Daniel Essig

Daniel Essig Description

Daniel Essig is a studio artist and teacher living in Asheville, North Carolina. Daniel teaches book arts workshops at book centers, craft schools, and colleges. He exhibits his work nationally and is in numerous collections including the Mint Museum and The Clarence Ward Art Library at Oberlin College. Many of Daniel’s sculptural pieces are featured in The Penland Book of Handmade Books.

Daniel is interested in traces of the past, ancient binding styles, reliquar- ies, distressed finishes, and found objects. Since he was six or seven years old, he has been collecting small objects - seashells and interesting rocks that he collected at the beach on childhood vacations. He has stored up seedpods, rocks, bones, shells, bits of rusty metal, nails, animal teeth, and fossils. They represent periods in his life, even just days or moments. He keeps his collection of relics in drawers, bottles, and boxes within a single small room in his house. The space has the feel of a German Wunderkammern, a "cabinet of curiosities." He often sits in the room and scans his collection, seeking just the right object to inspire a new book or sculpture.

Daniel Essig Statement

Some people use my books as journals and fill them up with words. I don't write in my books. For me, the books themselves are journals, visual records of my life and work.

I am interested in traces of the past, ancient binding styles, reliquaries, distressed finishes, and found objects. Since I was six or seven years old, I've been collecting small objects. I have seashells and interesting rocks that I collected at the beach on childhood vacations I've stored up seedpods, rocks, bones, shells, bits of rusty metal, nails, animal teeth, fossils. They represent periods in my life, even just days or moments. I keep my collection of relics in drawers, bottles, and boxes within a single small room in my house. The space has the feel of a German Wunderkammern, a "cabinet of curiosities." I often sit in the room and scan my collection, seeking just the right object to inspire a new book or sculpture. A symphony conductor who collects my work once told me that he hides my books in a basket every evening before going to bed so they won't be stolen during the night. Until fairly recently all books were prized possessions -- medieval libraries chained books to the shelves to prevent theft. In those days each volume was crafted with precision, elaborately decorated and embellished with precious stones and metals. I aim to make my books just as precious as those medieval manuscripts. Most of my work has a Coptic book at its heart. The binding was first used in the fourth century, in Ethiopia. I became interested in the healing aspects that the books played within this culture which led in turn to a fascination with the magical and healing properties employed in both Reliquaries and N’Kisi N’konde figures.