Emily Martin
Iowa City, IA
https://emilymartin.com/
IG: @emilymartin53

Navigational Tools for the Willfully Lost
2024
Letterpress, paper engineering
8″ x 8″

Artist Statement

We are in a time of plague, not just medical but political, ecological, and more. The wholesale denial of science and rational thought coupled with the embrace of superstition and misinformation are signaling a need for a return to fact-based actions and ideas. In an attempt to not be completely bleak, I offer this set of wry visual aids for those who will not, cannot see what is really happening. This book began with my application for a Cicero artist’s fellowship at the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois. I spent a month in the reading rooms looking primarily Peter Apian’s Cosmographia from the 16th century, a time of scientific revolution. Apian included a set of five paper instruments in each of his editions. Seeing and manipulating the many examples of those centuries old and still functional devices was invaluable to me as I began to work on my own paper tools. I spent the fall of 2023 bringing the tools and the text to their finished forms.

The book covers are papers made with abaca and flax fibers by Mary Hark. The paper tools are printed on Chancery paper made of cotton and hemp fibers at the University of Iowa Center for the Book.