A Season for Giving

It’s December and in the world of publishing ‘tis the season for gift books:  Those old stalwarts, the coffee table books, now have their moment in the spotlight.    Tractors, kittens, shoes, motherhood, vampires, basketball, whatever, there’s a beautiful book waiting to become the perfect gift.

Though many are pure gimmick or indifferently produced, many of these “gift books” are, in fact, works of art in their own right, combining the very best in materials, design, and production.  The technology that was supposed to make books obsolete has helped to make beautiful books easier and cheaper to produce and made possible ever more innovative design and presentation.

When I first started in collection development, many years ago, I was told not to be afraid of purchasing such books, despite their possibly inconvenient size, shape or price because it is part of the mission of a public library to make such books available to all.  Consequently, mid-sized public libraries, such as my own, often have quite substantial and inclusive collections of these book trade marvels.

There have always been large format books, particularly art books, but the typical coffee table book design of today is often attributed to the Sierra Club and its director in the 1960s, David Brower.  Brower felt that word and image could be effectively combined to promote wilderness conservation. 

His vision, though, demanded a “page size big enough to carry a given image’s dynamic. The eye,” he explained, “must be required to move about within the boundaries of the image, not encompass it all in one glance.”  Using photographs by Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter, and other artists with text from prominent American nature writers, his “Exhibit Format” series of large, heavy books eventually included nearly 20 titles and was considered an integral part of the campaign that led to the Wilderness Act of 1964.

Despite this illustrious past, coffee table books suffer from an image problem.  Though the name refers simply to the fact that these are books too big for the bookcase, it has come to suggest shallowness – books for non-readers, primarily ornamental, conversation-starters or a means to while away a few idle moments.   The text is assumed to be inconsequential.   In point of fact, it might prove transformative.

Jordan Matter’s Uncovered: Women in Word and Image is a book of photographs of women appearing topless on the streets of New York City.  Sounds a bit sensationalist, but I found it quite moving.

Matter is a fashion photographer in New York.  The Janet Jackson Super Bowl fiasco was the original inspiration for this book – he was curious as to what the response to topless women “on the street” would be.  He found women from his day job who were willing to be photographed topless in public.  As it turned out, the response of onlookers was benign at most; what proved much more significant was the response of the women being photographed. 

Through his work, Matter already knew that the women who set the standards of beauty for the rest of us, do not themselves feel beautiful.  Still, he was astonished at the depth of feeling that his street shoots were producing.  What was perhaps initially an in-your-face gesture was becoming for many the first faltering step toward self-acceptance.  Interviews with and essays by the women photographed became an integral part of the project.  What was still missing, though, two years later, was diversity.

As luck would have it, Matter was photographed in the midst of a shoot by a photographer from the New York Daily News who published the photo in the paper the next day.  A deluge of volunteers followed, and Matter had his diversity.

In the end, Matter worked with over 100 women over the course of six years.  The women chose the setting and activity for the shoot.  Matter’s experience as a fashion photographer shows – he gently teases out the best from each woman.  Some are conventionally pretty, many are not, all are beautiful. 

It is the addition of the text that lifts this book into another realm.  “The first time I threw up my dinner on purpose, I was 11.”  “I am constantly comparing myself to other women.”  “I looked at this photo and started weeping.”  “I was photographed on Broadway, two days before a double mastectomy.”

But I’m doing what can’t be done:  separating the text from the image.  This book has both, as it must.  In his introduction, Jordan Matter, speaking of these women, says, “Each trusted me with her image and her story.  And now together, we trust you.”  As I also trust you.  Uncovered: a gift book for women and women-to-be and all those who love them.

(Photograph from khrawling, Creative Commons, Flickr.com)