Erica Spitzer Rasmussen has been honored with the 2018 Minnesota Book Artist Award for her work, "The Love Affair," a mixed-media book handcrafted from love letters sent between her maternal grandparents in the 1930s. She cut the letters apart and bound them with a Coptic stitch and then twisted them into the form of the infinity symbol -- suggesting that the couple is bound together forever. She then placed the letters inside a wooden box that had been made by her grandfather. Rasmussen, who teaches at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, is an artist who makes handmade paper garments, neckware and small editions of hand-bound books. She received her BFA and MFA at the University of Minnnesota and has had papermaking and bookbinding residencies in Austria and Italy.
The awards committee praised "The Love Affair" for its playful, clever "reference to the art of love letters." A retrospective exhibition of Rasmussen's work — including "The Love Affair" — will be on display Feb. 1 to March 13 at Open Book, 1011 Washington Av. S., Mpls., with a reception at 6 p.m. March 9. She will honored at the Minnesota Book Awards gala on April 21 in downtown St. Paul.
