Line of Sight: Book Artist Timothy C. Ely Exhibits at Museum of Arts & Culture

A spectacular exhibition of the artist's books will dazzle and awe.

by Stephen J. Gertz

Binding the Book: The Right into Egypt (1984).
Leather, papyrus, glass, linen, Egyptian soil,
pigments, resins, wax.

Artist Timothy C. Ely creates lavishly painted and drawn, unique manuscript books and limited edition prints integrating Western and Eastern religious and mystical traditions, astronomy, particle physics, cartography, alchemy and sacred geometry, and has developed bookbinding tools and equipment for the 21st century.

Halo Chalice (2005).
Ink, pigments, wax on paper.

Breon Mitchell, Director of the Lilly Library and professor of Germanic studies and Comparative Literature at Indiana University's College of Arts is a huge fan, so much so that he undertook a major campaign to get the Lilly to include Ely's work in their permanent collection.

“To me, what’s happening [with Ely's work] is a sort of meditation on... the way we think and the way we perceive...I see a lot of books — and a lot of artist books. Tim Ely’s looked like nothing else I’d seen before,” he declares.

Materia (1995).
Traditional wood board binding
on five raised cords. Leather, glass,
brass, hand made paper serpent,
pigments, resins, wax.

Nicholas Basbanes, author of A Gentle Madness, the critically acclaimed volume about book collecting, is also an Ely enthusiast.

“I was dazzled by the work,” he says.  “The skill is apparent in everything he does and the thought that goes into it. He is a major player in this world.”

Tables of Aries (2006).
Interior spread, one of six.
Graphite, acrylic paint, pastels, ink.

Ely began his book arts career in 1971 after graduating college with a degree in design and printmaking. He asserts that his inspiration began in the late 1950s, when he was ten years old.

Mercury 9 (1999).
Drum leaf binding, etchings,
polyurethane, pigment, leather, wax.

"I had this archetypal dream where I saw a book - it was about ten, twelve inches square - just full of drawings and instructions on how to build things," he says. "And in that dream, I held this book and I thought, 'With this book in my hand I could build all these devices.' I awoke and, of course, no book, and so I tried to make it. Sometimes I think I'm still trying to make that book."

Black Maps (1996).
Tongue-in-slot board attachment,
leather spine, mahogany boards,
acrylic paint, and metals.

His work is extraordinary; we hope he keeps trying to make that book.

Here's a lengthy video about Ely and his work:

"Line of Sight" is currently showing at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture (MAC) through April 16, 2011, 2316 W. First Avenue, Spokane, WA.

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Read a full account of Ely, his work,  and Line of Sight here.
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Images courtesy of Timothy C. Ely, with our thanks.
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The Good Old (Bad Old) Days Of Health Care

By Nancy Mattoon

Hans von Gersdorff.
Feldtbüch der Wundartzney.
Strassburg: Durch Joannem Schott, [1517].
(All Images Courtesy of Lilly Library, Indiana University.)
This is the first image of an amputation ever printed.

The latest struggle over health care reform in the United States has made some nostalgic for "the good old days" of medicine. Remember when the trusted family doctor, the same one who delivered you, made house calls and looked after the health of your family from cradle to grave? Neither do I. Realistically, the only way that scenario ever played out was due to the high mortality rate during childbirth, and the frequent untimely deaths of young people from contagious diseases, infections, and unsanitary conditions.

Jakob Rüff.
De Conceptu et Generatione Hominis ...
Zurich: Christophorus Froschouerus, 1554.
Ruff was responsible for the training and licensing of all midwives in Zurich.

At least in terms of medical science, we are fortunate to be living in the 21st century. A look back at rare books from the 16th and 17th centuries, courtesy of Indiana University's Lilly Library, makes two things abundantly clear. It was a time of some of the greatest medical discoveries in history, including the first understanding of the circulation of the blood, and it was a time you are very lucky NOT to have experienced firsthand as a patient.

Johannes Scultetus.
Wund Artzneyisches Zeüg–Haüsz ...
Frankfurt: In Verlegung Johann Gerlins ...
Buchhändlers in Ulm,
Gedruckt bey Johann Gerlin, 1666.
Torture or surgery? You be the judge...

Until the usage of ether, in the 1840's, surgical anesthesia was truly a hit or miss proposition. Mandrake, henbane, devil's trumpet, and thorn-apple were all used as herbal anesthesia, but the problem here was not enough meant excruciating pain during the operation, but too much meant freedom from pain entirely, forever... So the next time you're getting a tooth pulled or drilled, be thankful that most of the pain will be masked, and you'll probably live to tell the tale, too. And that's the tip of the pain iceberg--think about undergoing abdominal surgery while fully alert--or don't.

George Bartisch.
Ophthalmodouleia, das ist Augendienst ...
[Dresden: Matthes Stöckel], 1583.
This illustration shows off the latest tools of the opthalmology trade.

Many of the great medical advances of the 17th century came about as a result of plant, animal, and human dissection and vivisection. As an exhibit of the Lilly Library's first rate collection of historical medical texts tells us, "Anatomia Animata is a phrase used at the time referring to vivisection...but it also conveys the sense of animation that can be seen in many of the striking images of anatomical and medical books on display." Many of these images are classically beautiful, but just as many look like they came straight out of the latest torture porn fest. (Thankfully without the latest cinematic visual "advances" a la Saw 3D-The Final Chapter.)

Gaspare Tagliacozzi.
De Curtorum Chirurgia per Insitionem: Libri Duo ...
Venice: Apud Gasparem Bindonum Iuniorem, 1597.
A nose job, 16th century style. From the first plastic surgery book ever printed.

Another thing those longing for the old days of the family physician would do well to remember is that for centuries the actual "hands on" of medical care was deemed beneath the dignity of a physician. University trained doctors would study texts, perform experiments and dissections, and document findings, but the actual surgeries, deliveries, and applications of treatments were handled by barbers, midwives, and apothecaries. Something to think about before you make a stink about that Physician's Assistant or Nurse-Practitioner taking care of your ailment rather than an M.D.

Thomas Bartholin.
Acta Medica et Philosophica Hafniensia.
Copenhagen: Sumptibus Petri Haubold, 1673–[80].
The "baby" in David Lynch's Eraserhead, only 300 years earlier.

And at least our physicians now have a general understanding of how the human body functions. They no longer believe women's ovaries are "female testicles" that manufacture sperm, or that conception came about when sperm combined with menstrual blood, or that lustful thoughts during intercourse created monstrously deformed offspring. (And you thought your Gynecologist was judgmental!)

Giulio Cesare Casseri.
De Vocis Auditusque Organis Historia Anatomica ...
Ferrara: Excudebat Victorius Baldinus, [1600–1601].
Does the title page show some of the Casseri's less fortunate patients?

Whatever improvements are still needed in our medical care, we've come a long way in the last 400 years. Four centuries from now--if mankind is still here on earth-- our technologies and treatments today will certainly appear barbaric and backward. But for now, compared to any other time, the industrialized world is in a medical golden age. We all know, at least in the United States, health care could be a lot better. But looking backward brings home the fact that in the "good old days," things were a lot worse.