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Otis: Continuing a commitment to artists’ books
Sue Maberry joined the long list of librarians at Otis in 1992. Like
many Otis staff and faculty before her, Maberry was significantly
connected to the Woman’s Building, eventually becoming director
of the Women’s Graphic Center before leaving to serve as program
director at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, which in-herited
the Woman’s Building presses. Maberry arrived at Otis the
year after the final closure of the Woman’s Building. In her position
as Director of the Library (the position Hugo had held for so long),
she was able to find a home for both the Woman’s Building image
archive and a portion of its ephemera archive.42 After so many
years of developing side by side, one enduring part of the
Woman’s Building resides on the premises of its sister institution.
" Maberry continues to collect artists’ books, which she does in
collaboration with Special Collections librarian Cathy Chambers. It
fell to Chambers, in the late 1990s, to re-house the collection so care-fully
developed by Joan Hugo, which was until that time in hang-ing
folders in file cabinets. The catalogue entries for the books (on
file cards at that time) were, according to Chambers, “brief and cre-ated
in-house,” since the rare and sometimes ephemeral material
that Hugo and others had collected often didn’t come with com-mon
catalogue records. Since moving to an online catalogue, many
of the books required original cataloguing.43
" Much is not known about the development of the artists’
book collection at Otis, and there is information missing about the
origins and nature of the early classes in book art at the college.
What remains, and what is clear, is that the college has had a deep
and abiding love affair with these confounding and difficult-to-pin-
down books, as well as a profound impact (pace Joan Hugo) on
the record of their history and development.
1
25
I am grateful to the Ben Maltz Gallery and espe-cially
its curator, Meg Linton, for offering me
the opportunity to investigate the rich history of
artists’ books at Otis College of Art and Design.
Thanks to Cathy Chambers for her research
savvy, and to Sue Maberry, Rebecca Chamlee
and Barbara Maloutas for their time and sup-port.
Jeseca Dawson’s skill in keeping various re-search
threads organized has been invaluable.
Cindy Marsh and Sheila de Bretteville took the
time to fill in some gaps, and I thank them for
their help. Thanks also to my research associates
Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong, Keri Miki-Lani
Schroeder and Ariel Hansen Strong, and to
Elizabeth Jensen for her editing expertise. Nora
Lennox Martin’s close reading resulted in criti-cal
revisions. Finally, Susan King has been as
forthcoming and supportive as always; thanks a
million to her for being there.
Object Description
Description
| Title | Page 26 |
| Full Text of PDF | Otis: Continuing a commitment to artists’ books Sue Maberry joined the long list of librarians at Otis in 1992. Like many Otis staff and faculty before her, Maberry was significantly connected to the Woman’s Building, eventually becoming director of the Women’s Graphic Center before leaving to serve as program director at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, which in-herited the Woman’s Building presses. Maberry arrived at Otis the year after the final closure of the Woman’s Building. In her position as Director of the Library (the position Hugo had held for so long), she was able to find a home for both the Woman’s Building image archive and a portion of its ephemera archive.42 After so many years of developing side by side, one enduring part of the Woman’s Building resides on the premises of its sister institution. " Maberry continues to collect artists’ books, which she does in collaboration with Special Collections librarian Cathy Chambers. It fell to Chambers, in the late 1990s, to re-house the collection so care-fully developed by Joan Hugo, which was until that time in hang-ing folders in file cabinets. The catalogue entries for the books (on file cards at that time) were, according to Chambers, “brief and cre-ated in-house,” since the rare and sometimes ephemeral material that Hugo and others had collected often didn’t come with com-mon catalogue records. Since moving to an online catalogue, many of the books required original cataloguing.43 " Much is not known about the development of the artists’ book collection at Otis, and there is information missing about the origins and nature of the early classes in book art at the college. What remains, and what is clear, is that the college has had a deep and abiding love affair with these confounding and difficult-to-pin- down books, as well as a profound impact (pace Joan Hugo) on the record of their history and development. 1 25 I am grateful to the Ben Maltz Gallery and espe-cially its curator, Meg Linton, for offering me the opportunity to investigate the rich history of artists’ books at Otis College of Art and Design. Thanks to Cathy Chambers for her research savvy, and to Sue Maberry, Rebecca Chamlee and Barbara Maloutas for their time and sup-port. Jeseca Dawson’s skill in keeping various re-search threads organized has been invaluable. Cindy Marsh and Sheila de Bretteville took the time to fill in some gaps, and I thank them for their help. Thanks also to my research associates Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong, Keri Miki-Lani Schroeder and Ariel Hansen Strong, and to Elizabeth Jensen for her editing expertise. Nora Lennox Martin’s close reading resulted in criti-cal revisions. Finally, Susan King has been as forthcoming and supportive as always; thanks a million to her for being there. |
