Seasonal Turns

Front Cover of Seasonal Turns

Overview

Seasonal Turns is an artists' book published in 1998 by artist and author Bea Nettles.

Each booklet in Seasonal Turns was created from cardstock that was printed on both sides using offset lithography, and then folded into an accordion format. The four booklets are meant to represent the four seasons, and build upon many of the artistic techniques and themes found in Nettles' previous work, with a particular emphasis on photographic sequencing and personal histories. It's unclear as to when exactly a copy of the book was acquired by the University of Pennsylvania Kislak Center, but some time in the last ten years is probable given this copy's pencil archival inscription. In addition to the University of Pennsylvania, Nettles' work can also be found in various permanent collections at Yale University and the University of Virginia. The book is rather small, and fits easily into the grasp of one's hand.

Bea Nettles is an artist, bookmaker, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who has been recognized nationally and internationally for her work, having been shown in more than 200 exhibitions in total.

Historical Significance

Bea Nettles' work often lies at the intersection of different artistic mediums and frequently employs photographic experimentation. Seasonal Turns specifically combines photography with a book-like format. Nettles was one of many artists who began experimenting with new image production processes in the 1960s and 1970s. She continues to teach art and bookmaking courses at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and currently resides in Urbana, Illinois.

Since the 1970s, Nettles has been interested in combining bookmaking, analog image-making, and the sequencing of those images; much of her work began circulating in the art world after two seminal exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and the Eastman Museum during this period of her career, the latter of which still holds Seasonal Turns and other works of Nettles in their permanent collection. Nettles has had solo exhibitions at the Eastman Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, the Witkin Gallery, and the Light Gallery.

Seasonal Turns was created and published right before the cusp of the dot-com bubble, when new digital artistic techniques were both influencing traditional industries like bookmaking, while also giving rise to new ones like new media art. Seasonal Turns is therefor a unique historical moment in Nettles' work, and the history of artists' book as well. Even in spite of these new developments in the mediums and processes that artists were employing, such as the introduction of Adobe Photoshop, Nettles continued to use layers of photographic and analog printing processes to create her works. However, it's also entirely possible that the typography on the front and back of her book were made using the assistance of digital mediums. In addition to how this book embodies technological changes happening for artists at the turn-of-the-century, the continued presence of Seasonal Turns on online archives and vendors is further proof of the ways in which this work, and Nettles' work as a whole, is adapted for modern readership in the digital age, even in spite of their more traditional fabrication methods.

And finally, the book situates itself in the history of copyright and authorship as well, both during this unique historical period in the 90s, as well as in the context of artists's books. There's a large copyright label on the spine of the book; being an artists' book with no readable text, Nettles' usage of a copyright claim and the associated symbol on the spine means that the book crosses over into the realm of commercially distributed books. An artwork need not have a copyright label on it, but a mass-printed book available for commercial purchase certainly does. In this sense, Seasonal Turns is a book that lies at the unique intersection of the publishing world and the art world, being available to purchase and view online, while also being held in major permanent collections dedicated towards historical books with artistic value like the Kislak Center and Eastman Museum.

Spine of Seasonal Turns

Physical Characteristics and Creative Process

Each of the booklets in Seasonal Turns is printed on thick, glossy cardstock paper, using the technique of offset lithography, in which printable ink is transferred from one intermediary surface to a final surface. The booklets are smooth to the touch, and fold in accordion style. Each of the booklets is printed in a different monochrome, sepia color scheme, and contains six distinct folds that yield seven different segments, each with their own distinct photographs on the front and back. The sepia tones come in a more blue tone, green tone, and warmer red tones as well. Accordion folding is a well-established binding format in the history of bookmaking, having been used as a binding technique for codices and texts in different world cultures, such as ancient Japan. Beyond just the historicality of the book's format, accordion folding fits in well with Nettles' recurring artistic technique of sequencing photographs, while also allowing for the booklets to fit easily into a portable case.

The general creative process that Nettles employs across her works is quite structured. Beginning with an initial idea that comes spontaneously, oftentimes through a dream, Nettles will then begin taking photographs that align with her artistic vision, and name the artwork at this preliminary stage before its completion. The next step is more iterative, and involves the manipulation of photographs she took or used in previous projects, while simultaneously dictating an overall structure or form for the artwork. The final step of Nettles' creative process is also rather iterative, and it's where she will create multiple prototype copies, and experiment with different analog print and photo development methods, until a final satisfactory version can be arrived at and prepared for exhibition or publishing.

Photographs

The photographs in Seasonal Turns comprise its main form of textuality, as there is no written text in the book with the exception of penciled in marginalia from the book's acquisition at the University of Pennsylvania Kislak Center. Many of the photographs are taken from Nettles' previous works, such as stitched triptychs and the series Turning 50. The photographs show many different scenes and objects, but some running themes include raw ingredients (apples and eggs), close-ups of the human body, rural architectural structures, and photographs of natural landscapes at the forest or beach. The compositing of these different photographs together in the booklets means that each one can be assigned a different season, in line with the work's title of Seasonal Turns, and there being four distinct booklets. Shown below is the booklet that most likely represents the season of Winter:

One side of the 'Winter' booklet

What characterizes this sequence of images as uniquely 'Winter' is its inclusion of images of a snow-laden lawn, someone holding a mug, and bare tree branches. The images shown on the booklets for other 'seasons' are similarly in keeping with what people might associate with those seasons.

However, beyond just the assigning of each booklet into one of four distinct seasons, the photographs are also placed next to one another for poetic and artistic purpose as well, and serve to create affective interpretations of how one might perceive the seasons. The photographs moreover have a nostalgic quality to them, given their film-like visual texture and monochrome color scheme, all of which work together to connote themes of memory, longing, childhood, and the passing of time. Given the complete lack of text in the book, the linear arrangement of the photographs encourages different 'readings' of the images from either left to right or right to left, and the different booklets can also be placed in significant relation to one another by the reader. Some of the images are intentionally collated together, in such a way that two completely different photographs will appear to meld into one single, continuous image; this effect is usually achieved through Nettles matching blocks of color on the border of one photograph with a similar block of color on the border of another photograph. Techniques like this one, combined with the ones described above, all contribute to a wide variety of artistic and personal readings that are possible when looking at this book.

Memory, love, loss, and family are major recurring themes in Bea Nettles' body of work. In an interview, Nettles acknowledges the influence that her family history has had on her work, given that her mother was a poet, and her father a professor of agriculture. A certain poetic quality emerges from the nontextuality of Seasonal Turns especially in the way in which photographs of nature and people's bodies are suggestively displayed next to each other. The running theme of nature as the subject in the photographs of Seasonal Turns is also perhaps a nod to Nettles' father. Also notable to mention is an interaction in which Nettles' mother told her to continue leaning into the earthy, dirt-like palettes frequently used in her artwork, in response to an art teacher of Nettles complaining about her work. In this sense, Seasonal Turns is closely tied to the personal history of Nettles and her family, while also being ambiguous enough in its visual language for a wider readership to interpret and appreciate the photographs within it.

Packaging

Even though Seasonal Turns can still be bought from Bea Nettles' website, its packaging and formatting have remained virtually unchanged since the book's original publishing in 1998. This is also in spite of the fact that the Prairie Book Arts Center, which distributed and likely published the book as well, is likely no longer in operation, but is still listed on the labeling on the back cover of the book.

Seasonal Turns's four booklets are all contained inside one semi-translucent plastic casing, which is opened and closed by means of circular velcro pads attached to the inside. The actual 'covers' of the book that have printed visual and textual elements displayed on them are stickers affixed to the plastic casing. The usage of the plastic casing and sticker labels on top is unique in the context of bookmaking. Because the contents of Seasonal Turns are not traditionally bound together in so much as being 'contained' within an empty space, a new form of packaging was necessary to accommodate the unique format of the book. The spine of Seasonal Turns is printed with larger, highly visible halftone dots, which are harder to discern on the front and back cover of the book, hinting that different printers may have been used for each part of the book's cover. The translucent plastic material of the book's packaging in casing is also quite distinct, and potentially characterizes itself as more dated and typical of a self-published, artists' book made in the late 1990s. The materiality of the frosted plastic connotes vintage containers and stationery from the era in which it was originally made.

The front cover of Seasonal Turns shows a woman looking out from a land bridge, backdropped by a snowy rural landscape. This is the only image in the book to show the head and face of a person; all other human-derived photographs in Seasonal Turns are close-ups of body parts, such as hands or genitals. Already, this front cover of the book establishes the central themes of Seasonal Turns, which include the seasons, the relationship between human and nature, monochrome photography, and an affective sense of longing. In the same way that a traditional book published in the last several decades would include a front cover illustration that introduces the contents of the book, Seasonal Turns has a cover that does the same, even in spite of its status as an artists' book.

Circulation

The book was distributed by the Prairie Book Arts Center. The Prairie Book Arts Center seems to no longer be in operation as of 2024, but has printed and published other works of Nettles since the early 1980s. Seasonal Turns continues to straddle being both an artwork as well as a published, commercially-available book. The George Eastman International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, New York currently owns a copy of the book in its permanent collection, while the book was also recently on display at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. Seasonal Turns's ongoing museum presence continues to emphasize the importance of Nettles' work in the development of new forms of print-format art, as well as the development of artists' books as a whole. Aside from the book's museum circulation, Seasonal Turns is currently available for purchase from the personal website of Nettles, as well as through online e-commerce platforms like Amazon and AbeBooks.

This particular copy at the University of Pennsylvania Kislak Center was acquired some time in the 2010s; this is because the archival and acquisition information of the book was penciled onto the back cover as opposed to permanently stamped with ink, which the Kislak Center no longer does with its new acquisitions. The pencil inscription is shown below:

Back Cover of Seasonal Turns

Readership

Because Seasonal Turns cannot be read in the traditional sense, given its entirely photographic format, it's frequently used as a teaching object in the context of learning about the history of new photographic mediums, as Nettles herself writes, in talking about the book having been shown at the library of the Ringling Museum of Art. Along with the Ringling Museum, the book has also been exhibited at the Eastman Museum in New York and many other spaces dedicated to showcasing the arts, and it's reasonable to say that many people who have seen or 'read' this book are museumgoers. The book is also available in spaces like the Kislak Center, and is viewable on the Digital Commons of the Rhode Island School of Design, further extending its readership to college students and the general public, as well as university faculty members, curators, and researchers at all levels of higher education who may be interested in the historical significance and unique materiality of this book. In having taught thousands of students over the course of her artistic and teaching career, pedagogy is a significant part of Nettles' work and creative outlook.