects the cyclical nature of women's wisdom and reality, is constructed from wood, keys, broken dishes and jewelry, among other items, and frames a silk curtain that features a letter-pressed poem written by Cotter.

Also on display is "Rock Library," a collection of blank journals made from stone, "Below Being, Above Nothingness: A Poet's Closet" (a mixed media work) and "Looking for Golgonooza: Thel's Journey Book I," a sculpturesque book that was inspired by William Blake's poem "The Book of Thel."

Cotter moved to Las Vegas with her family when she was 12. She attended UNLV and graduated from UNR in 1983 with a bachelor's degree in art.

Her next projects will include a compilation book featuring her poems and artwork, and a piece that explores what would have happened had Vincent Van Gogh been born in Las Vegas.

She said she continues to study book art by taking an annual class in the subject at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where she enjoys the company of other bookmakers.

"It's inspiring," Cotter said. "You can do almost anything. There are no rules at all."