Christopher McAfee
Springville, Utah

D.J. Butler, City of the Saints

City of the Saints is the first Mormon steampunk novel, an action-packed story with clockwork mechanisms, steam coaches, and a futuristic vision of the 1859 west. Gears, pipes, and moving parts combine to share a glimpse into the story's inner workings. It intrigues me that the formation of such a work is not executed by the book artist alone, but by the combination of writer, artist, and reader. The writer forms a story and the artist forms a design, but the book is not complete until the reader forms a vision as they react to the design and read the story.

Wooden boards, cloth spine, acrylic paint, brass and wooden gears, copper pipe, acrylic rods, metal springs, Madeleine Durham paste paper endsheets. 9.5 x 7.25 x 5.125 inches. 24 x 18.5 x 13 centimeters. Created 2018.

CHRISTOPHER MCAFEE works as a book conservator at the Brigham Young University Library and spends many of his weekends making books and other things. He also has a bit of a passion for steampunk.