 Sideshow By Rigel Stuhmiller San Francisco, California: San Francisco Center for the Book, 2010. Edition of 100. 4.5 x 4.5"; 45 pages. Double-sided vertical accordion fold book. Three-color letterpress printed. Colophon pastedown. Illustrated wraparound wrapper. San Francisco Center for the Book: "The book follows the rise and fall of a vintage fictional circus. The format of the book, 11 double-sided pages, uses two storytelling channels to mimic the duplicity of a performance. Bright circus poster image on the front side of the page are the show presented to the audience. The back sides of the pages are the behind-the-scenes perspective: newspaper clippings, notes, and various ephemera that tell the story of the lives of the people who create the performance." Rigel Stuhmiller: "Hand-creating a book is a unique process, so I thought it appropriate to try a unique storytelling method. I took inspiration from one of my heroes, statistician Edward Tufte to tell the story of the rise and fall of two circuses using only circus posters and newspaper clippings. ... "The book is formatted in two sections. Showy, multi-color circus posters will be on the front of all the pages. More subtle black-and-white newspaper clippings will be on the back of the pages. These clippings are very important as they give all the details of plot development." Rigel Stuhmiller is a Bay Area artist working in printmaking, illustration, design, and storyboarding. |