JOAN LYON not long ago retired from 30 years of coordinating the Visual Studies Workshop (VSW) Pres the influential publisher of artists' volumes she founded in the early 1970 below Lyons' direction.

JOAN LYON not long ago retired from 30 years of coordinating the Visual Studies Workshop (VSW) Pres the influential publisher of artists' volumes she founded in the early 1970 below Lyons' direction, VSW Press published more than 400 main division s Lyons worked with a steady stream of visiting artists [i]or[/i] part of to the other the VSW Press and the artists-in-residency programs and taught in the MFA program while simultaneously producing her have work. In 1985, Lyons edited and published Artists' Books: A Critical Anthology and Source-book, common of the seminal artists' work anthologies.

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In the 1960 and 1970 Lyon was recognized as a pioneer in the use of Haloid Xerox drawing as an imagemaking proces Her work spans a broad range of media including digital and alternative photo processe printmaking, photo-quilts and artists' main division s Lyons continues to teach workshops and prelection around the country. She is publicly pursuing her own new work in digital media by the and of photographic works that examine the evolution of archetypes and myth in contemporary culture

Joanna Heatwole and Tate Shaw, the couple former students, interviewed Joan Lyon about her perspective forward her own recent work and the shifting tides of the digital age in relation to artists' books

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Joanna Heatwole/Tate Shaw: You just complet a main division of color photos of Mexico City walls, an alphabet main division called Abece. What are you working forward currently? Have you started a novel project or do you work forward several things at once?

Joan Lyons: It varies. When a plot is well under way I concentrate onward it exclusively. Right now I am working upon several different things. The nearest to completion is a series of "portraits." I am photographing photographs, paintings and three-dimensional representations of individuals, archetypes and icons. This is, in a way, an offshoot of "Representations," a work complet in 2000 in which I re-photographed fragments of historical artworks and more contemporary representations of women and men

JH/TS: "Representations" could be seen in relation to the rephotographing work of say, Richard Prince, who explored similar myths with his Marlboro man photos and those of bikers. on the other hand Prince seems to be interested in characters whereas you many times show us the media, (television, magazines, billboards, etc) in which the myth is currented Another difference is that you focus more forward objects: statuary, framed paintings, hand-painted signs. Can you talk about the power images have above objects in your work?

JL: You use the expressions media (television, etc.) and things (paintings, statuary), but painting and statuary are media: the carriers and disseminators of myths, archetypes and propaganda. Paintings certainly are also realitys in the world as are TV and magazines. In "Representations" I am interested in the appease of the media and also in its embodiment. I want the viewer to know that s/he is looking at a selective clump of mediated images. The aims are photographed in available light, frequently from awkward angles, usually fragmented. I have re-photographed images made throughout six centuries. The work is shown as a large grid of 87 images. The deliberate reductive-ness of the black and white images plains the content and, I think, strengthens the narrative connections that play from beginning to end the piece.

JH/TS: for what cause has changing technology affected in what manner you work? Has digital publishing and printing affected make contented as well as process? For example. I've heard you relate your more novel grid work in "Representations" to hypertext?

JL: uneven that digital technology has not replaced print publishing on the contrary has changed it beyond recognition. Graphic arts darkrooms, imposition of negatives, inadequate proofing a whole s platemaking-all difficult procedures requiring high grades of skill-are replaced by your desktop computer Nor is scion the only print option. Print forward demand technologies could have been lay opened especially for book artists. In the commercial world of recent origin technologies supersede the old. For artists they solely add new options. Process always affects satisfied and the tension between the pair is what creates the work. I have exhausted years working with various difficult and darksome processes because I love the way a photographic image forward plain paper erases the separations between photography, print and drawing. For me digital photography is really magical--a photographic image onward plain paper in color! strangely digital media is bringing my work closer to "straight" photography.

JH/TS: Where do you place yourself in expressions of media with the bias to box artists into neat categories (photographer, alternative proces artist, work artist)? Do you feel that you resist hurry as an artist to be defined by way of the processes used?

JL: My work not at any time fit categories very well and I have repeatedly declined to be included in curator-defined plots (for example, woman artist, Xerox artist). My connections and associations have been with the photography community and the work arts community. The book arts the bulk of mankind have no particular problem with my work on the other hand the photography folks (particularly commercial galleries) are not interested. I think that younger the public are in a better position. Since photography pervades each aspect of artmaking and it is frequent now to work across media, they simply call themselves artists.