OH GIVE ME A HOME
1999
mixed media artist book

OH GIVE ME A HOME is a limited edition artist book that combines a variety of media and well-known text. I've rearranged the lyrics from popular songs such as "This land is your land..." and "Oh Give Me A Home Where The Buffalo Roam...," the pledge of allegiance, and the lyrics
from songs that celebrate America. I've patched the words together in a new way to better reflect my belief system and form the text for this book which is subtitled, "A personal national anthem."

Oh Give
Me A Home

The finished size is 6.5" x 7.25" x 1" and the total number of pages is 14. The type was set in a variety of fonts to reflect the different sources of text and printed on Rives BFK paper. The edition size of this hand-printed, painted and bound book is 12.

 

Limited Edition of 12: $175 each

where to purchase
OH GIVE ME A HOME

The process I used to construct this artist book was as unorthodox as the resulting text. First, I letterpress-printed on 7" x 10" sheets of paper the lyrics or words in their original arrangements. Next, I painted over those sheets with oil bars and oil-based paint (over a layer of clear acrylic to prevent the oil from soaking through the paper), adding and removing and then adding more layers to create an aged appearance.

 

 
The next step involved cutting out the strips of text so I could rearrange them. Then I used a variety of media (ink, graphite, colored pencil) to draw on the reverse side of the page so that when the page was folded in half, the strips left from cutting out the text revealed the drawings and the original text, which I stenciled in graphite. Finally, I affixed the rearranged text to the page and bound the book using an accordion structure for flexibility and an album binding to hold it all together.

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250 Third Avenue N., Studio 312
Minneapolis, MN 55401

612.333.9205



Copyright 2003 Wendy Fernstrum

No images or text may be reproduced
without permission of the artist