THIRD EYE by SUSAN BEE

THIRD EYE
By Susan Bee
(Commissioned for the Miniature Book Library, 2020)
Size: 1.25" x 1.5"

The Miniature Book Library is pleased to present THIRD EYE, its commissioned miniature book by Susan Bee who created mixed media drawings & collage on a leather-bound book with Arches paper pages.

Susan Bee is an artist living in Brooklyn. She is represented by A.I.R. Gallery in NYC. Bee will have a solo show, “Anywhere Out of the World: New Paintings,” at A.I.R., September 12-October 11, 2020. She has had eight previous solo shows at A.I.R. Gallery, NY, and solo shows at Southfirst Gallery and Accola Griefen Gallery in NY. Bee has also had solo shows at the University of Pennsylvania, Odetta Gallery, Belmont University, Kenyon College, Columbia University, William Paterson College, the New York Public Library, Pratt Institute Library, Virginia Lust Gallery, and her work has been included in numerous group shows. 

Bee’s artwork is in many public and private collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery at Reed College, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Getty Museum, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. 

Bee has published sixteen artist’s books. She has collaborated with: Susan Howe, Charles Bernstein, Johanna Drucker, Regis Bonvicino, Jerome McGann, Rachel Levitsky, and Jerome Rothenberg. Bee is the coeditor of M/E/A/N/I/N/G: An Anthology of Artist's Writings, Theory, and Criticism, Duke University Press, 2000, and the coeditor of M/E/A/N/I/N/G Online. Her artist’s book archive and the M/E/A/N/I/N/G Archive are at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Bee’s paintings are on over 50 book covers and her artworks, interviews, and writings have been included in numerous publications.

THIRD EYE is the second miniature book made by Susan Bee. The first was Bee’s Knees, which she did in quarantine in April 2020. It is in the collection of Mimi Gross, who gave her the blank miniature leporello, and is shown in the film: 

Susan Bee: Creativity in Isolation, Beinecke Library, Yale (July 7, 2020). Yale holds a great artist book archive and there is more information about Susan Bee at their site.

As regards THIRD EYE, Bee shares:

When Eileen asked me to do another miniature book, I wasn’t sure how to proceed. She sent me a darling leather book made with Arches paper and immediately I plunged in. I used stickers that I have been collecting including ones from Japan that I bought in Hong Kong. The title: Third Eye sticker is one of the Asian ones from my collection.

I like the immediacy and the childish directness of the stickers. I use them in a collage with line drawings and watercolors and gouache. For this book, I also used a lot of colored pencil, crayons, and markers. I like tackling each page without a plan. Just a desire to be playful and to have fun. I really wanted the book to be amusing and colorful. I love Eileen's phrase “bruisingly cute.” I have been making a lot of unique books since the quarantine and over the last few years. It takes my mind off mundane matters and politics and it is a nice relief from the rigors of oil painting. It is a way to cheer myself up in these dire times and my friends seem to enjoy them too.

More biographical information about Susan Bee is at the UPenn site.

We are pleased to share the interior of this unique book, and thank Susan Bee for allowing her works to be shelved on the Miniature Book Library:

~~

The Miniature Book Library welcomes Susan Bee's THIRD EYE!