I express my love of the narrative, and my interest in deconstructing narrative, by making books for people to handle. To be human is to use language and stories to help us think, navigate, and thrive.
My favorite themes are mortality, individual transformation, and the acts of writing and reading.
Text by Matt Daly, image and layout by Sue Sommers. Produced for Habitat, an exhibit and portfolio curated by Mark Ritchie and hosted by the Laramie County Library in Cheyenne, WY, June 20 - August 21, 2022.
Inspired by a gene that helps sagebrush survive excessive heat.
Artists’ statement: This piece is about the proteins in some cells that exist to help other proteins rebound from stress, so the piece is also about love.
Text by Matt Daly, image and layout by Sue Sommers. Letters of the four DNA nucleotides and word pairings: Adenine/this; Cytosine/love; Guanine/made; Thymine/world. Color symbolism: blue, red, yellow and black for the four process colors (CMYK) and the four humors (phlegm/water, blood/air, yellow bile/fire, and black bile/earth).
Images and layout by Sue Sommers.
Link to the exhibit and Laramie County Library website
Inkjet digital collage on paper, rubber stamp, glass, duct tape. Dimensions variable. Made for “Art in the Time of COVID-19” group exhibit at Art Association Gallery, September 2020, Jackson WY.
“Untouchable” is a COVID-based piece inspired by selected works of Felix Gonzales-Torres (1957-1996) in which he invited viewers to take a portion of the work away with them.
Essential and treasured elements of human contact have become forbidden and potentially fatal. Segments of my digital collage, stacked here, are for viewers to take. I hope it will evoke memory and yearning, and remind people that our fear is temporary. One day we will all again be touchable.
Impressions of facial features made with oil paint on paper, digitally scanned and manipulated.
Collaboration with Holland Dutton of Cora, Wyoming. Take a key to keep a bit of music with you. Hand cut sheet music, laser printing, post binding.
Two coin collecting albums printed in 1959 for Liberty Walking Half Dollars (issued 1916-1947). Coin slots are filled with original drawings of walking feet. The entire text of Emma Lazarus's "The New Colossus" is rubber stamped across the pages of each volume. An homage to Lazarus, liberty, immigration, and walking women everywhere. Each volume: 8 x 6 x 1 inches.
Collage inside back cover of Volume 1 combines original pages from 1888 Century Magazine obituary.
A blank book of 41 ruled pages, with all 154 sonnets of William Shakespeare microprinted in the rules, allowing random or planned collaboration/commentary. Great for lists, sketches, journaling. Foil stamped embossed cover, offset printed interior, perfect bound, 5.5 x 8.5 inches, edition of 750.
Detail, showing how this book is ready for your Sonnetary intervention, and how well it fits in the hand.
Detail of microprinting
Dry-media spiral sketchbook bound on all 4 sides for quantum creativity. Choose any side as the top, change the sequence and interaction of images at will. Cover is soft-touch with foil stamping, interior pages are #80 cover, acid-free bright white with vellum finish. 32 sheets/64 pages, approx. 7 x 10 x 1 inches, edition of 200.
Detail: fully open sketchbook showing how pages on all four sides interact.
Offset printed booklet alternating found vintage postcards written by ill people, with excerpts from the Old Testament. 5.5 x 8.5 inches, 8 pages, edition of 1000. Free upon request. View the PDF version here.
Offset printed booklet reproducing three vintage postcards, all from the same man to his parents, over the course of 18 years. A narrative so open and sparse that it suggests a multitude of possibilities. 5.5 x 8.5 inches, 12 pages, edition of 500. Free upon request. View the PDF version here.
This series of altered books is made from volumes of the Encyclopedia Americana (1960), cut down, shuffled, and rebound in a traditional hard case, covered in book cloth and buckram - an analog version of the web search experience.
Each unique volume is a handy but substantial 5.5 x 4.25 x 1.25 inches, 668 pages. Ongoing since 2012, more than 2 dozen crafted to date.
Detail, interior of one unique volume.
Nine hand-colored etchings, inspired by pack trips into the Wind River Mountains of western Wyoming, printed by the artist and hand-sewn into a small paperback. Hand-coloring makes each book unique and harks back to antique hand-colored prints of famous landmarks. A great gift for any lover of western landscape. Intaglio, watercolor, hand binding. 6 x 5 x .25 inches, edition variable.
Detail, interior pages of one unique volume.
Detail, interior pages of one unique volume
To thank me for not giving up on my art life! Fourteen feet of self-portraits on one side of the accordion folded paper, fourteen feet of self-indulgent (oh, I mean self-validating) spontaneous sketches on the other. Wraparound goatskin cover with deerskin ties, original watercolors on Rives BFK, 11 x 12 x 1 inches closed, 11 x 180 inches open, unique.
Detail, extended view of self-portrait side.
Through individual works and innovative collaborations, I share my studio practice with my community.
Summer 2018: collaboration with Holland Dutton of Cora, Wyoming. This temporary installation in the library atrium accompanied the exhibit Ensemble: Inspiration and the Artist’s Book. Banners of player piano rolls and audiocassette tape point to the material beauty of archaic music recording technology. Exhibit catalog.
Installation views down the length of the Laramie County Library atrium. When the sliding doors at each end opened, incoming air would gently move and rustle the paper and cassette tape.
A two-person spoon marks every hour as the time for reciprocity. Contribution to the Unstitched States online project.
100-ft. diameter power button inscribed on a pasture in Daniel, Wyoming, near the Anticline Gas Field. Sowed with orange wallflowers and purple penstemon. A collaborative installation by Pipeline Art Project, with consultation from Sublette County Weed & Pest and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Photo: WyomingAeroPhoto LLC
A temporary public mural on the main street of Pinedale, WY, commissioned by ExSite: Incubate 2D, a program administered by the Pinedale Public Art program
A 4 x 6' landscape selected by the Wyoming Legislative Artwork Donation Program to hang permanently in the State Capitol in Cheyenne.
A public art performance, video, and traveling photography exhibit in honor of Sublette County, Wyoming, and small family ranches everywhere. Planned and executed by Kunstwaffen Art Group. A local pioneer ranchwoman’s journal entry was inscribed on 56 pregnant cows, which were then released in a pasture to deconstruct the text. Excoriated repeatedly by talk radio personality Rush Limbaugh. For more, see Archive.
