Joe Blades
Space Station II
Hardbound folio cover with fold/fold book pasted on inside back cover; folio cover of handmade Thailand fair trade papers pasted on Davey board; fold/fold book consists of three interwoven accordion-fold panels with original poems by the artist digitally printed on Xerox 24lb paper.
8.3 x 8.8 x 1 cm (closed); 0.3 x 48 x 53.2 cm (open and fully expanded with the cover as base)
Artist's Statement: Space Station II is the second expandable fold/fold book sculpture that I've made with some of my poems. During one of my elementary school class presentations the students named this form a "spider book." The accordion folds become the legs or, as originally conceived around the "space" poems, a representation of the expandable solar panels on some space exploration shelters and vehicles.
Joe Blades has been giving poetry readings and publishing for a quarter century. He is a writer, visual artist, editor, publisher, and president of the independent, literary Broken Jaw Press Inc., founded by him in 1983, and on the editorial board of ellipse magazine.
Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he is a graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (BFA, 1988). Based in Fredericton, New Brunswick, since 1990, Blades is on the road about three months every year, giving poetry readings, lectures, and workshops across Canada as well as in the eastern United States, Scotland, and Serbia.
Blades exhibits his handmade artist books, photography, mixed-media images, and objet d’art in exhibitions and mail-art projects primarily in Canada and Western Europe. Since 1995, he has been a community radio producer-host at CHSR 97.9 FM with the weekly Ashes, Paper & Beans: Poetry & Writing program. Blades curated Videopoems: a screening for the Tidal Wave Film Festival (2003), and is the editor of nine books and chapbooks including Some Stuff on Canadian Spoken Word & Indie Publishing (NCRA/ANRÉC, 2004).
His poetry and art have appeared in about 50 trade book and chapbook anthologies, and in numerous periodicals. Blades has authored about twenty poetry chapbooks and limited edition artist books and four full-length poetry books. Serbian translation editions of his River Suite and Casemate Poems books are in the works with publishers in Nis and Beograd for release in October 2005.
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