Jamie Ash
Book Artist
Jamie Ash — Book Artist
I am a Taos, NM based book artist and teacher. Over the years, I have been a caterer, contractor, plaster colorist and restorer. Born in Chicago in 1961, educated in politics at Princeton University, my life took a turn after writing a thesis on the politics of speaking about nature. Having been a city kid, I chose to move to a community in the mountains north of Taos.
Early on, I made collages, little comics, marrying text with visual elements, shown at Mindscape Gallery in Evanston IL.
I started working in handmade books in 2005, under Norah Lovell, a Taos artist. I founded the Taos Book Arts Group in 2007 to create a structure for a community of artists working in the book form. We continue to meet monthly with a standing exhibit at the Taos Community Auditorium. Later, I co-founded the Book Arts Program at the Harwood Museum of Art. I also teach privately.
In 2001, I began importing artist pigments from Europe and using them to color interior plaster, developing 700 colors over the years. (See “The Color Genius of Jamie Ash,” Taos News, Feb. 11, 2012.)
As a book artist, I have two distinct bodies of work: more traditional books using patinaed metals, and book sculptures, which always begin with text. Specific forms emerge in response. I use ¼” birch plywood to build boxes which I consider my “pages.” I then manipulate the surfaces and cut windows to reveal text.
The last five years have brought a time of prolonged grieving after the death of my spouse, during which I questioned meaning widely/wildly. My piece, “Longing,” speaks to that. I sought refuge in the natural world, spending hours in the mountains, during all seasons, and above treeline, allowing myself that big vista and bigger perspective on the physical world. My recent piece, “Escalante,” speaks to the wilds—the power of the physical and the respite it offers.
I show locally and nationally. My work has been seen at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, the University of California, San Diego Giesel Library, the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay Lawton Gallery, and at the New Mexico Capitol Rotunda.