Mary Beth Boone had been carrying the idea around for a while.
The Greensboro book artist wanted to create a book inspired by Green Hill Cemetery, a place she had been walking, studying and drawing for decades. But the project remained just that — an idea.
Then Boone saw an announcement for an Artist Support Grant through The Arts Council of Greater Greensboro.
“I thought, if I applied for this, it would make me do it,” she recalled.
That nudge resulted in a limited-edition artist book that brings together Boone’s interests in drawing, bookbinding, letterpress printing, and the natural world.
Her relationship with Green Hill Cemetery dates to her undergraduate years at UNCG, when she visited to draw tombstones and practice perspective. Over time, what caught her attention changed. She began
noticing the cemetery’s diverse trees and plants, along with the birds that inhabit the landscape — hawks, bluebirds, owls, wrens, and woodpeckers, to name a few.
The cemetery has inspired Boone before. An earlier project documented its botanicals in an ABC book. For this latest work, she looked more closely at the textures and imagery of the tombstones themselves, as well as the plants and wildlife around them. One tiny bird in the finished book was inspired by a carving on a weathered tombstone.
“It’s almost like a little journal,” Boone said of the book.
Creating it was an intensive process. Boone wrote the text, made drawings, carved printing blocks, cut paper, set type by hand, printed the pages and then folded and sewed each book. She began working with her materials in late January and finished binding the books in June. The proposed edition of 75 ultimately grew to 80.
An Artist Support Grant through The Arts Council of Greater Greensboro, supported by the North Carolina Arts Council, gave Boone resources to move the project from plan to production.
The funding helped Boone purchase fine paper and recondition the rollers on the vintage letterpress she uses in her home studio. Combined with newer type she had purchased, the improvements made the printing process smoother and allowed her to give the project the quality she envisioned.
The funding helped Boone purchase fine paper and recondition the rollers on the vintage letterpress she uses in her home studio. Combined with newer type she had purchased, the improvements made the printing process smoother and allowed her to give the project the quality she envisioned.
But Boone says the value of the grant began before she received the funding.
Applying required her to define the project, work through the details and create a plan. Even if she hadn’t received the grant, she believes going through that process made the book more likely to happen.
“When you apply for a grant, it makes you get organized,” she said. “It makes you come up with your finite ideas.”
Receiving the award provided one more push.
“It was that nudge that now you’ve got to do it,” Boone said. “You can’t just keep carrying the idea around in your head.”
Now the idea she carried for years exists in ink, paper and thread — 80 books shaped by a place Boone has spent a lifetime learning to see.
It’s the kind of transformation artist investment can make possible: giving a creative idea the resources — and momentum — to become something tangible.
And Boone isn’t finished.
Her work continues to grow. Next will come a solo exhibition at the Artery in December, new prints, and a new book, this one inspired by butterflies. That momentum is exactly what artist investment is meant to support. Helping creative ideas become finished work, reach new audiences, and open doors to what’s next.
Mary Beth Boone’s limited-edition artist book is available through GreenHill Center for North Carolina Art, Visual Index in Winston-Salem, and her website, MaryBethBoone.com. She also plans to explore additional locations where the book can reach people interested in Greensboro and Green Hill Cemetery.
