Book Marks: An Artist’s Card Catalog

One artist’s whimsical and inspiring way to keep track of the books she has read, Book Marks is a visual journey through a lifetime of reading and remembering that features 434 richly illustrated artworks created on old library checkout cards.

This alluring blend of art book and autobiography will capture the imagination. At its heart are hundreds of captivating 3 x 5-inch artworks-intricate collages and drawings created on old library checkout cards, each one representing a book that left an indelible mark on artist Barbara Page. She began creating these illustrated “book marks” as a colorful way to remember titles she was currently reading. Before long, Page embarked on a decade-long art project recreating her reading history, starting with picture books from early childhood.

Every artwork serves as a bookmark for a moment in time connected to a specific title, and, as a collection, they present over seventy years of literature, politics, thought, and culture-as colored by one woman’s reading choices. Some images may evoke your own memories of a story. Others may feel like little puzzles that require reading or rereading a title to interpret the artistic references.

Over half of the more than 800 cards housed in a two-drawer library case are illustrated here. Interwoven with personal accounts of the artist’s life, each card represents a literary work that drives the narrative, directly and indirectly. Book Marks underscores the interplay between our experiences and our reading and can remind us how a good book can linger in our mind for months, if not years.