Flora Book

Flora Book started her career working at the McCall Pattern Company as a designer. She remembered this first job as a critical part of her education in textiles and design.

In 1976, Book began to develop her aesthetic vision while taking painting classes in Montreal, Quebec, at the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts. She was encouraged to reduce her color choices, and she started to gravitate toward shades of gray because of their affinity to silver. During this time, she also studied fiber arts and jewelry.

Her studies continued at the University of Washington in 1980, where Book took classes from renowned artists Ramona Solberg and Mary Lee Hu, both of whom had major influences on Book. Another key influence on Book’s aesthetic was the innovative jewelry made of strands of nylon monofilament created by the English artist Caroline Broadhead.

For most of the 2010s, Book’s work evolved into other textile processes such as knitting and machine stitching. These works continued her exploration of the contrast between soft and hard while embracing an aesthetic that was more relaxed and expressive.

In addition to Tacoma Art Museum, Book’s jewelry has been collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Smithsonian Institution’s Renwick Gallery, the Wustum Museum in Racine, Wisconsin, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

(Source: Gallery texts, TAM exhibition "The Eloquent Silver Curve", July 30, 2011 to February 5, 2012)

For additional information and images, visit the artist’s website: www.florabook.com

[accessed August 2021]