Sean Shihi Lecture

Sean Shihi is a pop-up book artist. He makes his own pop-up books by hand. He talked about the different methods and periods of book arts including people like Peter Rhode with "Daily Mirror." Pamela Paulsrud with books stones (stones created from books). She cut books into blocks and took them to a sander. In the end they look like stones. Philip B. Zimmerman with "Shelter 2006," Theresa Harsma with "untitled 2003" (vibrant cover, no content), and several more. He made the statement: That there is "no point in having an artist book unless it has a key expressive role." I tend to disagree. There are many reasons to have an artist book. Perhaps you like the material and wish to model yourself after the person. Perhaps you simply like the works and want to bring it out and look at it every now and then. Maybe you want motivation and the works awe you, so it becomes your motivation. Books play both active and passive roles in our lives. Just like any other source of information or media, they shape our interests and viewpoints.

For pop-up books, he made the conscious statement that pop-ups are "more for grown-ups than kids." Some are even made in comic and text-book format. They are made in accordion folds (flag books), and tunnel books.

Shihi made concept books, collapsible books, studied education, and later wen back to school to study graphic design. He's made lots of posters, including a main job with making posters for he Chicago Symphany Orchestra.

His latest work is for a Post Apocolyptic Chicago. He puts in animals that would survive and how they would evolve.

I think this lecture is pretty interesting. I learned a few things about books and pop-up books. I think the subject is interesting. That said, our school needs more animation and video artists/producers, etc. And contemporary and highly professional based ones at that. I would like to have at least one lecture from someone who has been in the movie industry as part of a very large company, just once, rather than all the small Indie film artists we've been getting.