Museum of Arts and Culture to feature Ely's work

A jar of beads made from the human bones of the Tibetan dead sits on the counter. Scarlet cubes of 150-year-old vermilion sit in a small box. The rich brown dust of a meteorite collects in a jar, next to an animal skull and a dirty, solid piece of melted scrap silver.

In the crowded third floor garret of his historic Colfax home, nationally known artist Timothy Ely daily uses a kaleidoscope of earthly supplies to do what he does best; bind books, decorate them and sell them.

Beginning Dec. 4, a display of 40 of Ely's famous books will be shown in a four-month exhibit at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane.

For the past two years, Ely and his wife, Ann Marra, have painstakingly reached back in time to contact the people who bought his books during the 30-year span he has made them.

"They are coming from collectors around the world," Ely said of his show.

Book-binding is Ely's day job and has been since he moved to New York City in the 1970s. He produces four to five a year for the going price of $10,000. He doesn't bat an eye when he mentions the price and reassured this journalist that his clients are "just regular people." One buyer this year was a welder, he said.

Book-binding is the art of binding together the cover and pages of a book and constructing the pages within. Ely in one description labeled his art as "atlases of arcane territories and theoretical futures." The pages inside his books don't have text, rather, they show Ely's creations, design after design.

One book, a gritty black piece, lay on one of his desks during the interview with the Gazette. Bits of metal, glass beads and what appears to be sand coated in black paint crust the cover. Inside, the pages are scratched with bizarre geometric shapes and coded language. One page looks like the blueprint for a rocket ship.

When asked about the origins of his work, Ely said his 1950s and 1960s childhood was awash in the atomic era, the Cold War and paranoia of nuclear warfare. As he grew up, this had more and more of an influence on his work. Many of the designs look like scientific sketches or explanations.

Ely pointed out he doesn't try to answer questions in the midst of his books. He doesn't try to pin down solutions or track out legible designs.

"I'm not looking for answers. I'm looking for a way to be more comfortable in the mystery," he said.

Ely and Marra have lived in Colfax for the past nine years and in Portland for eight years before that.

Ely lived in New York City for 10 years before moving west, a city of such art culture he said it made his career.

Most of his books are sold to private buyers, museums or public institutions like colleges. His past three sales were to private collectors. Most of his work comes through private collectors who call him.

So, he said, working in the small town of Colfax is not a hindrance because most of his buyers call him or e-mail him from across the nation or the world.

This is also the case for Marra, who is a graphic designer.

The show in Spokane will be his biggest yet. Ely said he is looking forward to seeing some books he hasn't seen in years.

"It's going to be just a forest of books," he said.

Walla Walla-based painter Ian Boyden exhibited Ely's work in a show in 2004 and has also written a book on Ely's work. Boyden said Ely has a real talent with a variety of art tools.

"If you go to his study and you go through his racks of pens and pencils and tools, it's mind bending to see the different types of tools he has and knows how to use," Boyden said.

He pointed out Ely has an extensive knowledge of the history of writing and caligraphy, an art which he draws on in his work.

"I feel like I am experiencing something that is extremely old and ancient," Boyden said of the books.

He also said Ely has an ongoing knack at finding the beauty in his day-to-day experiences, whether in small-town Colfax or New York City.

"He is just so willing to take the light in the world as it comes at him in pretty much every place he has ever been," Boyden said.