Keepsakes soft cover letterpress book in a custom case

Limited Edition of 15, signed and numbered by the artist 2016, 13 folios, 7 x 9   $975 (contact the museum)

Keepsakes is a limited edition hand-made artist’s book. Each book contains 13 folios featuring archival pigment prints, text set in letterpress, and botanical print-transfers. Text and cover illustration were printed by the artist on the Vandercook Universal letterpress at Maine Media Workshops & College. Each book also comes with a limited edition platinum-palladium print. The book is presented in a hand-made box by Richard Smith of Camden Maine.

The premise of the book and the photographs within it was to explore the notion of the keepsake as “an object kept for the sake of the giver.” It explores how we preserve memories and how the discoveries we make when exploring the natural world, rekindle that sense of  wonder we remember from our childhood. It also nods to the secrets and mysteries contained within the landscape, as both a reflection of time’s passing but also our collective memory.

The title poem, Keepsakes, runs throughout the book from folio to folio spanning the entirety of the book. The photographs are paired with the poems as echoes of experience, as opposed to more literal illustrations. This sequencing of image and text, or absence of text, or image, sets up a pacing of the material that allows the viewer to experience the book in a series of steps, each folio can stand on its own as a keepsake, or be experienced collectively with the others in the book.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is an exploration of the emotionality of place. The quest to understand what we mean by home has been central to my work, together with a desire to understand how personal history and memory is embedded in the landscape and in the objects we value.

Through my process I focus on the photographic object, the platinum-palladium print, or the hand-made book, as a keepsake of experience. It provides me in a very tangible and tactile way, a tool to record the discoveries and memories that I am trying to preserve.

Working with alternative processes, the element of time is not inconsequential, it takes time to make a print, a process that gives opportunity for discovery and serendipity. In each of the steps, there is a tangible connection with nature and the natural elements that are brought into the print, which mirrors the content of the work. The artistry of “making” a photograph becomes itself an act of becoming and invention. – STK

BIO

Originally from the UK, photographer and artist Sal Taylor Kydd earned her BA in Modern Languages and has an MFA in Photography from Maine Media College. She has exhibited nationally, including in shows at the A. Smith Gallery in Texas, The Soho Gallery in New York and solo shows at the Pho Pa Gallery in Portland and Gallery 69 in Los Angeles. Sal has self-published a book of poetry and photographs entitled Just When I Thought I Had You, now part of the Getty Collection and has authored and created a number of hand-made artist books, notably Cadence, Late Love and most recently Keepsakes. Her artist books are represented by Priscilla Juvelis, Inc. Sal and her family reside in Rockport, Maine where she is on the board of Maine Media Workshops and College.

C.V.

SOLO/TWO PERSON SHOWS

Hiraeth May 2018 Zoots Gallery, Camden ME
Hiraeth 2017 Kingman Gallery, Deer Isle, ME
Momentary Certainties 2017 Pho Pa Gallery, Portland ME
Unspoken 2017 Pascal Hall, Rockport ME
Keepsakes 2016 Pascal Hall, Rockport ME
Origins 2016 Gallery 169, Santa Monica, CA

SELECT GROUP SHOWS

Found March 2018 Maine Media Gallery, Rockport ME
Fresh Start Art Show 2018, Los Angeles
Fine Wine & Fine Books 2017 Minnesota Center for Book Arts,
13th Annual National Alternative Processes Competition 2017 Nov 4, Soho Gallery, NYC.
The Door Between, Book Arts & Historic Processes 2017 Maine Media Gallery,
Forsaken 2017 SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC
Fall Line Fifty Photobooks 2017 Fall Line Press, Atlanta GA
23rd Juried Exhibition 2017 The Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester MA,
Summertime 2017 A Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX
Of Memory, Bone & Myth 2016 Colonel Eugene Myers Gallery, Grand Forks, MD,
A River Runs Through It, 2016 Keystone Gallery, Los Angeles, CA,
Earl with Mack 2015 A Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX
Magic 2014 A Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX

PUBLICATIONS

Maine Home & Design Found Objects, 2018
The Hand Magazine Issue, 2017, #19 feature
Don’t Take Pictures Magazine, 2017, Filter Festival Feature
The Hand Magazine, 2017, Cover feature.
Hawk & Handsaw, 2017, Batrachomany Wagenaar & Kydd
Portland Press Herald, 2017, Two Artists 
Feature Shoot, 2016, Return to Photography’s Roots
Diversions LA 2016, LA Show Review
We Choose Art, 2016, Artist Interview
Artful Amphora, 2016, Women Around Town
Make Photo Art, 2016, Artist Interview
Silvershotz Magazine, 2016, Review
L’Oeil Magazine, 2016, Show Review
Maine Media College, 2015, Artist Interview

AWARDS

Runner Up, San Francisco Book Festival, Just When I Thought I Had You
Honorable Mention, Julia Margaret Cameron Alternative Process Awards 2018
Best Photobooks, 2017, Fall Line Fifty Award Just When I Thought I Had You
Jurors Award for Magic, A Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX 2014,

TALKS

Maine Media MFA Interview 2016
Pecha Kucha May 2018

EDUCATION

2016 Maine Media College, Rockport MFA in Photography
1996 NE Institute of Art, Boston, PDip. Broadcast Journalism
1993 Manchester University, England BA Hons. Modern Languages

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