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What does utopia look like to you? In 2005, Seattle artist Deborah Faye Lawrence conducted an e-mail survey to find out. From hundreds of queries, she received 15,000 words in response, which she visually illuminated in mixed-media collages that depict twenty-six versions of utopia.<\/p>\n
This volume brings elements from Lawrence\u2019s survey together with other historical and literary utopian models. The imagery links many notions of idealized environments\u2014from the natural to the fabricated\u2014layered in surprising formations and integrated with text, evoking medieval illuminated manuscripts.<\/p>\n
Text includes an autobiographical, anecdotal chronology of Lawrence\u2019s artistic development and essays by Los Angeles art critic Peter Frank and Seattle critics Susan Noyes Platt and Frances DeVuono. The volume\u2019s endpapers contain the entire 15,000-word corpus of utopian description gleaned from Lawrence\u2019s survey.<\/p>\n
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The “Dee Dee Does Utopia” project was inspired by Lawrence\u2019s desperation in the aftermath of the 2004 U.S. presidential election. \u201cI couldn\u2019t envision a positive future,\u201d she said. \u201cI needed to focus my attention on something besides the scudding police state, so I asked other people for ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n
The project was funded in 2005 by the Creative Capital Foundation, New York.<\/p>\n
Deborah Faye Lawrence\u2019s satirical collages have been exhibited in solo shows at Lincoln Center, New York; Provisions Library: Resource Center for Activism and Arts, Washington, D.C.; University of Pennsylvania; Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, Spokane, WA; UCLA Art Library; Catherine Person Gallery and Esther Claypool Gallery in Seattle, and many other venues.<\/p>\n
ABOUT THE BOOK<\/strong>
\nDee Dee Does Utopia<\/em>
\nby Deborah Faye Lawrence
\nwith essays by Peter Frank, Susan Noyes Platt, and Frances DeVuono
\n14″x10″; 44 pages
\n26 illustrations
\nISBN: 978-0-9778028-4-5
\n$35 US
\nMarquand Books<\/a>, Seattle, Washington, 2008<\/p>\n