JENNA RODRIGUEZ

The Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago currently has a solo exhibition of Johanna Drucker’s work on display called Druckworks: 40 years of Books and Projects. If you have not seen it yet it is a must and is up until December 7th on the second floor in 1104 South Wabash.  Last night I had the honor to listen to a lecture she gave here.  Her talk revolved around Writing by Design. Throughout Johanna’s work she continues to consider and think about the space of the page, the book format, and ways to enhance the text.  One can quickly view her book and appreciate the visual aspect of it and a understand a basic narrative but to truly have a full experience with her books one will need to spend a lot of time with them because there are many layers in her books and lots of decoding. She said letterpress printing changed her capacity and thinking for writing.  When she held the physical type, lead, and furniture it opened up a whole new world of design for her.