Exhibition curator, Nandini Makrandi, commissioned Widgets & Stone for the catalog design in early 2008. She wanted designers who could handle the project with a mixture of grace and fortitude, and she wanted to know going in that the catalog would put the museum on its best foot as it launches its premiere major traveling exhibition. Makrandi knew that a project of this scope would require flexibility, give and take, and she knew that she could expect that from Widgets & Stone.

The catalog is not an effort to document the work; it is an effort to frame the work, to give it a meaningful, rich and tactile context. It is an art object in its own right, as Widgets & Stone approached the catalog design with as much passion and conviction as Lesley applies to her work.

Details of the foil stamped cover art.

For the last twenty years Dill has been a sculptor, photographer, printmaker and performance artist, all while consistently exploring the human form, language, sensory experience and their interactions. Dill’s work can be both ephemeral and spiritual, drawing on both her travels in India and her interest in Buddhism, as she uses bronze, photography, poetry, thread, wire and paper to sculpt figures and build tapestries. Her pieces give visual form to poetic texts by Emily Dickinson, Salvador Espriu, and Franz Kafka. For Dill, words are her ‘spiritual armor,’and she freely stitches and weaves them across the surfaces of her multi-layered works.

As she states, "language is the touchstone, the pivot point of all my work."

Joseph Shipp, designer of the project, said that he wanted the catalog to be a “crystal goblet” for Dill’s artwork. On a project with such creative content and significance, it can be easy to get carried away and over-design. The trick is knowing what design elements are appropriate for the work. In the end, we decided to let Lesley’s work speak for itself, and to rely more on interesting printing techniques to tell that story than on elaborate design styles.

The Hunter exhibition will include 34 pieces from both public and private collections. Some of the sculptures have been created for this exhibit tour, and many have not been shown widely before. A full-color catalog and a video featuring Dill in her stud io will accompany the exhibition. The exhibition will be on tour through 2011 to five other museums around the US.

The exhibition opens January 17 with an artist talk, and will be on view until April 19.

For more information, vis it the Exhibition page of the Hunter Museum of American Art's web site.

Six separate foldout spreads in the catalog reveal the scale of Lesley’s art.

Design and production credits: Design: Joseph Shipp; Art Direction: Matt Greenwell, Joseph Shipp; Creative Direction: Paul Rustand; Prepress Production: Grant Dotson, D.J. Trischler; Photo Retouching: Steve West; Printing: Adams Lithography.