Steven Daiber
Florence, Massachusetts
redtrilliumpress.com
A Brother’s Keeper or so I thought
completed in 2021
Student medical notes recorded in a 19th century ledger book amended with silkscreen, relief printing, watercolor illumination, Photostat transfers and altered 19th century medical illustrations, cremated remains.
15.75″ x 10. 5″ x 1.5″
Artist Statement
Steven Daiber has worked with books for more than 30 years. Whether building a wall of discarded encyclopedias on the 12 acres where he lives in rural Massachusetts or collaborating on artist books and teaching book arts in Cuba, Daiber uses books as objects and text-based art to explore a sense of place in the world.
Daiber has traveled to Cuba regularly since 2001, where he partners with local artists to create art books through Red Trillium Press/Aquí en la lucha. Cronica insular is a trilogy based on
facilitated dialogues and themes Cuban artists describe in their social and political relationships: Poder was published in 2010, Privacidad in 2011, and La espera in 2013.
Daiber also engages with the landscape directly through site-specific book installations, interventions in the forest, and prints from the remnants of past commercial timbering. For 23 years, Daiber has been adding to a wall of books that acts as a property line on the land where he lives in Massachusetts. Daiber carries the books on his back through the woods from his local library to the corner of his property, where he leaves them exposed to years of natural decay.