Double

Marilyn R. Rosenberg describes her beautiful and complex book "DOUBLE" thus: "It is not really visual poetry, although there is some. It is not asemic poetry, although there is some. It is for sure an artist's book, with a narrative that can be seen/read in all directions. I worked to be sure that standing on its side the images worked as well as in the landscape orientation. Notations reference the environment and the current changes in the weather (global warming- the fires and floods), and Covid, and death and life." Rosenberg's DOUBLE is a unique artist's book that vividly explores ideas about doubling, and does so in many directions at once: horizontally and vertically; with elements repeated in a set of twin artists books which are presented on opposing pages; always with modifications/additions/subtractions, on the facing page. The original set of twin books were hardbound in black covers, with 200 gram acid-free, 100% recycled, 140 lb. cold press paper; and the artist worked back and forth on corresponding pairs of squares. Digitized images from both books were further manipulated for this book. DOUBLE has 60 color filled pages, consisting of 30 similar twin pairs of facing pages. The book itself is doubled in a sense, in that the front cover is doubled on the last page, and the back cover on the first page. DOUBLE mirrors and closes itself, to create a complete self-reflective object, a talisman of how we experience the reality, or what we think of as the reality, of the world we live in. The book's gorgeous and sensuous colors, drawing, painting, writing, and collage give intense life to these concepts. - John M. Bennett