Agenda

This month I am very happy and honoured to have one of my images on the front cover of Agenda, especially as it is a particularly large and wonderful volume devoted to the poetry of Rilke.
We chose the image carefully to be appropriate for the volume but deliberately did not give it a title, because it in fact comes from my book 'Gawain', but I hope on its own it stands for other ideas too.
We also considered these two smaller woodcuts of Orpheus, which come from a book I did using a poem by Peter Abbs.

GAWAIN............................

Gawain was the first Artists Book I made , in 1997. It was made as response to seeing the opera by Harrison Birtwistle with libretto by David Harsent - wonderful words, which inspired images which were rarely related to what was going on on stage visually; but close I hope to the spirit of both the opera as a whole and the medieval story of Gawain and the Green Knight. In fact I came to feel totally consumed by this spirit as I set myself the task of completing the book , like Gawain's task, in one year and a day.

It was quite a hard labour, twenty woodcut images about 60cm X 40cm, plus their corresponding texts. It was the first time I had cut text before and I decided to just be guided by the marks of my scalpel, making the letter forms from straight and angled cuts and following the flow of the ( considerable ) wood grain of the plywood.

David bravely gave me a free hand in choosing the extracts of text.

I printed ( and sold ) 20 copies, burnishing the prints by hand with a spoon on rough Nepalese Khadi loktar paper, which has so much wonderful texture in it ( including small lumps of clay and roadgrit and even the occasional crushed Nepalese spider ) that using a press runs the risk of the paper making damaging marks on the woodblocks!

The pages were sewed directly into a cow-hide, thick leather, that I had specially dyed a wonderful dark green; each book used 'half a cow', and I kept the edges untrimmed, exactly as they had been stretched, to echo the riffled edges of the paper.

Front and back were blind-embossed with two of the woodcuts, very difficult to photograph as they catch the light in strange ways, but I include a detail above ( should have rotated the image 90 degrees but it gives you some idea ).

The book won the first Society of Bookbinders competition for the Complete Book; I'm not sure it was an entry they quite expected but everyone was very encouraging to this 'parvenu' press.

I reproduce it in full below to give the complete story

Next Book Fair - PBFA Novotel

I'll be showing my new book 'Hunting the Wren' ,and whatever else space permits (and I have finished), at the Novotel Book Fair in Hammersmith on June 8th and 9th.
Opening times are
Friday June 8th 2pm - 7pm and Saturday June 9th 10am4pm.
This Book Fair is part of the big Olympia Book Fair and there will be shuttle buses going to and from the 2 sites; the full address is
Novotel London West, 1 Shortlands, Hammersmith, London W6

if you need a map or further details, go the website
www.pbfalondonbookfair.co.uk
follow the links for Private Press Fair and you can also see who else is exhibiting and follow links to look at examples of their work.
The rest of the fair will be full of very tempting second hand books, so allow plenty of time, and come and see us first! This Fair is our way of trying to show a wider audience that contemporary makers are still making beautiful books now and they should be brave and snap up the collectables of tomorrow now, and see how times and methods change and adapt in exciting new ways; plus you can talk to us - we are still alive.

RESURGENCE

This image was printed on Peter Abbs poetry page in the magazine Resurgence this month; it is part of a series I began 3 or 4 years ago now, images for 'Perceval', a companion volume to my first Artists Book 'Gawain' finished in 1997. These images are twice the size - it would be lovely to do a large book this size ( about 32" X 22" ) but slightly impractical - I just got very excited cutting away at ideas on 4'X2' sheets of plywood.
This image is of Perceval in the forest with the swan he has just shot in his ignorance; the blood drops onto a nest of vipers.

These are two bad girls in the forest, a reference to Wagners flower maidens in the second act of his opera.

Here are some woodpeckers in faintly sinister consultation.

And here is a Grail-bearing Maiden, together with a knight-setting-out taken from a famous illuminated MSS.

I think I finished about 7 images in all and exhibited them alongside other woodcuts in the Star Gallery; then got side tracked by other books and the realisation that I was getting severely allergic to the formaldehyde in the glue in the plywood ( I am now trying some new friendly Japanese plywood but it is not nearly as nice as my rough old stuff...and doesn't come in hugely big sheets...).

I hope to get back to re-forging all this into a Book next year - a big project, may take a little time! but I am looking forward to it.

At present..... back to something to celebrate Blake's 250th, and the Falcon Bride.

BABE

BABE at Bristol was a wonderful event and all who organised it should be congratulated. It couldn't have been a more beautiful weekend weatherwise, so we were glad we were in the sunny room at the top with a good view of the Harbour and everyone enjoying the sun. There were constant streams of people with interesting comments; many were studying printmaking or bookarts from various colleges around, but also collecters and enthusiasts of all kinds; as I had hoped, new friends and old.

BABE - Bristol Book Fair at the Arnolfini

is where I will be at the weekend; I look forward to catching up with old friends.

I've finished two more Hunting the Wren's - picture of them above. Still plenty more to do.

More news after the Fair. Log onto the Arnolfini website to get all the details about opening times.

Hunting the Wren at Pallant House

These are the first 'neo-Romantic' books I made to be shown to accompany the exhibition at Pallant House, on display in the bookshop. Its a fabulous bookshop with new and second hand art books and a selection of Artists Books and prints - hours of happy browsing.

At the top of the display is the print that comes with the 'specials' - a poem not included in the books; this can also be bought separately without buying the book.
It goes well with the small lithographically printed edition of all the poems and images ( edition of 500 ) also available in the shop.
See back ( or rather scroll down a few posts ) to see 3 b&w images from the book.



On top is the first of the 'specials' - a solander box that opens out to display both books; there is a close-up below.
Below on the left in this photo is the first slip-case, covered with hand-painted paper, with an inset window containing found objects. The two books are half pulled out to show their spines and part of the covers ( Himalayan hand-made papers ); Hunting the Wren has a bone coloured leather leather spine of irregular shape and a pinky brown mottled paper; Love Poems and Curses has a grey leather spine and a dramatic curdled brown paper.
The two books to the right are reading/handling copies, similarly bound, showing the full covers.

This is the solander box of grey book cloth open with both books inside; the borders are twigs and dried grape stalks, set on hand painted paper; these spines are biscuit coloured and pale blue leathers.

Here the books are removed; the boxes are lined with pale blue straw strewn paper.

Below is a close up of the objects in the slip-case window, wood and shell.

The exhibition - Poets in the Landscape - the Romantic Spirit in British Art, beautifully curated by Simon Martin, is definitely worth a visit.

The first 18th century room makes interesting links between Blake, Hayley, Romney and Wright of Derby with Chichester.

The second room is full of etchings from Samuel Palmer to Sutherland, Drury and Griggs.

The third room is wonderful - Sutherland, Paul Nash, Ayrton, Lesley Hurry,Piper, Ceri Richards, Julian Trevelyan, Cecil Collins, an early Freud, Keith Vaughan, David Jones, Minton and Craxton , including some less well known pieces from private collections. I particularly liked the Vaughan set of illustrations to Rimbaud.

It is on until the 10th June. There's a nice catalogue too.

First copies of 'Hunting the Wren'

First copies of 'Hunting the Wren' were finished at midnight on thursday last for the new exhibition at Pallant House - 'Poets in the Landscape' which opened on friday night.
Photos of the books on display in the bookshop will be posted up on this blog very soon ( I'm just off to see if I am having my tooth removed today ).........