View XML QR Code

Genie Shenk papers, 1970-2015

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Shenk, Genie, 1937-2018
Title
Genie Shenk papers
Dates
1970-2015 (inclusive)
Quantity
30.25 cubic feet (27 boxes)
Collection Number
6538 (Accession No. 6538-001)
Summary
Correspondence, exhibition and teaching materials, and ephemera of book artist Genie Shenk
Repository
University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections
Special Collections
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle, WA
98195-2900
Telephone: 2065431929
Fax: 2065431931
speccoll@uw.edu
Access Restrictions

No restrictions on access.

Request at UW

Languages
English
Return to Top

Biographical Note

Genie Shenk was an assemblage artist known for her work in fiber arts and book arts.

She began her art studies in the late 1960s in printmaking, including at University California San Francisco, the New York Art's Student League, while she worked as a professional book editor. In the 1970s and 1980s she studied art at Palomar College and Mira Costa College in Southern California, and she assisted in editing and layout of the first edition of her husband Al Shenk's Calculus and Analytic Geometry.

In 1980/81 Shenk became a member of California Fibers and began making quilts using handmade paper that she created from natural and recycled fibers. These artworks emphasized subtle color relationships and abstract geometrical form and pattern. She received public acclaim, as well as individual and corporate commissions for these pieces, but Shenk eventually felt the need to work with different formats and artistic concepts.

Shenk completed her Master of Fine Arts in Fiber and Book Arts at UCLA in 1990, where she created the first iteration of her large-scale work, Ring, now on permanent display at the Long Beach Museum of Art in California. Ring is comprised of hundreds of stitched paper folios forming a spiral turning within concentric circles, a symbol representing spiritual growth.

Shenk had begun incorporating the documentation of her dreams into her artwork in 1981, first in paper quilt format, with each square an individual collage with enigmatic text capturing the emotional sense of each dream. She would continue to create dream logs---visual and textual documentation of her nightly dreams---in a variety of book formats and as hanging pieces. Many of her other works focused on specific dreams, some taking a sculptural form. Her interest in Jungian studies informed her dream work, and she spoke at a conference for the Association for the Study of Dreams.

Shenk became a master in book and paper construction and taught design, book and paper construction, printmaking, and color theory at Mesa College and the Athenaeum in La Jolla. Shenk was a founding member of San Diego Book Arts and established and operated Mesa Arts Press with artist Jim Machacek, who also specialized in printmaking, collage, and book arts, and with whom she produced several collaborative books and prints. Genie was a beloved teacher and respected in the San Diego arts community throughout her career. Her teaching interest was in helping students not only master technical skills but to express themselves genuinely and effectively. In 1997 she facilitated a community art project as part of INSITE97, a bi-national program involving 27 non-profit and public art institutions in the San Diego/Tijuana region, creating a collaborative book focusing on the concept of public space.

In addition to her dream logs, Shenk's other works address environmental degradation, social and political oppression, the loss of endangered languages, language systems, and spiritual concepts. Several pieces are autobiographical and deal with grief, in particular over the loss of her daughter in 1993.

Significant solo exhibitions include: Spiral Ring (UCLA Wight Gallery, 1990, and SDSU Masters Gallery, 1991); The Book is Art: Installation and Books by Genie Shenk (UCSD Geisel Library, 1999); Dream Logs: Book Arts by Genie Shenk (Columbia Art Center, Dallas, Texas, 2000); Dreams and Other Lost Languages (The Athenaeum, La Jolla, 2009); and Dreamlogs: Artists Books by Genie Shenk (University of Washington Special Collections, 2013). Two of Shenk's larger sculptural books were included in the Long Beach Art Museum's retrospective: Decade by Decade: Women Artists of California in 2019.

Shenk's art is in the permanent collections of The Center for Book Arts, New York, the Chasanof Collection, the Tate Gallery Research Center, Stanford University Special Collections, Love Library at San Diego State University, the Doheny Library Special Collections at University of Southern California, the Geisel Library Special Collections at University California San Diego, the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, the Allen Library Special Collections at the University of Washington, the Athenaeum Library for Music and the Arts in La Jolla, California, the National Museum of Women in the Arts Washington D.C., the Boehm Gallery at Palomar College California, and the Long Beach Museum of Art, California.

She is featured in numerous book arts and fiber art publications including Master: Book Arts (Eileen Wallace, Lark Crafts, 2011); 500 Handmade Books, (Lark Books, 2008), The Book as Art (Krystyna Wasserman, National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2006), Cover to Cover (Shareen LaPlantz, Lark Press, 1995), and Fiber Arts Design Book Four (Lark Press, 1991).

Shenk was born August 3, 1937, in Montgomery, Alabama. Her father's work for the U.S. Forest Service caused her family to move throughout the South during her childhood. The earned her undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees in English from Rice University in Houston, then moved to the Bay Area. She and her husband Al, who studied mathematics at Stanford moved to New York for his post-doctoral work at Columbia. They then moved with their first daughter Laurie to Solana Beach for Al's position as a calculus instructor at UCSD in La Jolla. There Genie became a well-respected member of the local art community. At her memorial event she was described as "the mother of book arts in San Diego."

Source: Carol Shenk

Return to Top

Content Description

Biographical files, correspondence, project files, sketchbooks, research clippings, photographs, slides, and ephemera related to book arts and artist book process.

Return to Top

Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

Copyrights retained by creator. Contact University of Washington Libraries Special Collections for details.

Return to Top

Administrative Information

Arrangement

Arranged in 11 series.

  • Series 1, Personal and Biographical files
  • Series 2, Exhibits
  • Series 3, Business files
  • Series 4, Correspondence
  • Series 5, Education and Teaching Materials
  • Series 6, Art Process/Projects
  • Series 7, Organizations
  • Series 8, Other Artists
  • Series 9, Slides
  • Series 10, Photographs
  • Series 11, Miscellaneous

Return to Top

Detailed Description of the Collection

 

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • Personal Papers/Corporate Records (University of Washington)


2024 (Last modified: 2/21/2025)

CC0

About Creative Commons Licenses in Archives West

Loading...
Loading...