UW Archivist’s Artwork Featured in ‘Open’ Exhibition at American Heritage Center

Artistic work created by University of Wyoming American Heritage Center (AHC) Archivist Ginny Kilander is part of a traveling exhibition now on display through Tuesday, May 23, at the AHC.

“Open: A Traveling Exhibition Celebrating Fine Binding and Book Arts” features artworks created with, on and out of books. The display can be viewed in the Toppan Library exhibition space on the second floor of the Centennial Complex. The AHC’s exhibition galleries are open weekdays from 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Selected and organized by the Guild of Book Workers’ Rocky Mountain Chapter, the competitive exhibition brings together 41 works by 27 artists from throughout the country. Laramie is the second of three Western cities hosting the exhibition, in addition to Salt Lake City, Utah, and Denver, Colo.

The show highlights works of fine bindings where artists create covers for classical and contemporary books and “artists’ books” whose creators combine literary and artistic themes into a unified book form.

“The exhibition’s organizers chose Kilander’s work as part of the third class of art on display, which includes mixed media, where the ‘book’ is reconceived and presented as a new kind of thing -- as pop art, as a plant or even as an animal,” says AHC Director Paul Flesher. “Her artwork looks like an open book -- opening all around at 360 degrees -- with bright yellow leaves of vellum growing from the branch of a tree. With its 52 pages representing the 52 weeks of the year, they are hopefully spread to catch ‘a springtime breeze.’”

Kilander is a UW graduate and a longtime Laramie resident and employee of the university, where she manages the AHC’s Reference Services department. She has long been interested in book arts and is an expert in paper marbling as an art form.