#telephonedirectory

This artists’ book is based on a Wisconsin Telephone directory for Area Code 414 in February 1973. Do you remember telephone directories? The Yellow Pages? While a thing of the past, artist Christian Patterson brings telephone directories back to the present moment with his artist’s book, “Bottom of the Lake,” a 256-page facsimile of his family’s telephone book printed in his hometown, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, soon after his birth in 1973. While an obsolete object in today’s digital era, the thick phone directory gives us a glimpse back in time through the publication itself, as well as the artist’s interventions.

“The book includes found markings and reproductions of inserted materials, along with Patterson's own drawings, photographs and marginalia. “Bottom of the Lake” is a book within a book that carefully combines the original, found, fact-based phone book with the artist's highly subjective re-imagination of his hometown; it playfully juxtaposes different documentary forms and ways of seeing to create a deeply personal, darkly humorous other book.” – publisher’s note

Image 1: Front cover with an image of the lake

Image 2: Handwritten note pasted on a page. Note reads “The purpose of this booklet is to present an honest and clear picture of Fond du Lac and the delightfully prosperous section of Wisconsin in which it is located. New citizens boys and girls, and those throughout the nation – read it seriously.”

Image 3: Text collage pasted on a page. Collage reads “SAVE YOUR GAS FOR NIXON”