WHY I MAKE BOOKS

I spend a lot of time looking at artwork on screens, but I still prefer experiencing it in person or in a physical book. I like holding a book, moving backward and forward through it, and returning to certain images.

For me, one of the most important parts of making a book is sequencing. Photographs can behave a little like musical notes. Put certain images together and they begin to affect each other, creating something that was not there when either image stood alone.

That happened while making The Distance Between. The book brings together photographs from Held in Bone, Immanence, and Dignity, three bodies of work I had always thought of separately. Once I began sequencing them together, I started seeing connections I had not fully recognized before.

I also like the idea that a book can be handled, revisited, moved around, and lived with. Recently I reformatted Frank Rampolla: Drawings From The Personal Sketchbooks and Dignity No Matter What: The Light Within, both of which had been sold out, and made them available again through Blurb.