ooks are the heavy way we slumber into each other. They are gentle, coarse and cover the full breadth from comfort to torture. We erotically self-reference every time our finger slides down a page.

	Some books displayed at "Counterform" follow tradition, while others are tablets, scrolls and other unexpected forms.

“Counterform,” the annual book arts exhibit on the fifth floor of the U’s Marriott Library, runs from Sept. 18 to Oct. 30. Marnie Powers-Torrey, rightful book studio manager and instructor along with Bob Olpin, art history professor, and Madelyn Garrett, curator of rare books, juried the show.

“It is a show without the word ‘student’ in it,” Powers-Torrey pointed out. Thus, it looks infinitely better on an artist’s résumé. Most of the material comes from students who have taken classes or workshops at the U—all of whom are welcome to the annual call for entries.

A book can be anything from a stone slab to a stitched-and-hinged heavy manuscript. Tablets, scrolls and codices—the more familiar book shape with cover and turning pages—all fit into the ambiguous book classification. Art books allow for even more of an extended definition—including words draped like garland around a form.

The books on display are well-made. It is unfortunate they are in a case that prevents further olfactory investigation and textile examination of the precise stitching. Some of the books are meager pamphlet bindings, but the artwork inside most of these pieces compensates for the over-simplified binding.

Jen Sorensen, who said that she is a printmaker before a bookmaker, created some of the exhibit’s best work. “Killmaster Spy Chiller” uses antiquated green-and-white-striped computer paper. People were ignorantly using it as scratch paper before she turned it into unique art.

Sorensen’s book “Fight” reads “all arms and legs fight against the radiation sky” as Sorensen’s response to being an all-arms-and-legs youth in the back of her grandparents’ car while traveling through Nevada—sticking to the vinyl seats with her sister in the boat car with no air conditioning. Her works are intelligently designed and feel like they’re lingering below the surface of an artesian well.

“It’s all about the workshops,” Sorenson said, claiming to have made most of the books in one day.

Stefanie Dykes created an unusual book with a letter-pressed woodprint. This is an act of immense dedication. Both processes can span weeks of work. “Diagram of a Land Swap” is a political piece about the Main Street public easement. The woodprint depicts several horses working in settings like old Russia.

The print tells the story of the sale of part of Main Street in horse proverbs: “Playing horse with a billy goat—making due with something…Dec. 16, 2002 Mayor Anderson supported by the Alliance for Unity proposed exchanging the easement for land.”

“Yeah, pretty much we all hate her because we want to be her,” Sorensen said, jesting an envy of Dykes’s impressive talent.

A comic strip screen-printed by Camilla Taylor titled, “I Never Leave my Home” depicts a hyper-real, stagnant, customized creature with a body of a slug floating above spindly nail legs and wandering around while wondering why no one calls anymore.

Melanie Memmott-Clark steals the show with twice as many entries as anyone else. One of her entries is a group of tablets called “Swallow.” Each tablet depicts a canned-food item and a difficult-to-swallow phrase. “Sliced Pineapple” professes, “I wanted you to be different.” Her other books are of a similar nature, decorated with little plastic arms and warnings of nitric acid. Some of her books are more classically quiet; all are beautiful and well-made.

There are many thoughtful books on display. Some return to old-fashioned standards, others offer a new, difficult technique of creative fasteners and materials. There are books that focus on design and typography, others about the art inside and some simply about the beauty of a well-bound book.

It’s like Zak Jensen’s book, “Countdown,” which counts down by pages and humbly states at the last page, “This was just a brief chance for you to forget what you were thinking about.”

stephanie@red-mag.com