Ely on Exhibit
"Drawings and Digressions," a new exhibit featuring the art of Timothy C. Ely is on view in New York City, hosted by Abby Schoolman Books, which specializes in the work of contemporary fine art bookbinders. 
The work of Tim Ely, master bookbinder and artist, has long been on our radar. Prompted by an exhibit at the Northwest Museum of Arts in Spokane, Washington, Nick Basbanes profiled him in our winter 2011 issue.
An inveterate doodler for as long as he can remember ... Ely admits to constant daydreaming as a boy, and to always recording the images that fill his brain onto pieces of paper. All of the books he makes are carefully planned and sketched out in advance, and detailed in notebooks, now numbering seventy-three, which constitute the bibliographical record of his accomplishments over the past half-century. He estimates that he has made 450 books over that period.
The current exhibit of enigmatic landscapes is on view through March at the Gallery at Midtown Integrative Health and Wellness. Ely writes of it, "This series of drawings shapes an idea of what speculatively goes on for me in this relationship of humans with land, embedded as I am in my own territory."
The MIHAW gallery is located at 515 Madison Ave., 6th floor, and the hours are: 7am to 6pm Monday-Thursday and 7am to 5pm on Fridays. Ely's books can be seen by appointment at Abby Schoolman Books.
Image Courtesy of Abby Schoolman Books.
