Jim Lee
American, b. 1954; MFA 1980
Lives and works in Glastonbury and Hartford Connecticut
A’tugwaqan: Three Mi’kmaq Indian Stories, 2009
Folklore collected by Ruth Holmes Whitehead, binding by Sarah Creighton
Letterpress, woodcut, and case binding
Blue Moon Press, Glastonbury, Connecticut
Edition of 100
Jim Lee grew up in Wichita, Kansas, and graduated from Bethany College with a BA in studio arts and a focus on printmaking. He first encountered book arts on a visit to UW-Madison, where, in 1980, he received his MFA in printmaking. At the UW, he began collaborating with other book artists and publishing his own books under the imprint Blue Moon Press. He calls himself an occasional book artist, and his most recent books finish up series of works initially done in pastel, watercolor, or pencil. Lee created a personal mythology and expressionistic, satirical illustrations for his earlier books, which gave way to explorations of landscapes in locales such as Ireland, New England, and Canada. For his landscapes, he prefers the risk and magic inherent in the process of color reduction woodcuts, where he sees the final images only when he’s finished printing the last color. “There’s a destructive quality to the creation of the image,” he adds. “I like the irony and the poetry of that.” Upon leaving Madison, Lee taught printmaking and book arts at the University of Manitoba for two years, and then joined the faculty at the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford, where he introduced book arts courses to the curriculum and has been an associate professor since 1982. He continues to produce books through Blue Moon Press.
