• work
  • blog
  • news
  • contact
  • about
Menu

Louise Levergneux

ARTISTS' BOOKS ◉ LIVRES D'ARTISTE
  • work
  • blog
  • news
  • contact
  • about

© 2020 Louise Levergneux. Thinking differently brings new and creative ideas.

The Treasures of Arizona

September 30, 2020

Meticulously researching binding structures online a few years ago, I was captivated with Philip Zimmermann’s book work Sanctus Sonorensis, a book of border ‘beatitudes’. This work comments on the complicated attitudes of Americans on illegal immigration from Mexico. Being in Arizona for a few months, I reached out to Philip for a studio visit. But last April, another disappointment came my way when a planned visit to his studio in Tucson had to be promptly cancelled because of the pandemic.

While wandering full time, I relished the valuable experience of viewing artists’ books during my rendez-vous to many library special collections and artist studios. These tumultuous times establish unique challenges and missed opportunities. But, I aspire to continue virtually meeting with leading artists as mentioned in my previous post. Not the same as in person, for sure! But virtual communication, nevertheless, brings creative inspiration and opens doors for new dialogues with artists’ books.

This month 1/2 Measure Studio Blog is featuring Philip Zimmermann’s work for all of us to vicariously experience. Enjoy your visit.

Philip Zimmermann owns and operates Spaceheater Editions in Tucson, Arizona, and has been making artists’ books and multiples under this imprint since early 1979. Zimmermann produces open-edition and limited-edition works that use photography, printmaking and design.

© 2020 Philip Zimmermann. The front of Philip’s adobe brick house in the Historic Ft. Lowell area.

© 2020 Philip Zimmermann. The front of Philip’s adobe brick house in the Historic Ft. Lowell area.

© 2020 Philip Zimmermann. Shown above is the exterior and entrance of Philip's main studio area. This adobe addition was built in the summer of 2008 after his move from New York.

© 2020 Philip Zimmermann. Shown above is the exterior and entrance of Philip's main studio area. This adobe addition was built in the summer of 2008 after his move from New York.

Philip Zimmermann in his main studio. Courtesy of Philip Zimmermann.

Philip Zimmermann in his main studio. Courtesy of Philip Zimmermann.

© 2020 Philip Zimmermann. Views of the interior of Philip Zimmermann’s main studio area. It is only about 400 square feet plus a small full bathroom.

© 2020 Philip Zimmermann. Views of the interior of Philip Zimmermann’s main studio area. It is only about 400 square feet plus a small full bathroom.

© 2020 Philip Zimmermann. This is the smallest studio Philip has ever had. The size of this tight atelier was determined by the amount of land at the back of his home and the HOA (Homeowners Association) rules.

© 2020 Philip Zimmermann. This is the smallest studio Philip has ever had. The size of this tight atelier was determined by the amount of land at the back of his home and the HOA (Homeowners Association) rules.

© 2020 Philip Zimmermann. Living in an historic district, an architect was hired to conform to the building restrictions, HOA rules, the Historic Fort Lowell District as well as the city of Tucson. This didn’t seem like a straightforward task!

© 2020 Philip Zimmermann. Living in an historic district, an architect was hired to conform to the building restrictions, HOA rules, the Historic Fort Lowell District as well as the city of Tucson. This didn’t seem like a straightforward task!

© 2020 Philip Zimmermann. The only printing devices Philip still has are a large Epson inkjet printer and a colour laser printer. Otherwise, he buys printing from overseas or from local commercial printers. His current book is being printed in Franc…

© 2020 Philip Zimmermann. The only printing devices Philip still has are a large Epson inkjet printer and a colour laser printer. Otherwise, he buys printing from overseas or from local commercial printers. His current book is being printed in France.

© 2020 Philip Zimmermann. The studio annex area which is in an enclosed part of what was a covered porch on the back of his house. This is where Philip does book binding board cutting, wrapping and shipping of books, foil-stamping, paste paper, and …

© 2020 Philip Zimmermann. The studio annex area which is in an enclosed part of what was a covered porch on the back of his house. This is where Philip does book binding board cutting, wrapping and shipping of books, foil-stamping, paste paper, and hopes to restart his silkscreen practice as well.

© 2015 Philip Zimmermann. Reaper is a meditation on the destructive cycle of violence and war, followed by rebuilding and reconstruction, then war again. This is often followed by yet another iteration of that rebuilding and destruction: a painful c…

© 2015 Philip Zimmermann. Reaper is a meditation on the destructive cycle of violence and war, followed by rebuilding and reconstruction, then war again. This is often followed by yet another iteration of that rebuilding and destruction: a painful cycle that has continued in many areas around the globe throughout history.

© 2015 Philip Zimmermann. The theme for Reaper was inspired by the events in Gaza during the summer of 2014. It is most commonly caused by the friction and antagonism between different religious and tribal/ethnic belief systems and often aggravated …

© 2015 Philip Zimmermann. The theme for Reaper was inspired by the events in Gaza during the summer of 2014. It is most commonly caused by the friction and antagonism between different religious and tribal/ethnic belief systems and often aggravated by the extreme actions of fundamentalists on both sides and their often rigidly-held and intolerant ideas.

© 2015 Philip Zimmermann. In this book, based on an adaptation of the old Turkish-map-fold structure, text is read on several levels. The outer tabs hold the first ten rather innocuous lines of the primary texts of four specific belief systems. They…

© 2015 Philip Zimmermann. In this book, based on an adaptation of the old Turkish-map-fold structure, text is read on several levels. The outer tabs hold the first ten rather innocuous lines of the primary texts of four specific belief systems. They include the Rig-Veda the oldest sacred Hindu text, the Torah (Genesis) from the Jewish faith (the Old Testament), the first lines of the Christian New Testament Bible, and finally the first ten lines from the Qur’an from Islam. The title of the book refers to both death, as in ‘the grim reaper’, and to the model name of one of the American drone or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) used for bombing in the Middle East and elsewhere.

© 2015 Philip Zimmermann. Reaper is a four-colour archival pigment inkjet-printed book, created as a series of fold-out, modified, Turkish-map-folds, printed on acid-free French Paper Co. stock. Pages hand-cut and folded and cased-in by hand, with b…

© 2015 Philip Zimmermann. Reaper is a four-colour archival pigment inkjet-printed book, created as a series of fold-out, modified, Turkish-map-folds, printed on acid-free French Paper Co. stock. Pages hand-cut and folded and cased-in by hand, with board covers; German Dubletta bookcloth spine was used, with inset title. An archival phase-box enclosure is included. Dimensions: 6.5" x 7.5" x 1". An edition of 25 copies, signed and numbered.

© 2014 Philip Zimmermann. Incident in Deseret — on January 5th, 2014, seven book artists were in Salt Lake City to attend the national conference of the College Book Art Association at the University of Utah. A group traveled to Robert Smithson's ca…

© 2014 Philip Zimmermann. Incident in Deseret — on January 5th, 2014, seven book artists were in Salt Lake City to attend the national conference of the College Book Art Association at the University of Utah. A group traveled to Robert Smithson's canonic land-art piece The Spiral Jetty, about an hour or two out of town in the nearby Great Salt Lake. To commemorate the visit, it was decided that each artist who was there that day would create a book with the Spiral Jetty as theme, and complete it within one year – or earlier if possible.

© 2014 Philip Zimmermann. The idea behind Incident in Deseret: “I am fascinated by faith, and how so many religious people throughout the world are able to ignore what many would think of as logical thinking in order to make the leap to belief. In s…

© 2014 Philip Zimmermann. The idea behind Incident in Deseret: “I am fascinated by faith, and how so many religious people throughout the world are able to ignore what many would think of as logical thinking in order to make the leap to belief. In some ways, I admire that ability as it suggests a certain innocence and magical thinking that I am not able to summon up. The danger is when those folks start to think that they are the only people in the world able to communicate with god and travel the true path to heaven. I think of the location of the Spiral Jetty and Salt Lake itself as ground-zero for the Church of Latter Day Saints and the Mormon faith. Although my book uses terminology that comes from the LDS belief (picked due to the location of the Spiral Jetty) I could have just as easily have used nomenclature from any number of other world religions. Stylistically, I think of this book as the meeting of Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville and Chris Marker's La Jetée with The Book of Mormon. Deseret is the original Mormon name for Utah and was originally comprised of a large section of the American West that included not only Utah (and the Great Salt Lake where the Spiral Jetty is) but also large portions of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Brigham Young's petitions to the US Congress to recognize this huge new state were turned down numerous times and eventually became what is now the current, much smaller, state of Utah. Deseret was also a language and an alphabet system that was developed but never widely used during the 19th century by the Mormons. The title also gives a little nod to a classic western book that I was impressed with when I read it in high school, The Ox-bow Incident and another book (and famous short film) called An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge.”

© 2014 Philip Zimmermann. The edition of Incident in Deseret is printed by archival inkjet on uncoated oatmeal Speckletone paper made by The French Paper Company and bound in a drum-leaf binding in an edition of thirty. There is also a digital print…

© 2014 Philip Zimmermann. The edition of Incident in Deseret is printed by archival inkjet on uncoated oatmeal Speckletone paper made by The French Paper Company and bound in a drum-leaf binding in an edition of thirty. There is also a digital print-on-demand version on white coated paper. The dimensions on both are 8"x8"x.5". The book was started in Philip’s studio in Tucson and completed during an artists' residency at the Ucross Foundation, Clearmont, Wyoming, in August 2014.

© 2011 Philip Zimmermann. Cruising Altitude is a dos-á-dos (double-sided) book on one side about wanderlust, travel, and the quest for the exotic. The other side covers the darker angle of travel: of being a stranger or foreigner in another country …

© 2011 Philip Zimmermann. Cruising Altitude is a dos-á-dos (double-sided) book on one side about wanderlust, travel, and the quest for the exotic. The other side covers the darker angle of travel: of being a stranger or foreigner in another country or culture.

© 2011 Philip Zimmermann. “The section titled ‘Above’ in Cruising Altitude explores the desire to travel away from one’s normal and humdrum world, to see and experience the different and the exotic.”

© 2011 Philip Zimmermann. “The section titled ‘Above’ in Cruising Altitude explores the desire to travel away from one’s normal and humdrum world, to see and experience the different and the exotic.”

© 2011 Philip Zimmermann. “There are many complex reasons why we want to travel. Part of what drives wanderlust is an impatience with the everyday and the desire to expand one’s horizons, sometimes to destroy one’s comfortable status quo, to escape,…

© 2011 Philip Zimmermann. “There are many complex reasons why we want to travel. Part of what drives wanderlust is an impatience with the everyday and the desire to expand one’s horizons, sometimes to destroy one’s comfortable status quo, to escape, to satisfy one’s curiosity about the world. Travel makes one more tolerant, perhaps even promotes peace between cultures and nations.”

© 2011 Philip Zimmermann. Cruising Altitude.

© 2011 Philip Zimmermann. Cruising Altitude.

© 2011 Philip Zimmermann. Cruising Altitude.

© 2011 Philip Zimmermann. Cruising Altitude.

© 2011 Philip Zimmermann. “However ’Below’ (the other, mirror, section) is about the flip-side of wanderlust. In Cruising Altitude the traveler, displaced person, or foreigner encounters a virulent and often jingoistic resistance from the inhabitant…

© 2011 Philip Zimmermann. “However ’Below’ (the other, mirror, section) is about the flip-side of wanderlust. In Cruising Altitude the traveler, displaced person, or foreigner encounters a virulent and often jingoistic resistance from the inhabitants of the new locations that one enters as a visitor. Terms for ‘the other’, usually derogatory or demeaning, appear over photographic views looking down from airplane windows. Although I believe this to be universal, living in Southern Arizona on the border with Mexico I am very aware of this viewpoint in some of the local state population. In addition to the feelings that I have about this subject derived from my current living location, I was the child of an American diplomat. Although I grew up loving the many different places we lived, I never fit in to any of them, nor felt that any one of the places we lived was my home, always feeling like ‘the other’, and that includes the United States itself.”

© 2011 Philip Zimmermann. Cruising Altitude was published in an edition of fifty. The text-block interiors and end-sheets were printed by HP Indigo. There are gold and silver metallic foil titles on both covers. The book was bound by hand with archi…

© 2011 Philip Zimmermann. Cruising Altitude was published in an edition of fifty. The text-block interiors and end-sheets were printed by HP Indigo. There are gold and silver metallic foil titles on both covers. The book was bound by hand with archival book board and Kensington premium bonded red leather, designed to look and feel a little like the old Baedeker travel guides that were extremely popular in Europe in the late 1880s through the 1930s. The dimensions are 5"x8"x.5". Each book comes in an archival gray phase box.

© 2003 Philip Zimmermann. Nature Abhors is about loss, the inevitable by-product and, (perhaps pessimistically) the final result of life and love.

© 2003 Philip Zimmermann. Nature Abhors is about loss, the inevitable by-product and, (perhaps pessimistically) the final result of life and love.

© 2003 Philip Zimmermann. “In the previous four years I had had a great deal of loss in my life with both my parents dying (one by a hit-and-run car), 9.11.2001 and all that meant for anyone living in New York, plus romantic complications in a relat…

© 2003 Philip Zimmermann. “In the previous four years I had had a great deal of loss in my life with both my parents dying (one by a hit-and-run car), 9.11.2001 and all that meant for anyone living in New York, plus romantic complications in a relationship where the two of us did not need or want the same thing. This book is a rumination on what loss has meant for me personally and also what I have found has been a more universal feeling of loss since 9.11. Although the book contains visual references to the twin towers, it is determinedly not about that disaster but more about the collateral damage from that period of time on personal relationships, and ways of moving on from that loss.”

© 2003 Philip Zimmermann. Nature Abhors.

© 2003 Philip Zimmermann. Nature Abhors.

© 2003 Philip Zimmermann. Nature Abhors is 5.25 x 5.25"; printed by HP Indigo on Mohawk Superfine paper. It is 30 pages long, in a hand made slipcase and comes in corrugated-paper fold-out archival phase box. The woven spine construction is based on…

© 2003 Philip Zimmermann. Nature Abhors is 5.25 x 5.25"; printed by HP Indigo on Mohawk Superfine paper. It is 30 pages long, in a hand made slipcase and comes in corrugated-paper fold-out archival phase box. The woven spine construction is based on a model developed by Claire van Vliet from a form originally created by Hedi Kyle. The photograph on page six was taken by Elizabeth Alderman, all the others and the text are mine. To be read through on one side, then on the reverse. Accordion-folded, each sheet affixed to the next with paper tabs illustrated with segments of spinal vertebrae. Both the slipcase and the book are signed and numbered by the artist in an edition of 150.


I graciously appreciated Philip Zimmermann's time and especially the possibility of sharing is work with all of us. Philip’s new book entitled Swamp Monsters is a series of distorted photos of the president and his flunkies at the Republican National Convention; printed on newsprint with a high speed Kodak inkjet at PRINTNEWSPAPER in France.

Swamp Monsters is already on sale in a number of book outlets including Printed Matter in NYC.


In artists' books, artists, Photography, Studio visit Tags Spaceheater Editions, Reaper, Incident in Deseret, Cruising Altitude, Nature Abhors, Sanctus Sonorensis, Philip Zimmermann
← City Shields, 20th AnniversaryArizona and the New Normal →
Welcome Bienvenue

Hello, my name is Louise Levergneux, I’m a book maker. This blog is where I share and reflect on the approaches and structures used in my creative process, artists' books, photography. and more...

Your comments and stories are welcome.


Search / Rechercher

Abonnez-vous / Subscribe

Sign up to receive my blog news and updates / Inscrivez-vous pour recevoir les nouvelles et les mises à jour de mon blogue

I respect your privacy / Je respecte votre confidentialité

Thank you!
Past Posts / Articles Passés
Featured
882Oceano-Beach,-Oceano,-CA-WEB.jpg
May 31, 2023
What Makes An Artists' Book
May 31, 2023
Read More →
May 31, 2023
1340Point-Dume,-Malibu,-CA-WEB.jpg
May 1, 2023
I Made It, Now What?
May 1, 2023
Read More →
May 1, 2023
1230Hollywood-Tour,-Santa-Monica-Pier,-Santa-Monica,-CA-WEB.jpg
Mar 30, 2023
Getting Unstuck — Alleviate An Issue During The Creative Process
Mar 30, 2023
Read More →
Mar 30, 2023
1468Capistrano-Beach,-CA-WEB.jpg
Mar 2, 2023
Baffled, Dumbfounded, Puzzled
Mar 2, 2023
Read More →
Mar 2, 2023
1316Point-Dume,-Malibu,-CA.jpg
Feb 1, 2023
A New Project
Feb 1, 2023
Read More →
Feb 1, 2023
LL Creative Process desing-Publishing copy.jpg
Dec 1, 2022
Creative Process — Distribution
Dec 1, 2022
Read More →
Dec 1, 2022
LL Creative Process desing-Publishing.jpg
Nov 1, 2022
Creative Process, Publishing
Nov 1, 2022
Read More →
Nov 1, 2022
1313Point-Dume,-Malibu,-CA.jpg
Oct 1, 2022
Creative Process, Pilot Options
Oct 1, 2022
Read More →
Oct 1, 2022
007Infatuation-book-web.jpg
Jul 2, 2022
Creative Process, Execution
Jul 2, 2022
Read More →
Jul 2, 2022
Jun 2, 2022
A Visit to Library Collections in the North West and West Coast
Jun 2, 2022
Read More →
Jun 2, 2022
LL Creative Process copy.jpg
May 29, 2022
Creative Process: IDEATION
May 29, 2022
Read More →
May 29, 2022
LL Creative Process-phase Inspiration, Incubation.jpg
Apr 27, 2022
INSPIRATION: Incubation, Eureka Moment
Apr 27, 2022
Read More →
Apr 27, 2022
LL Creative Process Observation.jpg
Mar 31, 2022
Creative Process, INSPIRATION: Observation
Mar 31, 2022
Read More →
Mar 31, 2022
030TT Verde Valley, AZDSC00013.jpg
Feb 28, 2022
Creative Process: INSPIRATION (Preparation)
Feb 28, 2022
Read More →
Feb 28, 2022
024Superstition-Mountain-Trail,-Apache-Junction,-AZ.jpg
Jan 30, 2022
Four Stages of the Creative Process Explained
Jan 30, 2022
Read More →
Jan 30, 2022
DSC00013-web.jpg
Dec 24, 2021
Holiday Creativity
Dec 24, 2021
Read More →
Dec 24, 2021
034Louise-Algonquin-College-78.jpg
Dec 1, 2021
The Process of Creativity
Dec 1, 2021
Read More →
Dec 1, 2021
021Immerive-Van-Gogh.jpg
Oct 31, 2021
Struggle with Creativity
Oct 31, 2021
Read More →
Oct 31, 2021
DSC00011.jpg
Sep 1, 2021
Book Arts News
Sep 1, 2021
Read More →
Sep 1, 2021
LL DVD's (1).jpg
Aug 1, 2021
Archiving and the Past
Aug 1, 2021
Read More →
Aug 1, 2021
007La-Hacienda,-Apache-Junction,-AZDSC00032a.jpg
Jul 1, 2021
Accomplishments and More Tools and Equipment
Jul 1, 2021
Read More →
Jul 1, 2021
DSC00027.jpg
Jun 1, 2021
Tools and Equipment
Jun 1, 2021
Read More →
Jun 1, 2021
DSC00038 (1).JPG
May 1, 2021
New Month, New Project
May 1, 2021
Read More →
May 1, 2021
DSC00010.JPG
Apr 1, 2021
Doing Business
Apr 1, 2021
Read More →
Apr 1, 2021
AmandineNabarra_ForgottenLostandFound_Codex1.jpg
Mar 1, 2021
Forgotten, Lost and Found
Mar 1, 2021
Read More →
Mar 1, 2021
065SurveillanceDSC00033.jpg
Feb 2, 2021
Surveillance
Feb 2, 2021
Read More →
Feb 2, 2021
ML-catalogue.jpeg
Jan 5, 2021
New Year, New Work
Jan 5, 2021
Read More →
Jan 5, 2021
094Creche--2013DSC09223_DxO.jpg
Dec 1, 2020
Surveillance
Dec 1, 2020
Read More →
Dec 1, 2020
05a_Reciprocal.jpg
Nov 29, 2020
A Birthday Special
Nov 29, 2020
Read More →
Nov 29, 2020
005City-Shields12-DSC08854.jpg
Oct 31, 2020
City Shields, 20th Anniversary
Oct 31, 2020
Read More →
Oct 31, 2020

Archives
Archive
  • 2023 5
  • 2022 10
  • 2021 12
  • 2020 14
  • 2019 19
  • 2018 43
  • 2017 46
  • 2016 42
  • 2015 1

© 2022 Louise Levergneux