Meet CB Sherlock | Artist, bookmaker & printmaker

We had the good fortune of connecting with CB Sherlock and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi CB, what do you think makes you most happy? Why?
I have a love affair with layering words, nature and the infinitely varying structure of the book form.

My work allows you to experience these three loves; the grandeur of nature, wordplay, and the vast variety of book structures. Simple elegant graphic images are played with using acute attention to shape and color. The book structures set the stage to move through the timeless characters of trees, grass and sky exposing the beauty I see. Dialogue is the text, woven through the images, moving through pages, moving thru time from the first page to the last. Most pieces are in a familiar book format, artists books, housed in a box to set you up for the experience within.

I have learned to think bigger, to ask questions, to continually challenge my thoughts and skills. I am forever solving problems; does the shape of the paper convey the expansiveness of the prairie? Can the viewer feel the darkness as the image moves deeper into night? An artists’ book is an interactive puzzle. Layering each piece, each page, each structure brings the piece together.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

This genre of artists books in its infancy is new to most people. I have had to expand my audience by traveling across country to book fairs, institutions and collectors. It is a slow endeavor. Tenacity has been my friend. Each event introduces my work to new individuals. Every year I return with new work, new books, new visions. I wouldn’t want it an other way.

The design of each book is a comprehensive process that integrates the text, artwork, type, paper, binding, cover, box/slipcase.  All components of each book are carefully chosen to make a fully integrated whole. This really makes each project unique.

Dialogue: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The design of the book is a response to the text. The book uses ochre Mary Hark hand-made paper with hand dyed and corded paper for the binding around a tree branch, symbolizing the forest where the majority of the play is set. The text used is just the dialogue.  The body of the text is in verse, the Fairies’ and Nobles’ lines. The shortness of their lines demands a narrow page and facilitates a tall shape that again reminds us of the trees in the forest. The imagery at each new act is full of colorful leaves, setting the viewer to know which characters will show up. The Fairies are the large leaves, the medium the fairies and the mechanicals are the small leaves.  I envisioned the fairies as insects; dragonflies, fireflies and a June beetle. As the play moves deeper into night, so does the color palette.
I refer to this piece as my letterpress capstone. I chose paper, Zozo-Shi, that is wonderful to use for prints. It handles letterpress type and multiple layers of printed colors beautifully. But it was more transparent than I expected. I had to line up each page of type from front to back. I was standing over this midcentury proofing press with my interns for hours ‘making ready’ the press bed. The leading between each line was not completely level. It was sometimes off at one end or the other by 2 points. and with a twenty six inch page, sixty six lines, 2 points could add up to almost two inch angle if not corrected. By the time I had finished printing this book I could handle anything on my Vandercook press. I also learned that Shakespeare, though written in the 1800s, had its punctuation copy-writed if published after 1923. I did find a 1886 copy of the play at my wonderful library in the large book section. My version is as dramatic as the play itself. I can imagine Puck holding the book as he leads us through this comedy.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Living in Minneapolis, there are many places I love. This area has great theaters, the Guthrie, Jungle and Latté Da . It has an abundance of hands-on centers, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Northern clay Center, Playwriters’ Center and more. If you are here in the summer and being outside is loved, Minneapolis has one of the top 20 parks of the world. Its string of lakes are connected with walks, from its northwestern Brown Lake with its 5 other lake connection of Minnehaha Creek to the southeastern Minnehaha Falls Park, with fabulous food at and near each. Paul Manship sculptures are dotted throughout.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I come from a family of book lovers. When I discovered the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, I was home. It everything I loved, books, paper, printing and visual expression. I tlearned everything I could for five years, from the basics to the master classes. Then I started creating and teaching. I joined the MCBA Artist Cooperative. It gave me opportunities to learn, teach, print, book&box make, exhibit, curate and grow. This place was full of peers and mentors. It was brimming with new challenges. I had a community that thrived. We were given a lot. And it provided a place to give back, to mentor, curate, and problem solve. I met master artists like Amanda Degener, Daniel Kelm, Julie Chen and Jana Pullman. I had peers to grow with Regula Russelle, Georgia Greeley, Richard Stephens and others. MCBA is alive. It changes, grows, mutates. During Covid, it continued. And still it to promotes and evangelizes for the book as an art form.

Website: www.cbsherlock.org

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cbsherlock/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cbsherlock.seymour.press

Image Credits
I am photographed by Joanna Holstrom in my studio. All artwork photographs are mine.