Manuscript book maker Timothy Ely’s works are visually stunning, exquisitely crafted pieces filled with extraordinary exotic scripts and mystifying cartography, sumptuously and beautifully bound. His art is an expression of his imagined landscapes and invented languages, an internal universe that gives his books an evocative, extraterrestrial character. Ely’s personal intrigue with alchemy and astronomy inspires captivating creations. His unique books play upon his interest in sacred geometry and particle physics and a fascination with the contemporary interaction beween eastern and western thought. Trained as a bookbinder, his work is a combination of conceptual art and traditional bookmaking techniques and materials. Ely discusses his adaptation of these elements as an integral part of his artwork: using embossing, incisions, dyes, tooling, paste, watercolor, metalwork, and printmaking to form the outer edges of reflections on his inner being. Investigating the depths of a fertile imagination, his visions translate into drawings and paintings made into books.
Tim Ely began making books in 1957. Interests in UFOs, alchemy, comic book, bones, and arcane religious artifacts led him from painting and design work to bookbinding. The recipient of an NEA grant, Ely traveled to Japan and Europe for training in traditional eastern and western methods of book making. His books have been exhibited and are part of museum and library collections all over the world.
Drumming Up the Painted Book (two-day)