Liz Mitchell

Liz Mitchell, who grew up in Bernardsville, is influenced by nature, particularly by insects, which figure significantly in her books and in her collages. Images of bugs and other objects tend to come from geography books, geometry books, spec. drawings for building construction, and short hand books, although her work also includes prints of her own making, and rubber stamps produced for her. A collagist as well as a bookmaker, Ms Mitchell said that each process informs the other, that the "movement between books and collages goes back and forth." The books discussed tended to be either altered books or books that started out to be altered books (her Fragments had been intended as an altered dictionary and, disintegrating in the altering process, "became something else"). Most of her books are made without texts, including Time Worn, which includes copper plates embedded in the pages, and Into the Woods. Ms Mitchell noted that the title for Into the Woods refers back to her childhood experience: whenever she or any of her siblings left the house, they would say goodbye by telling their mother they were going "into the woods." Ms Mitchell also discussed her Cathedral Book, which celebrates the work of her great grandfather and her grandfather, who helped to build the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Newark, the world's fifth largest cathedral, beginning in 1899 and concluding in 1954. Ms Mitchell ruefully noted that the cathedral was perhaps best known for its appearance at the beginning of The Sopranos television series. In addition to printmaking, Ms Mitchell's work is supported by her facility in low fire ceramics.

Artist's Statement [PDF]