Lisa Kokin | Mixed Fiber Artist's Books

Welcome

This website strives to be accurate and complete. It represents a large part of the work I have completed since 1990. Although it is rather vast in scope, there are many pieces in each body of work that are not included. On occasion I accept commissions for private and public collections. Please send me a note if you are interested in a commission.

Send me a note →

Book Art

Bookscrapping

One-of-a-kind books have played a major role in my work since the 1990s, and I find that I go back to making books in between working in other formats. Each time I return to books I try to invent a new way of working and a fresh approach. Making books gives me a feeling of comfort, perhaps because I grew up with them and reading is an important part of my life.

Bookscrapping began in 2024 when I started to play with the many scraps and “failed” pieces lying around my studio. I have always been interested in fragments, both for their metaphorical associations and for the way that new compositions appear independent of my control. In this way, chance plays a major role in the work. Pieces want to be joined and I am the vehicle for their joining. I know that sounds a bit mystical, but that is the way the process goes, on a good day.
Asemic text, flags, and oblique social commentary are present in the work despite the absence of actual text. Things are falling apart domestically and globally, and many people are worried. Bookscrapping is a method of joining disparate parts to form wholes, a kind of hopeful metaphor for our troubled times. And, of course, it is a pun on scrapbooking. I can never resist a good (or bad) pun.