{"id":100316,"date":"2025-12-17T13:05:36","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T20:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=100316"},"modified":"2025-12-26T09:47:51","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T16:47:51","slug":"2025-jim-frazers-year-in-book-arts-carryies-the-utah-landscape-outward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/2025-jim-frazers-year-in-book-arts-carryies-the-utah-landscape-outward\/","title":{"rendered":"2025: Jim Frazer&#8217;s Year in Book Arts Carries the Utah Landscape Outward"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\r\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">https:\/\/vimeo.com\/1054162823<\/div>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<h4>\u00a0<\/h4>\r\n<h4>\u00a0<\/h4>\r\n<h4>For Utah artist <a href=\"https:\/\/jimfrazer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jim Frazer<\/a>, 2025 became a year defined by watching his books travel\u2014moving into exhibitions and collections across the country while remaining rooted in the landscapes that shaped them. His work has been in book arts exhibits in Texas, Wisconsin, California, and Washington.\u201d Even as those books circulated widely, their source remained local: \u201cIn all those cases, the books exhibited have been based on experiences in the Utah landscape, mostly in Salt Lake City,\u201d he says.<\/h4>\r\n<h4>Some of the year\u2019s projects found permanent homes. His book <em>500 Walks in the Woods<\/em>, based on his daily walks in the Wasatch Hollow natural area near his home in the Sugar House neighborhood of Salt Lake City, was acquired by libraries at Baylor University and the University of Virginia. Another piece, <em>San Juan<\/em>, inspired by a river trip through southeastern Utah, is now in the collection of the Kohler Art Library at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and Frazer notes that other books based on similar experiences in the Utah landscape are in other collections in other states. He says, \u201cI have no way of knowing who will look at them, or what they will think, but they will be seeing the Utah landscape when they do.\u201d<\/h4>\r\n<h4>San Juan, in particular, carries a deep historical thread. \u201cThe San Juan book has quite a bit of Utah history in it, spanning from the prehistoric era down through Spanish explorations and nineteenth century prospectors, all woven into a meditation on how we know what we think we know that meanders like the river that inspired it.\u201d<\/h4>\r\n<h4><a href=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/01-Cover-and-Accordion-sections-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-100330 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/01-Cover-and-Accordion-sections-1200x881.jpg\" alt=\"Spread of Jim Frazer\u2019s artist book San Juan, showing multiple accordion-fold panels printed with map-like textures, topographical lines, and landscape photographs. The cover features a cracked, sandstone-like surface with the title \u201cSan Juan.\u201d\" width=\"1200\" height=\"881\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/01-Cover-and-Accordion-sections-1200x881.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/01-Cover-and-Accordion-sections-350x257.jpg 350w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/01-Cover-and-Accordion-sections-768x564.jpg 768w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/01-Cover-and-Accordion-sections-1536x1128.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/01-Cover-and-Accordion-sections-2048x1504.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/a><\/h4>\r\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-100316 gallery-columns-4 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/2025-jim-frazers-year-in-book-arts-carryies-the-utah-landscape-outward\/04-additional-details\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/04-Additional-Details-290x290.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"Multiple detailed spreads from the San Juan artist book by Jim Frazer, showing maps, historic clippings, fold-out pages, canyon and desert photographs, and illustrated flora and fauna. Hands interact with the pages to demonstrate movable and layered elements.\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/04-Additional-Details-290x290.jpg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/04-Additional-Details-120x120.jpg 120w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/04-Additional-Details-360x360.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/2025-jim-frazers-year-in-book-arts-carryies-the-utah-landscape-outward\/03-detail-showing-removable-components\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/03-Detail-showing-removable-components-290x290.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"Interior spreads from Jim Frazer\u2019s San Juan book displaying removable components such as illustrated cards and printed documents. A hand lifts various inserts to reveal layered text, landscape photographs, and drawn geological or botanical elements.\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/03-Detail-showing-removable-components-290x290.jpg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/03-Detail-showing-removable-components-120x120.jpg 120w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/03-Detail-showing-removable-components-360x360.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/2025-jim-frazers-year-in-book-arts-carryies-the-utah-landscape-outward\/05-maps-volume-with-pages\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/05-Maps-Volume-with-pages-290x290.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"An artist book titled Maps by Jim Frazer shown open to several spreads. The pages include reproductions of historical maps, printed essays, and translucent overlays. The book\u2019s cover resembles marbled, reddish-brown terrain with decorative hinges.\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/05-Maps-Volume-with-pages-290x290.jpg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/05-Maps-Volume-with-pages-120x120.jpg 120w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/05-Maps-Volume-with-pages-360x360.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/2025-jim-frazers-year-in-book-arts-carryies-the-utah-landscape-outward\/02-accordion-recto-and-verso-unfolded\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/02-Accordion-Recto-and-Verso-unfolded-290x290.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"Spread of Jim Frazer\u2019s artist book San Juan, showing multiple accordion-fold panels printed with map-like textures, topographical lines, and landscape photographs. The cover features a cracked, sandstone-like surface with the title \u201cSan Juan.\u201d\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/02-Accordion-Recto-and-Verso-unfolded-290x290.jpg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/02-Accordion-Recto-and-Verso-unfolded-120x120.jpg 120w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/02-Accordion-Recto-and-Verso-unfolded-360x360.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\r\n<h4>Along with the work itself, Frazer finds joy in the practice. \u201cI have had a lot of enjoyment from my work with artist books,\u201d he writes, \u201cand I\u2019m appreciative for the Book Arts Program at the U of U where I took my first workshops.\u201d (To see work by the Book Arts Program&#8217;s current students, don&#8217;t miss <em>Booking a Brouhaha<\/em> in the Special Collections Gallery of the U&#8217;s J. Willard Marriott Library, Level 4, through February 20, 2026).<\/h4>\r\n<h4>Frazer&#8217;s involvement in the book arts community is not limited to Utah. \u201cDuring Covid, the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Guild of Book Workers held online sessions every other week for almost two years where I met via Zoom book artists from many other states,\u201d he says. Local connection has been more elusive. \u201cCloser to home, I have hoped for more in-person interaction with other book artists,\u201d Frazer writes. \u201cWe have some folks in SLC, and some in Provo centered around BYU, but it seems somehow easier to meet with people in Colorado online than with those nearer by in person.\u201d One promising effort is being led by BYU\u2019s Christopher McAfee: \u201cChristopher McAfee, who works in conservation at the library at BYU, has made an effort along those lines by recruiting people to form a Wasatch chapter of the Guild and I\u2019m looking forward to working with whoever is willing to encourage interest in our area.\u201d<\/h4>\r\n<h4>Several experiences from the year shaped his thinking in ways that don\u2019t always appear on a r\u00e9sum\u00e9. In March, Frazer traveled to Guatemala\u2014\u201ca wonderful trip\u201d that included camping in the jungle and visiting Mayan archaeological sites. The journey inspired a new book, <em>All That Will Remain<\/em>, which reflects on the decline of the Maya. Frazer notes that theories about the civilization\u2019s collapse often emphasize three interlocking causes: \u201cthe demands for ever increasing labor on the part of many of the working class to maintain the lifestyle of a relatively small number of elites, wars between various rival city-states, and the environmental stress of climate change caused by deforestation and over-use of available resources.\u201d The parallels to the present felt pointed: \u201cIt seemed to us to be a cautionary tale, as the themes of the causes of the Mayan decline sound all too similar to the present-day headlines.\u201d<\/h4>\r\n<div id=\"attachment_100341\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/modified-portrait-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-100341\" class=\"wp-image-100341 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/modified-portrait-350x323.jpg\" alt=\"A digitally altered portrait of a man partially obscured by foliage, with clusters of pale flowers blending into his face and hair. Transparent green circles and algorithmic marks overlay the image, giving it a machine-vision or data-analysis effect.\" width=\"350\" height=\"323\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/modified-portrait-350x323.jpg 350w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/modified-portrait-1108x1024.jpg 1108w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/modified-portrait-768x709.jpg 768w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/modified-portrait-1536x1419.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/modified-portrait-2048x1892.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/modified-portrait-1200x1109.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-100341\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Frazer&#8217;s time at Trevor Paglen&#8217;s workshop at Anderson Ranch resulted in this modified portrait.<\/p><\/div>\r\n<h4>In July, Frazer attended the Machine Vision workshop at Anderson Ranch Art Center in Colorado, taught by Trevor Paglen. Paglen\u2019s investigations into AI and surveillance\u2014including a project using facial-recognition algorithms on photographs of clouds\u2014formed part of the workshop\u2019s conceptual foundation. As Frazer writes, \u201cWe learned \u2018vibe coding\u2019 which in our case meant asking Chat GPT or Claude, Gemini, etc. to write Python scripts for image analysis.\u201d The workshop brought together participants ranging \u201cfrom art students to a PhD robotics engineer,\u201d leading to \u201cthe best and most wide-ranging discussions that I remember since grad school.\u201d Frazer returned with several working applications\u2014each with its own GUI\u2014despite having \u201cno previous knowledge of coding.\u201d The workshop will be offered again this coming summer.<\/h4>\r\n<h4>Taken together, the exhibits, acquisitions, experiments, travel, and community-building form a portrait of a creative life that is both place-rooted and outward-reaching. Frazer may not know how his books will be encountered in distant reading rooms, but he knows what they carry: Utah\u2019s landscapes, its histories, and the questions that flow through them.<\/h4>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 For Utah artist Jim Frazer, 2025 became a year defined by watching his books travel\u2014moving into exhibitions and collections across the country while remaining rooted in the landscapes that shaped them. His work has been in book arts exhibits in Texas, Wisconsin, California, and Washington.\u201d Even [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1602,"featured_media":100329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3164,14],"tags":[775,169],"class_list":["post-100316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-of","category-visual_arts","tag-book-arts","tag-jim-frazer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/02-Accordion-Recto-and-Verso-unfolded-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 07:24:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1602"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100316"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100541,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100316\/revisions\/100541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}