The front cover features a detail of the artist’s Reading No. 4 (2013) . . .

 . . . while the half title uses roughly the same detail of its counterpart, Transcript No. 4 (2013). The book was sewn in wraps, but includes a dust jacket, which dispatches many of the book’s ceremonial duties on its flaps (short biographies, copyright information, and so on), freeing pages that would otherwise be used for more content—an important consideration in such a tight book.

Pages showing treatment of text and sidenotes. The illustration at left shows Watkins installing Score, a large sculptural drawing commissioned by Portland State University that makes use of the inked cords left over from the transcripts and readings.

The opening of the book uses many documentary photographs (captured by the artist or her assistants on her iPhone 4s) to give the reader a sense of her process, which is not obvious from the end result. Here, we see some of the cords destined for Score gathered in a vat before being soaked in ink.

A detail of the transcript/reading process grounds a short poetic piece from critic Stephanie Snyder leading into her essay. Watkins’s conceptual process includes generating similar lists of words and fragmented ideas, a body of which formed her 2012 book Repository, to which we conceived this book as a companion volume.

The essay opens with a detail of the inking vat (a large kiddie pool), filled with soaking cords and Watkins’s gloves set against a long quotation from philosopher Brian Massumi on the nature of abstract art.

From the inking vat, we see Watkins beginning to arrange the cords of what will become Transcript No. 4 (2013), Reading No. 4 (2013), and, ultimately, a part of the large sculptural drawing Score (2014).

And the work develops. If we’d had room, we would have liked to have run a couple more pages of these images, as it is hard to convey the physicality of the artist’s process. To be sure, the work preserves some of that vitality, but Watkins is not a large person, and the cords are heavy. Working like this requires a great deal of physical stamina as well as attention.

Reading No. 4 and Transcript No. 4 close to completion. The narrow column at right we used for sidenotes and small illustrations of other work mentioned in the essay.

Following the essay, the work contained in the exhibition was laid out roughly chronologically and grouped according to conceptual thread. Watkins prepared brief notes for each of these sections. These pages concern Surfacing (2008–11), an earlier group of ink-based action drawings, which is configured differently for each showing.

Larger views of two Surfacing works, No. 12 (2008) and No. 39 (2011), showing different characteristics of the work.

Interior pages showing the version of Surfacing that was installed in the exhibition.

Opening pages for a section exploring Watkins’s earlier thread drawings. There is a fairly rigorous grid underlying this book (derived from common proportions found in the artist’s work), but we exercised flexibility in using it. We’ve written elsewhere about our opposition to solemnity and rigidity in books about the visual arts. These pages violate some of the cardinal rules of such books: the type overprints the image; the headline and copy are on separate pages; and so on.
But as John Berger wrote, you’re not looking at the art, you’re looking at a reproduction. And you’re reading a book, which is quite different from viewing an exhibition. This is a large detail, and in this context, the copy is on equal footing.

But as John Berger wrote, you’re not looking at the art, you’re looking at a reproduction. And you’re reading a book, which is quite different from an exhibition. This is a large detail, and in this context, the copy is on equal footing.

Illustrations of Catalysts and Intermediaries, sculptural works made from inked cords once they had dried.

Pages illustrating Watkins’s Repeating Line Progressions, works created on drafting film by systematically replacing over- and underlaid sheets, and alternately switching ink-soaked cords for raw, absorbent ones.

Cords (Intermediaries) used in Repeating Line Progressions.

The final pages are given to Score (2014), which, as a permanent site-specific installation, was not included in the exhibition, but which generated much of the work shown. This is a good example of what we call “engaged presentation”: we had neither the room nor the inclination to present these three images in vitrine, each on its own page with a tasteful caption. Rather, we laid them out as you might actually encounter the work, using white space and position to strengthen the point of view of each of the images.