Seventh Annual New Jersey International Book Arts Symposium
Marcia Sandmeyer Wilson's Sketchbook
Marcia Sandmeyer Wilson became The New Jersey Book Arts Symposium first Artist-In-Residence-For- the- Day--with the proviso that we would tell nobody. Despite complying with her wishes, we noticed that people soon caught on to her, even though she kept positioning her chair along the edge of the room. (And this explains in part her preference for over the shoulder portraits, rather than full frontal.)
Having complied with Ms Wilson's plea for inconspicuousness if not anonymity for so long, we are now hereby outing her. Here are low-res scans of thirty-three of these sketches, made with a pencil and pad. We've arranged them in sequence, more or less, parallel to the events of the day, according to the captions on some of the pages. (Certain sketches do not denote any specific passage in the conference and so we've placed those where they seemed to fit.) The sketches suffer slightly in being reduced, we admit, but we think they retain the spirit of the original.
For ease of reading we've copied over the captions included in the sketch, except when the text was too long for this purpose or inaccurately identified the subject. When possible we've correctly named subjects within square brackets []. We enjoy these sketches very much, which deftly combine affection and gentle caricature, and we thank Marcia Sandmeyer Wilson for undertaking the hazards of being our first artist-in-residence and for graciously permitting us to publish her work in this form.
Marcia Sandmeyer Wilson sketching
Finger Cutting Prosperity
"John Ross listens to Bill Dane"
Bill Dane
"Gerard Charriere: reasons why I came to the states"
"Michael Joseph listening to Gerard Charriere"
"The arm of Lois Morrison listening to Gerard Charriere"
"Sleeve of Clare Romano"
"Unknown person listening"
"Nose of Lynne Allen"
"Rand Huebsch . . . Michael Joseph listening"
"Ackroyd,
"Clare Romano [and] hand of John Ross"
"Lois Morrison Sews An Orange Book"
"Man [Bill Majors] running video camera"
"Michael Joseph holding disposable camera"
"[Xia] Washington"
"Bill Dane. . . Ilsa Schreiber-Noll"
"Jean Stufflebeam and Mary Olive Stone"
"Mary Olive Stone"
"Nancy Tomasko listening to Ilse Schreiber-Noll read poem to Joseph Brodsky 1990"
"Lois sewing while Ilse Schreiber-Noll recites poem"
"Hand of unknown woman"
"Unknown person listening to Lynne Allen talk about the journals of her great grandmother made into a mocassin."
"Nancy Tomasko listening to Lynne Allen talk about things all about us that we think are safe and are not really safe."
"Bill Dane: 'If she can sell me one of those.'"
"Sister [Sheila] Flynn. 'Sometimes I don't know how to take the nextstep forward, but I promise you that art changes lives.' "
"[Student] listening to Sister Sheila Flynn say 'I am because you are--as you suffer from Sept. 11 so we suffer with you.'"
"Mary Olive Stone listens to Robert Sewell talk about 8th century Japanese books that nobody ever read."
"John Ross hears Robert Sewell say Chinese writing starts at the top and goes from right to left."
"Lois Morrison sewing while Robert Sewell talks about 8th c. Japanese printed book. "
"Robert Sewell listens to Lourdes Vazquez ..."
"Ackroyd listens to Lourdes Vazquez talk about codexes in Mexico"
"Nancy Norton Tomasko"