Alicia Bailey

I have always lived in Colorado, a state in the western US with very diverse geography. I grew up in the state’s largest city, located on the plains with views of the mountains but not part of the mountains.

After college I moved to a mountainous and sparsely populated part of Colorado. The county I chose has the most ‘roadless space’ in the conterminous United States. Instead of looking AT the mountains I was living IN the mountains and the two experiences are very different.

My ideas are thus rooted in the recognition that not only is the lens I view the world through unique to my experience, but that lens is continuously regrinding itself.

After many years I moved back to my home city of Denver where I continue my studio work and also am owner/director at Abecedarian Gallery, a space with an ongoing emphasis on contemporary book arts, works on paper, collage and assemblage.

My work is exhibited regularly in the US, Austria, and England and occasionally in other parts of the world. It is held in numerous public, private and special collections. My work in the book arts is archived at University of Denver, Penrose Library, Special Collections.

These differences mentioned above have impacted my studio work in ways that have become more obvious to me with the passage of time. Obvious isn’t the same thing as describable or easy to articulate in written form. The closest I can come is to say that I seem able to scrutinize the minutia of physical spaces at the exact same moment as I am looking skyward. This dual vision extends beyond physical spaces to those murky spiritual, intellectual, psychological and emotional ones that are even more difficult to speak or write about.

I thrive on textured and multi-dimensional experiences. I seek experiences that include language, sound, visual and physical sensations; those that engage my mind, emotions, spirit and body.

In my studio work I employ structural elements such as openings both physical and implied, varying levels of transparency, layering and interactivity . I do not work in the book form all the time, but because the aforementioned elements are an integral part of that form, my ideas and expressions often find their place in book form.

Whether in book form or not my work follows multiple threads of thought and action simultaneously. At the core of every project are threads of thought, concept and imagination. The steps I take are guided by curiosity and the excitement of exploring how various links and layers might co-exist in a work. Projects may be set aside when other thoughts or circumstances intrude but the original threads remain intact. As time goes on, temporarily abandoned threads form new tangles. From those tangles, threads resurface, are picked at, tugged loose and, in combination with others, form the basis for studio work.

Gaining skill in one area, then moving towards another area is my tactic. Over the decades I’ve been working in the studio I’ve assembled extensive facility with method and material. Every new method engages different parts of my mind and body. I have created objects and works made from manipulations as simple as a mark made on a surface to collaborative installations that include visuals, sound, language and scent. At the heart of these explorations is an abiding interest in diving always deeper into the stuff of life.