“My artwork is based on my everyday life and my surroundings,” said Andrew Huot, a book artist, binder and conservator, and currently the conservator for Milner Library. “It is an excuse for me to explore my surroundings.”

Huot presented his lecture, “Unnoticed Facets: Mapping Experience Through Artists’ Books” as a part of the Visual Culture Colloquium last night sponsored by the School of Art.

“I take notes then connect them with pattern and shape,” he said. “Text, both bound and written by myself, how words can create images in our heads, direction and destination, mapping and looking at place are some of the themes that show in my work.”

“My goal is to orient myself in my surroundings and convey common themes in all of our lives.”

Huot began his book art after an interest in photography. He explained he transitioned to print making when looking for a better way to get his ideas across.

“I enjoyed complicated process and steps involved in both areas,” he said.

At the end of his college career he attended a two-day workshop about book art. He learned about fine press and how it makes unique and expensive books. There are high production standards and handmade paper, pictures and text in these books.

“I was fascinated with the craft and collaboration and I fell in love with the materials,” he said.

Once he learned the craft of the book, he wasn’t sure how to combine his artwork with the structure of the book, so he studied others’ work including Tim Ely and Julie Chen, who incorporate sand, paint, dirt and sculpture into their books.

He explained that through studying others he learned that traditional design elements could either be used or broken.

Much of his work depicts his travels to five different countries, the routines of traveling and images of maps.

“A new city is always a mystery to solve for me,” he said. “I love the patterns of maps and often need to draw them to figure out my surroundings.

“I was looking to use map imagery in a book, but I couldn’t figure out an easy way to remove the words. I cut away all the buildings and painted the remaining points white. I love the pattern of the streets,” he said.

Huot has an accordion book that tracks his day-to-day life in Bangkok from pictures he took each time the bus stopped on the street.         

“I was fascinated to see how the locals live and watch changes as we approached downtown. It shows every stop the bus made from both sides of the bus and opens to about 20 feet long,” he explained.

Old books that others have marked up have become original pieces as well. He had a travel book where the original owner had marked places they had been with a red pencil. He scanned text so only the underlined words showed up and left this text to create its own poetry on the pages.

Huot has even made books that help him deal with life. When his wife wanted a dog he made “A Guide to Dogs” that described the dogs he knew from media, like Bandit and Snoopy.

After getting a dog he created “Walks with Rosie”, a book that shows a map of the places his dog walked, was pet, and pooped. The book was printed on Japanese paper to show the echo of previous walks.

Elizabeth Freedman, coordinator of the colloquium, summed up Huot’s work as a process that brings together abstract events and our daily lives, distills them down to their essence, then extends them outward to our collective experience.

She also explained Huot teaches bookbinding, book arts, and conservation workshops at universities, summer programs and community arts venues.

Milner Library houses four of Huot’s books and students can also register for a class with him this summer.