Artist Statement
Soft books, children’s books for pre-readers, offer comforting, tactile interactions. Soft Book, geared for adults, invites both a reading experience and a visual/tactile one. Raised cross stitches create each letter of single-syllable words to reveal insights about the book-making process: “say book” to “sew book” to “sift book,” and so on. Readers find each page opens flat, so the back of each embroidered word—and the stitching process—is highlighted. Soft Book, an object that exposes and celebrates its own making, offers readers a tactile and intellectually stimulating engagement with the book form.
Materials & Technique
A hand-woven and sewn book. Materials: wool yarn, embroidery floss. Edition of 1, created April 2022.
About Genevieve Kaplan
Genevieve Kaplan is the author of (aviary) (Veliz Books, 2020), In the ice house (Red Hen Press, 2011), and four chapbooks, most recently I exit the hallway and turn right (above/ground, 2020). Her writing can be found in Third Coast, Spillway, Denver Quarterly, Poetry Magazine, and other journals. Genevieve earned her MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and her PhD in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. She regularly teaches university and community courses in creative writing, poetry, and book-making; she lives in southern California.