Confined Spaces

Exhibition
August 7 - November 10, 2026
Colorado Springs, CO

Exhibition Location:
Colorado College, Charles L. Tutt Library, Special Collections
1021 N Cascade Ave, Colorado Springs, CO 80903

Confined Spaces brings together six book artists working within a shared framework of identical antique metal four-drawer compartments. The exhibition includes invited artists Ingrid Porter, Janet Reynolds, Sandy Rhodes, Susan Vaho, Rhiannon Alpers, and Amy Lund. Each artist created an altered sculptural book or series that inhabits this common structure.

Within these constraints, the works diverge. “Four” becomes measure, metaphor, rhythm, and system, reinterpreted through each artist’s lens.

Once sites of order and storage, the drawers are transformed into containers for unfolding ideas that open, shift, and reveal. United by process and material, these six bookworks reveal how a fixed form can yield a multiplicity of voices.

Special Thanks goes out to Jessy Randall, Curator and Archivist at Colorado College Special Collections and was coordinated by Rhiannon Alpers.

Included Artist and Artworks

Janet M Reynolds

Directions in Nature                

This series of artist books explores the four cardinal directions, north, south, east, and west.  The directions function not only as navigational markers but as living environments that are shaped as birds and butterflies travel through them.  They are also guides for native flowers to thrive in.  

The vintage cabinet contains four artist books, native plant identification cards, and a compass.  The tunnel book consists of four frames, each displaying the migration route and the birds that follow it.  Four migratory butterflies are contained in a watercolor Turkish map fold book. A four panel accordion book is created using a watercolor monoprint and displays four native plants, each suited to a different direction to thrive. A stitched scroll book shows the migratory routes that beekeepers use throughout the year. Much of the imagery was sourced from a vintage North American Wildlife Guide.   

These artist books celebrate the brilliance of nature and their interconnectedness to each other.  They remind us of the continuing exchange between the natural world and the landscape.  

Janet Reynolds is a book artist/educator living in Houston, TX. She is inspired by the wonders of the natural world. Drawing on the beauty and intricate patterns found in nature, she creates sculptural artists’ books that evoke a sense of connection to the environment. Through her art, she strives to capture the delicate balance between nature and human impact. She enjoys experimenting with sculptural forms of book making and using nontraditional and recycled materials. Through her use of reclaimed materials, her work serves as a reminder that art can thrive within the constraints of sustainability. She has shown her work nationally and internationally and has pieces in collections at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and several University collections.

Ingrid von Brockdorff Porter

An Alchemy of Making:  Four Elements

In considering the directive “four” for this piece, I was drawn to the concept of the Four Elements – earth, air, fire, water.  Before modern science, these were considered to be the building blocks of the universe and were important in many symbolic and explanatory traditions such as philosophy, medicine, spirituality, and magic.

I was struck by the similarity between the Four Elements and the elements I need in my own creative process (grounding, inspiration, enthusiasm/passion, and the state of flow).  When these parts are present, my art practice is at its most fruitful and productive.  So, I imagined this piece as a sort-of alchemist’s chest – containing “recipes,” samples, and processes that guide me in my work.

Ingrid von Brockdorff Porter is a book artist in Denver, Colorado. Her handmade books are in several university library special collections, as well as in private collections. Her artwork has been featured in a number of juried exhibitions, and exhibited at Camp Widow in Toronto, Canada.

Ingrid is a member of the Co-op at Art Gym and Gallery located in Denver, Colorado. She holds degrees in art and archetypal art therapy.

Sandy Rhodes

Corrosion

I have always been deeply moved by the beauty of aging surfaces, particularly metals. 

While ultimately destructive, corrosion creates an alchemical change of color and texture at the intersection of art and science.

Here I have explored the nuances of that change and the strange poetry of the words we use to describe these processes. 

Artist Bio: I started book binding at Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, ct about 30 years ago. I continued there as a Studio Binder until our move to Colorado 4 years ago. I was honored to have 2 of my books in Inventive Structures: Books Beyond the Codex, May 2010, Creative Arts Workshop, New Haven, Ct. 

Materials: copper, brass, steel, binders board, book cloth, coffee dyed and rusted Arches Text Wove, acrylic paint. 

Susan Vaho

Word for Word

This work inspired by the figurative play on the expression “word for word” is a collection of stories and ideas. Each drawer contains a different form of word play:  

  • Drawer 61 - a file system organizing the little pieces of paper where ideas are kept,
  • Drawer 17 - a 100-word story that begins with the prompt “summer” written on a tape measure,
  • Drawer 10 - magnetic blocks made from Woodcock Johnson assessment pages, a tool used to measure children’s cognitive abilities, reminiscent of children’s blocks and magnetic alphabets,
  • Drawer 56 - a portfolio of black out poems.

Nothing in the collection is word for word or verbatim. Instead, there are snippets that begin to get to the truth. 

The materials are all found. The stencils created by Harry Lyrico were given to the artist.

Amy Lund

Extra Credit

Extra Credit explores the 4 states of matter through the memory of the Sludge Test from my high school science class.

My lab partner and I were assigned a jar containing a mystery mix of liquids and solids. Our mission was to use scientific methods and a variety of experiments to identify each ingredient in the sludge.

I don’t remember if we correctly identified every ingredient in our sludge, but I can, in retrospect, appreciate what the actions of filtering, sifting, dissolving, measuring, and recording gifted me; the burgeoning idea that everything is a mystery mix and that we’re all moving through life with our own personal “sludge.” 

The 4 states of matter lay the groundwork for understanding all physical substances. And like these states, we too are shaped by the pressures and temperatures of life. 

Rhiannon Alpers

Red-Rust Color Experiments is a multi-book, tiered-box artist book that investigates the landscape of Colorado's Garden of the Gods and its surrounding red sandstone formations through color, material, and memory. Housed within an altered four-tier antique metal box, each drawer offers a different way of encountering the landscape, tracing relationships between plant, mineral, soil, and personal experience.

Rather than documenting a place, the work considers how landscapes are understood through accumulated traces. Field observations, collected specimens, geological histories, and personal memories are treated as equally meaningful forms of knowledge. Red-rust becomes more than a color—it emerges as a spectrum of material, ecological, and emotional associations that connect body, place, and time. Garden of the Gods is both a sacred landscape and a site of enduring curiosity, where careful observation transforms the familiar into something continually rediscovered.

Rhiannon Alpers is a papermaker, letterpress printer, and book artist based in Portland, Oregon. She holds both a BA and an MFA in Book and Paper Arts. She has exhibited nationally and internationally.

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