Local artist Susan Slapin publishes new book series

Susan Slapin has three new art books in the works, coming out in about three weeks.

“I have been an artist my whole life and I am completely passionate about my relationship to the visual world,” she said. “It’s not just what you see, it’s what you feel when you see it. What I love about art is it decreases personal isolation. I think that what artists are for, to put us back into a whole experience of ourselves.”

Slapin said the first book, “Island,” contains mainly “serene images, ” 94 photographs of paths, views, animals, boats, and even a couple of rocks. “Island” uses the cover photograph seen on Slapin’s last book, “Island Passages,” which she said has sold well.

Her next book, “Island Perspective,” has a different feel and is intended to inspire thought rather than a zen-like contemplation. She said the 60 images include “Sucia, roosters, technicolor cows, a piece of gnarly looking wood on the short of Indralaya, a trumpeter swan that flew over my head,” and more.

A third work, “California Trainride,” displays her views from out the window of a train as Slapin traveled from Santa Barbara to Emeryville, just outside of Berkeley. Unlike the vertical and horizontal lines of the Pacific Northwest, she said the landscape was composed of brown, rounded mounds, expanses with crop rows in between.

“It’s a very soft countryside,” she said. “The colors are very warm.”

Slapin also has a fourth book in mind for the future, which will contain etchings, paintings and monotypes.

At Washington Federal Savings in May, Slapin will be showing various works, including her etching portfolio, monoprints, paintings, and photography, and her chapbook, “Island Passages.”