Peter and Donna Thomas - Conceptual Artwork

Conceptual Artwork

In 2009 Peter and Donna Thomas began a conceptual art project to expose new audiences to the idea of the artists’ book. They created a traveling artists’ book that was structurally based on a British Reading "gypsy" wagon or vardo, and functioned as a home, a physical artwork and as a metaphoric embodiment of their ideas about the changing nature of the physical book in the digital age.

In 2010-2013, the Thomases took their sculptural artists' book on two cross country trips. As “Wandering Book Artists” they presented their traveling artists' book to both academic and community based audiences. While traveling, Peter Thomas began to theorize a typology for all physical artists' books. He classified all physical artists' books by structure, dividing them into four distinct categories: codex, folded, single-sheet, sculptural. Within this typology, the wagon was a sculptural artists’ book that contained the other three book types.

Their work has been exhibited and collected at universities, libraries, galleries, and museums throughout the world, including National Museum of Women in the Arts, New York Public Library, Scripps College, University of Virginia, Smith College, Yale University, Rutgers University, University of California, San Diego, University of California, Santa Cruz, University of Arizona, University of Wisconsin, San Francisco Center for the Book, Victoria and Albert Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Art Institute of Chicago, The Huntington Library, J. Paul Getty Museum, and Koninklijke Bibliotheek.