Deborah Phillips Chodoff
Katonah, New York
www.deborahchodoff.com
Life Unspooled
2024
Closed: 7 1/2″ L x 3 1/2″ W x 5″ H; opens to 26″ long; part 3 is 2″W and opens to 21″L
Artist Statement
Born of a need to tease out conflict in everyday situations, my artist books speak to the interaction of human nature with mundane frustrations, the push/pull of constraints and expectations, and encounters with uncontrollable situations.
The book is an ideal vehicle for this subject matter because of its time-based, sequential nature. Whatever form a book takes– traditional or sculptural– its visual narrative unfolds over time and through space.
I use a wide range of materials that relate to the ideas driving the work. Collages include distressed, painted, and printed papers, photographs, and scans. Found objects add a tactile, physical dimension to the work. Texts are minimal, often consisting of conceptual word play, a small story, or found words that steer the visual experience.
The materials and concepts dictate the size, shape, format, binding, and housing of the books, resulting in sculptural works that stretch the limits of the book form.
In Life Unspooled, the housing–a rotary grater– dictated the form of the book and provided the impetus for the narrative.
My eldest sister’s complex and rich life ended with a short decrescendo into illness and hospice. During this end time I went to Paris where she was living to help care for her briefly and bring her back to the USA. It was during this two week period that the broken grater appeared as a harbinger and later became the vehicle for this story.
Life Unspooled is in three sections, each fitting into a different part of the grater. Upon opening the arm of the grater, an accordion section unfolds, showing images of the eclipse as projected through a colander, echoing the pattern of holes on the grater drum and setting the mood for the reflective nature of the book. This section is punctuated by a drop of glaze from my sister’s kiln. Inside the grater well is another accordion book which is sewn to the grater drum. Pulling it open, one sees a series of portraits of my sister throughout her life, her gaze looking forward and back at herself as a baby, as a beautiful young woman, in middle age, and in her last years. Inside the drum, curled tightly in an aluminum coil, is another accordion section with the story of the grater. All three accordion sections are affixed to fraying scraps of black silk.