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Schade's Artist Books Showcase Gloriously Warped Imagination

William Schade's Seabastion's Crow is a one-of-a-kind book, designed and painted by the artist on handmade paper specially created for this work of art. A fanciful pseudo-Roman tale accompanies the series of images showing the ill-fated bird's progress from worldly torment and martyrdom to heavenly bliss.

The animals stare out at you from the art museum walls: fierce wolves and hairy buffalo, sinuous snakes and scaly crocodiles, and pelicans, turtles, fish, birds, elephants, bats, camels, and even ants galore. These and other paintings in William Schade's exhibition are visually lush, wildly imaginative, and bursting with color, bogus mythology, and a playful wit.

Animals both real and fanciful are the stars of the thirty one-of-a-kind artist books and scrolls by Schade that are on view at the art museum through January 25 in the exhibition Gotta-Have-It Ancient Inspiration.

Originally trained as a printmaker and painter, Schade has in recent years ventured into other arenas, making sculpture, artist books, and even fountains. He is currently a professor of fine arts at The Sage Colleges in Albany, New York. His books, which combine text, images, and fanciful iconography in an extraordinary way, don't fit the usual description of "book." Some take the form of accordion-folded strips while others are curling scrolls housed in boxes resembling ancient towers. All are composed of paper Schade makes specifically for each project, and painted in gouache and watercolor with highlights of gold leaf and bold inscriptions.

Schade's sense of humor is obvious in many works, most notably in paintings of the "floor plans" of Noah's ark. The ark's external design includes notes (ostensibly by Noah himself) such as "This is going to be some big hunk of a boat when I get done with it. There are only two problems. One time and two I've never built anything before." The ark design also includes a promenade deck, labeled: "The wife wants this so she can jog in the evenings."

For a look at the marriage of imaginative artistry and wry humor, Schade's your man.