Why We Love Books, designed, edited, and bound by Rachel Simmons, June 2024. A collaborative one-of-a-kind artist ’s book created with typewritten participant responses, risographs, and stab bound with metal rivets. 5.125” tall x 10.75” wide x .5” deep. This book is 77 pages long and printed on French paper.
Why We Love Books is a collaborative community book arts project I organized for “Critical Reading,” the CBAA annual meeting I co-hosted with Ben Rinehart at Rollins College, June 7-9, 2024. Over 30 artists, librarians, and book enthusiasts contributed to the pages of this book by responding to a set of prompts developed in collaboration with participants. Each prompt was displayed on a different manual or electric typewriter (including a rare IBM Selectric with three fonts) and participants were invited to type their way around the studio, embracing the unique experience of working on typewriters and giving themselves permission to leave typos behind as a record of authentic, in-the-moment reflections. Everyone wrote together in the studio, creating a symphony of fingers hitting typewriter keys and accompanied by ringing return chimes and happy chatter. This environment shaped their energetic and thoughtful responses, which were often in dialogue with one another.
After the responses were submitted, I gathered the pages to trim and edit (without correcting typos) and collaged them over a variety of vivid risograph patterns. The vibrancy of the backgrounds echoes the dynamic qualities of the writing and bring focus to each writer ’s voice. After scanning all 77 pages, I bound them together with metal rivets in a stab bound book with a wide pattern. There are two digital copies available for download, one with the pages turned horizontally for better viewing, and one where the pages are set vertically for easier printing on a US letter sized sheet. Contributors are welcome to download, print and reproduce these files.
I created the first volume of this book in 2019 in collaboration with members of the Book Arts Guild of Central Florida. In that version, I asked contributors to respond only to the prompt, “Why We Love Books.” We each contributed a collage and typewritten folio to what ended up being a very long leporello. In the two hours we had to finish our folios, we worked primary with found collage elements which allowed us to explore visual representations of why we love books as well as through writing.
Rachel ’s folio from the first edition of Why We Love Books, 2019
Rachel Simmons is an artist and educator from Orlando, Florida who makes artist’s books, comics, zines, and prints. In her creative practice, she explores environmental and social activism, science, philosophy and memory. She teaches book arts and printmaking at Rollins College and serves on the board of CBAA. You can find her work at www.rachelsimmons.net and follow her on instagram @bearwithjetpack.
