Artist, writer Suzanne Coley to lead special events at OHIO in September

Ohio University will welcome well-known book artist, printmaker and writer Suzanne Coley to campus in September for a series of events.

Coley’s work is held in the collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Folger Shakespeare Library and Ohio University Libraries. Her current project, "52 Weeks of Shakespeare’s Sonnets," explores Shakespeare’s sonnets through complex, tactile, page-based narratives.

"Suzanne Coley's visit is an exciting opportunity for students to think more deeply about the book arts and the adaptation of classic literary works,” said Dr. Joe McLaughlin, associate professor of English in OHIO’s College of Arts and Sciences. “Her interpretations of Shakespeare, in particular, remind us of the ways in which physical objects shape the meanings we make when we read.”

Coley creates sculptural books from discontinued textiles, including vintage lines, wedding dresses and historic fabrics, she explains on her website.

“Rather than illustrating texts, I use material structure to expose tensions, absences and contradiction within inherited literary and cultural systems,” Coley states on her website. “Shakespeare’s sonnets function as conceptual frameworks through which I examine questions of preservation, reproduction, beauty and self-containment. By placing the intimate histories of domestic textiles alongside canonical literature, I ask whose labor is preserved, whose stories are collected, and whose forms of knowledge survive.”

In September, Coley will visit OHIO for the following events:

Coded Threads: Translating Shakespeare Into Material Form, a Talk by Suzanne Coley (open to all students, faculty, staff and community members)

This event will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 23 from 4:30-5:30 p.m. in the Walter Hall Rotunda.

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

You can RSVP for the event and find more information here.

Conversation and Pizza Lunch with Artist Suzanne Coley (open to OHIO students)

This event will be held on Thursday, Sept. 24, from noon until 1 p.m. in the Friends of the Library Room (319) in Alden Library.

All OHIO students are invited to join Coley for a conversation about her research methods and creative activity, while also enjoying a free pizza lunch. 

OHIO students can register for the event and find more information here.

From Poem to Book: A Workshop on Shakespeare's Sonnet 55 with Artist Suzanne Coley (open to OHIO students)

This event will be held on Thursday, Sept. 24 from 3-6 p.m. at the Research and Technology Center (RTEC), Room 117.

This 3-hour, hands-on workshop is for Ohio University students and will include:

• A close reading of Shakespeare's Sonnet 55 and a discussion of how its themes, imagery and structure are translated into visual and material form.
• Design and creation of fabric pages for a one-of-a-kind collaborative book inspired by Sonnet 55.
• A look together at the pages that were created,

OHIO students can register for the workshop and find more information here.

About Suzanne Coley

In her work, Coley engages textile art, printmaking, and embroidered bindings as forms of literary interpretation. Through a signature process she defines as Material Excavation, she recomposes fabric through stitching, layering, and formal transformation, treating material process as a rigorous method of reading Shakespeare’s sonnets.

You can read more about Coley on her website. 

Coley’s visit is sponsored by the English Department’s Shakespeare Fund and Ohio University Libraries with support from Chaddock + Morrow College of Fine Arts and the College of Arts and Sciences.