A Radical Alteration: Women’s Studio Workshop as a Sustainable Model for Art Making, a new exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., celebrates the legacy of the Women’s Studio Workshop (WSW) and the nonprofit organization’s Artist’s Book Grant, which, through a six- to eight-week residency during which an artist produces a limited-edition book, has published nearly two hundred and fifty artists’ books since 1981. Open through September 28, the exhibition features more than forty objects dating from 1974—the year WSW was founded—to 2024 and displays a collection of artists’ books, zines, ephemera, and archival materials. Based in Rosendale, New York, WSW provides professional opportunities for emerging and established women, trans, intersex, nonbinary, and gender-fluid artists.
In 2020, rhiannon skye tafoya created Ul’nigid’ using letterpress printing with Cherokee type. (Credit: Women’s Studio Workshop)
Among other treasures, the exhibition includes Golnar Adili’s She Feels Your Absence Deeply (2021), in which letters and photos documenting Adili’s family’s life in Iran and escape from persecution are printed on six-sided cubes that can be tossed and combined in different configurations; and IBe’ Bulinda Crawley’s 11033 (2022), a haunting reflection on the experiences of Mary Morst, a Black woman sentenced to the Virginia State Penitentiary in 1912. 11033 recounts Morst’s story as a convicted murderer and the mother of twins born while she was incarcerated, with pages shaped in the silhouette of a pregnant body and copies of newspaper clippings and pardon applications braided with fictional text. In 2020 rhiannon skye tafoya created Ul’nigid’ (above), which means “strong,” to honor her maternal grandmother, Martha Reed-Bark. The artist’s book uses letterpress printing with Cherokee type and geometric weaving that resembles a traditional Cherokee white oak basket. When completely unfolded, the book mimics a basket with four walls. Inside the movable structure of Ul’nigid’ lies an accordion pamphlet that includes five poems. In the second poem, tafoya writes, “this is where i felt most safe. / this is where i felt most hungry. / this is where i felt most happy. // the memory of you plays.”
