Artist Martha Edgerton creates beautiful art out of books

ELKTON — Books and the written word have always been considered an art form in themselves. The prose and language that conjures images in our mind is one of the best ways to stir up emotion in us. But taking a book and making it into physical art, that’s something else entirely. That’s where Martha Edgerton comes.

Raised in Baltimore, Edgerton worked for over 35 years at Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries in the preservation department, preserving books, maps, manuscripts and being trained as a book and paper conservator.

“Through that training in the field, we learn how to bind books through many methods, and I learned all of it,” said Edgerton, who also traveled to the Library of Congress to complete her education.

But Edgerton says that her desire to leap from book preservation to book art came after a meeting with a famous author.

“My interest in book art was started by meeting Alex Haley, the author of ‘Roots,’” she said, “I’ve always had an interest in black history and genealogy. So meeting him and having this interest, I sampled making my first piece of book art.”

Over time, Edgerton began to create more and more pieces, and eventually began to display and exhibit them. Continuing to pursue the topic of black history, she eventually created the exhibit that is now showing at the Elkton library, entitled “The Amazing Race,” which shows the capture, middle passage, and early years of slavery for Africans in the Americas through stunning art that comes alive out of the pages of books.

The centerpiece of this exhibit is a beautiful rendering of a slave ship being tossed on the waves of the ocean, and Edgerton explained how this piece ties in with the first step of her process to creating this beautiful art.

“The first thing I do is a lot of research,” Edgerton said. “For example, with my ship piece, I wanted to tell the story of John Newton, the writer of ‘Amazing Grace’, who was a slave ship captain and found redemption in his life. Then I make a prototype and after that, I just dive right in to making the piece.”

As any artist dreams of, Edgerton hopes to take her exhibit on the road and has grand plans for her work.

“I’d love to show my work in museum, as any artist does, but I love schools and libraries,” she said. “But I just want to get pieces in great places, and I want to travel and take the exhibit near and far.”

Book art still seems like an incredibly niche form of physical art. It’s uncommon and isn’t often seen where other, more traditional art is shown. But according to Edgerton, that’s how she likes it and what made her want to create book art in the first place.

“I like different. Book art always stuck out to me as very, very different. I’m doing what I love, since I love conserving and preserving. I had all the skills, and it was a way of satisfying my drive to become an artist. It’s just an intriguing thing,” she said.

Intriguing, beautiful, powerful — her work is certainly all those things, and much more.

Edgerton’s art will be on display at the Elkton and Perryville libraries and at the Cecil County Arts Council through Sept. 28.

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September 4, 2017