Joan Iversen Goswell

Specialty: Paper

My creative process is that I don’t really have one. I like to work spontaneously. The finished work is often the first draft. I just think of something, start to put it onto paper, cut some eraser stamps, find material for collage, or make paper, use or find what ever materials the book calls for and then…make a book. Once the book is “started” it begins to take on a life of its own, it creates its own energy, and when it’s done- it’s done!

Joan’s Biography

Joan Iversen Goswell is a book artist living in Valencia, PA. She studied calligraphy with Elizabeth Houston at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and hand bookbinding with Jean Gunner at Carnegie-Mellon University. She has exhibited internationally in Austria, United Kingdom, Canada, Russia, and Switzerland and locally at the Andy Warhol Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art, the Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, as well as galleries in New Mexico, Colorado, New York City, Oregon, California, and Minnesota. Her books are in several important collections including The Sackner Archive, Miami Beach, Florida; The Yves Klein Archive , Paris, France; The Arthur Jaffe Collection, Boca Raton, Florida; and the Jack Ginsburg Collection, Johannesburg, South Africa. Her work is unique, running from the traditional leather bindings to contemporary bindings of diverse materials. Her lettering and many of her images are created from handcut eraser stamps. She also incorporates digital images, collage, odd materials such as feathers, wood, wire, beads, brass strips, pellet guns, horsehair and in the case of one series of books — pebbles, seashells and a tiny skeletal remain. She is a member of The Guild of Bookworkers, New York; Friends of Calligraphy, San Francisco, CA;; The Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, The Fiber Arts Guild of Pittsburgh and The Craftsmen’s Guild of Pittsburgh.