Lyall Harris – Grace

Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College’s 112th Annual Exhibition
Back to Front: Artists’ Books by Women

At its core, Grace is a book about a relationship’s unbridgeable gap. In this case the relationship between a woman and her mother-in-law, and what, ultimately, can exist in that space: the possibility of grace. An idealistic and narrow form of Catholicism, with expectations of self-sacrifice and perfectionism, is an unnamed protagonist in this work, which advances in a numbered progression that recalls the Stations of the Cross. A second “protagonist” is the handwritten letter on the back of each single sheet. Written in Italian, their meaning likely eludes most readers of this work and therefore function as a visual backdrop, but their intensity and sentiment are nevertheless gleaned by reading the text fragments on the “Stations of the Cross” pages. Additionally on view, “Stations of the Cross” pages are framed in simple “kitsch” gold frames, a nod to a fetishistic aesthetic.

Biography 

Lyall Harris’ artwork has been exhibited in more than one hundred solo and juried group shows and recognized with over twenty awards, including The George Hitchcock Prize for painting from the National Academy Museum. Her book art is held in over fifty Special Collection libraries, such as those at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Yale and Stanford. Her poetry and prose have appeared in The Minnesota Review, The New Guard, Prose Online, The Dewdrop, The Perch Magazine, The Vincent Brothers Review and elsewhere. Her book-length poem Barrier Island is forthcoming from The Black Spring Press Group. She has given papers and/or artist’s talks at colleges and universities, such as UCSC, UCSB, Art Institute of California and other venues, among these, the San Francisco Public Library, The Grabhorn Institute, APHA, and the Virginia Center for the Book. She has taught in the field of book art at a variety of institutions, including as an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia and James Madison University. She holds an MFA in Book Art and Creative Writing from Mills College. Video interview with Lyall Harris – From the Bench: Virtual Studio Tour, San Francisco Center for the Book, July 2023.