News Release

Books of Nonsense, an exhibition by Evergreen House 2001 artist-in-residence Randy C. Bolton, will be on display from July 12 through Sept. 30 in the exhibition gallery at Evergreen House, 4545 North Charles St. in Baltimore.

Bolton, a printmaker and digital artist from Philadelphia, is a professor of art at the University of Delaware. His earlier works explored themes found in old children's books and in Japanese art, themes that could have been inspired by the collections at Evergreen. During June and July 2001, Bolton worked in the Maroger Studio, the former art studio of Alice Warder Garrett, who lived at Evergreen House from 1920 to 1952.

The exhibition Books of Nonsense features work created during Bolton's residency. The inspiration for the exhibition title came from Edward Lear's Nonsense Books. Explaining his work last fall, Bolton said, "My working process started by going through the shelves of children's books in the Evergreen House. Using a book-like format, I paired together pages of seemingly unrelated images primarily because of their shared formal qualities, while intentionally allowing any conceptual links to remain ambiguous or misleading. My purpose in these 'books' was to see and think about old or familiar visual information in a new way and to uncover connections between seemingly unrelated ideas based on a more poetic or absurd type of logic."

On Thursday, July 25, at 5:30 p.m., J. Susan Isaacs, associate professor of art history at Towson University, will discuss Bolton's work as part of "A Summer Evening to Celebrate Contemporary Art at Evergreen." A reception for Bolton will take place on Thursday, Sept. 19, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. A limited edition of one of the books produced by Bolton as part of his residency has been published by Evergreen House and will be available in Evergreen's Museum Shop.

The artist-in-residence program was created to continue the tradition of patronage provided by Alice Warder Garrett to artists of her day, and to offer artists the opportunity to respond to various aspects of Evergreen's collections, architecture and grounds, in the process of creating new works of art. The lecture and the reception are free to the public. Admission to the exhibit is $3, which includes Bolton's artist's book produced by Evergreen House base on the exhibition. For more information, call 410-516-0341 or visit www.jhu.edu/historichouses.