We were lucky to catch up with Gina Fowler recently and have shared our conversation below.

Gina, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

In the Fall of 2020, in the midst of uncertainty about my craft and attempting to work on an MFA degree in Book Arts, a fundamentally physical art form, via virtual classes, I decided to create a piece of work in response to Sonya Clark’s “Measuring Histories” prompt from The Art Assignment. The result was an experimental artists’ book entitled “Impressions of Loss”. Impressions of Loss (2020) is an attempt to actualize the impact of familial death on those who are left behind, by representing individual members of my family who died during my lifetime. I used soft handmade paper and hand-dyed thread to create a tangible, tactile impression for each loss that I have experienced in my family. Each individual thread represents one family member whose life intersected with mine.

This was a deeply emotional project, but also one that was incredibly healing during an incredibly dark time in the world generally. Personally, I found meaning in the ability to share this part of myself and my family history with others through a tangible work. The process of hand-dying thread and weaving it was slow and meditative and the result is visually much more impactful than I could have known starting out, much how the impact of our families (both good and bad) can be felt for generations after they are gone.

Gina, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a full-time visual artist working with the book as my primary form. From a process standpoint, I am interested in combining experimental bookbinding, printmaking, boxmaking, papermaking and other mixed media forms to create complex and compelling artists’ books. My own work has been published under the press name The Puzzled Press since 2018 and I have also begun to work with other artists, writers, and creators to create collaborative book objects and collections. Additionally, I take on custom bookbinding and boxmaking commissions, which can include both the creation and the preservation of work by and for others.

My recent work has focused primarily on abstract interpretation of women’s literature and exploring intersections between place and memory, but I am constantly brainstorming ideas for future projects and never know where my imagination will take me. Right now, I’m working on several projects involving everything from fairy tales to bodies of water and from queer storytelling to an exploration of women in greek mythology.

I started making books in 2018, after finishing an unfulfilling undergraduate degree and was so drawn to the possibilities and beauty of the form and processes that I chose to pursue an MFA in Book Arts from The University of Alabama, which I completed largely during the Covid-19 pandemic, graduating in early 2022. During that time I taught various courses and workshops and created a new body of work, however, the part of the experience that moved me the most was working with other artists, hearing new ideas, and working together to create collaborative projects.

Artists’ books are an incredibly unique form and have a rich history, but this form moves me in large part because of the flexible and inherently experimental nature of the medium. I love finding new ways of expressing information and find that research and development tend to be the most exciting and also most time-consuming part of my creative process. I hope to share with others the immense possibility of the book form and to invite conversation about the power of making visual art through this lens.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lesson that I had to unlearn to trust myself enough to create full-time is to stop relying on the opinions of others to drive my work. I have had the most success in creating work when I am working with material that is deeply meaningful to me, but that often means that a lot of work has to happen on my end before I can convey those ideas clearly to others. The only project that I have created that I view as a complete failure was one that I allowed to be driven and influenced heavily by other artists. Although these were individuals for whom I have deep respect and have been mentors for me at various times, I felt at the time unable to push forward with my own ideas in the face of criticism and instead morphed the project into something that they found more compelling. As a result, the project lacks coherence, voice, and passion, all of which were lost because of my own doubt in my ideas. Trusting myself is something that has been a much deeper challenge in my life broadly, but there came a point in my creative development where the only way to create authentic and meaningful work was to do so (at least in terms of art).

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think that society values artists and creatives relatively quietly and changing this would strengthen the creative ecosystem to a large extent. Recognizing that artists and creative enterprises enrich life in a qualitative, rather than quantitative, way and codifying that in resources and infrastructure might mean expanding our definition of “value” outside of numbers. I believe strongly that celebrating creative work in any way will help more and more people in our society understand the power of community in strengthening each out. Whether it is speaking more about the role of art of all mediums in our lives or financially supporting local artists, creators, and businesses, art is a sector that will give back tenfold anything that it receives.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ginafowler.com
• Instagram: @thepuzzledpress

Image Credits
Gina Louise Fowler