Donald Glaister

Vashon Island, Washington

Brooklyn Bridge: A Love Song, 2002

A poem, written by the artist, celebrating the material and symbolic richness of the Great Bridge begins the text. Following the poem are five page spread paintings of the Bridge, seen from different angles, times of day and times of year. These are painted with acrylic paint on sanded aluminum pages, attached to paper hinges. Alternating between the paintings are sets of abstract studies, nine in all, that explore the essence of bridgeness. They are likewise made of sanded aluminum with acrylic paint, wire, aluminum tape, laminated polyester film and sand. The studies are mounted onto the aluminum pages. The paintings and studies are quite similar from book to book, but not identical, and it is not unusual to find significant differences. The type is Avant Garde and is silkscreen printed. The quarter leather binding is made of Nigerian goat skin with sanded aluminum sides. Brooklyn Bridge: A Love Song is a book of twenty eight pages. The series is limited to sixty books, of which ten are held hors commerce. 32 x 36 x 2 centimeters. Created 2003.

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Donald Glaister is a book artist now living and working on Vashon Island, Washington. He began his bookbinding career after taking degrees in painting and sculpture from San Jose State College in California, and studying binding privately with Barbara Hiller in San Francisco, and Pierre Aufschneider and Roger Arnoult in Paris. His over twenty-five year professional career in design bookbinding has centered on the exploration, development and use of unexpected binding materials, visual humor, and spontaneous expression, while working within the classical framework of the European binding form. The main focus of his current work is the creation of artist’s books in multiple. Don has taught binding and design privately and as Professor of Book Arts at the University of Alabama. Don’s bindings appear in private collections throughout North America and Europe, and in institutional collections such as the Library of Congress; the Lilly Library at Indiana University; the Ruth Mortimer Collection at Smith College; the Bridwell Library at Southern Methodist University; the Houghton Library at Harvard University; the Cornell University Library; the James S. Copley Library in La Jolla, California; the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York; The National Library of the Netherlands; and The British Library. Website at www.foolsgoldstudio.com.