Artist’s Books
At Risk: Female
Book Construction and Text by Heather Doyle-Maier
Book Design by Hedi Kyle
2023
Photos by the artist and by Wes Magyar.
Edition
open and variable edition
Measurements
3.5” x 2.125” x 1.25” closed; 3.5” x 4.5 x 2.5” fully opened
In The Collection Of
Blagg-Huey Library Woman’s Collection, Texas Woman’s University
Mui Ho Fine Arts Library, Cornell University
Rare and Distinctive Books Collection, University of Colorado at Boulder
Special Collections, State University of New York - Binghamton University
Special Collections and Archives, Denver Public Library
Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library
About the Book:
At Risk: Female offers a reprinted and repeated family photograph to examine the uncertain nature of the lives of childbearing women at the turn of the last century. Wrapped inside a series of folded crinoline pages, the same photograph is included in each page spread; as the risk factors are enumerated, the image of the lovely young woman gradually fades into blankness.
The photo used in the book is of my great-grandmother Adabelle Weiss. It was taken just before her marriage at the age of 18 and shows a confident, fashionable young lady. Less than twenty years later, and a week after giving birth to her 11th child, Adabelle caught influenza in the 1918 epidemic and died within a few days. She was only 38 years old.
About the Text:
I wrote this text after researching why women in the early 1900s were so much at risk for complications and death from childbirth, and then matching that information with what I knew and could find out about Adabelle’s specific history. Although the influenza epidemic was an unusual occurrence, her story as a woman and a mother at that time was not. I made this book so I could learn why she was at risk; along the way, I learned that more than one hundred years later, many women (especially of color and of lower socioeconomic means) still are.
About the Materials and Processes:
The structure of At Risk: Female is a so-called “blizzard book.” This form was designed by book arts master Hedi Kyle (while she had time on her hands during a blizzard, the story goes) and is often built in this size, as it is a useful one to tuck business cards into. This book is constructed from tea-dyed crinoline that has been folded, pressed and stitched into place. The photos are wrapped in tea-dyed vellum before also being stitched into the book; the stitching in the book is a combination of machine- and hand-stitching. The covers are pieces from vintage dresses (different with each copy). The font is Windsong, and the text was digitally typeset, laser printed and transferred using a xylene solvent.
Available for purchase; please inquire.
Wild Goose Chase
Riptides
Her (un)Doing