It's March already

It's March already and I am far too busy trying to get some work finished to blog; but Nancy Campbell has written some kind words about my work on the Bertram Rota blog, with lots of pictures, so I'll put the link in here
http://bertramrota.blogspot.com
There are also plenty of negotiations going on for interesting projects for the next 12 months, of which more anon.

Post Work on Paper Fair

Here was the stand at the Work on Paper Fair.

It was over a couple of weeks ago and the year seems to be rushing on and I am still dealing with the backlog from it; still trying to finish the work I failed to finish for it and pick up the threads of my thoughts, while longing to get on with something new - new/old in my case, my Irish book I wrote in Donegal 2 years ago.

Still, the Fair was fun and lots of nice contacts made and I'm sure these fallow periods must have their uses. I've stocked up on lots of wonderful paper. Last week got side tracked by an interview with BBC Scotland for a program about Peggy Angus - very strange to be back at Camden Studios where I was printing wallpapers for her 40 years ago. I also met a very nice architect, David Wild, who had bought a piece of my work - loved his book and collages "Fragments of Utopia ; collage reflections of heroic modernism" - Hyphen Press; and went to see the Rodchenko photographs at the Haywood, and was fascinated by the video of the shamanistic performance in the Liverpool block of flats in the show downstairs.

This week I've been interviewed for a big book on printmaking being published next year and I'm seeing a gallery in Hampstead who is interested in my work.

The Designer Bookbinders have written up a resume of the talk I gave before Christmas, and said I can publish it on my blog. I'm still thinking about the last paragraph and wondering how I can organise a Falcon Bridal Boat Burning ceremony on the river without them sinking like a stone too soon.

"When I asked Carolyn for a copy of her lecture notes for my review there was a pause before she admitted that she didn’t intend to use notes. Her lecture would be ‘off the cuff’, prompted by the images. This turned out to be the underlying theme of Carolyn’s talk; how the artist produces pieces prompted by the images in their heads and shaped by the materials they use.
The images Carolyn showed for inspiration were a mixture of her own work and pieces by other people which she liked. They included work by William Blake, perhaps the first book artist, with his illustrations and hand written text, Dadaist work using found objects and rough paper collages and Dimitry Sayenko prints on 1930s magazines and newspapers.
Having originally studied painting at the Slade, Carolyn began experimenting with egg tempera on gesso, beginning her move away from two dimensional works towards the physical experience of making.
The introduction of hand made papers from India and Nepal began her involvement with artist’s books, the variations in size and surface texture worked well with the large grainy wood cuts she had started to make and her development of simple binding techniques produced tactile and organic books.
The first of these books was ‘Gawain’; a large soft cover binding with hand cut lettering and bold images in black, red and green. As the story takes place in a year and a day, Carolyn completed the book in the same period of time. The book works superbly as a whole and won 1st prize for the complete book in the Society of Bookbinders Competition in 1997.
One of the problems with artist’s books is how to display them to a large audience. Carolyn attempted to address this during a residency in Lewes. The Apocalyptic Book of Lewes was produced with the local community, incorporating their ideas and anecdotes. To enable it to be viewed as a whole, it was displayed as posters hung from a line
From this Carolyn moved on to producing installation pieces, literally stories in boxes. The first of these was Bluebeards Castle, seven solander boxes with constructed tableaux and text in each representing the seven doors to the castle.
Another, Beauty and the Beast, contains a miniature dressing table in a forest with drawers that open revealing tableaux of miniature objects. The text is bound in two small books, which slot in beside the dressing table. The materials too are relevant, found objects have a story, which adds to the text and inspires the design, for example an old biker jacket bought from a charity shop is used for the covering material.
With musicians as parents, music has always been very important in Carolyn’s life and in Winterreise she used the songs of Schubert as inspiration for her own text.
She likens creating artist’s books to performing music; each performance is different, although the score (or text) remains the same. The artist’s text, on transparent Japanese paper, overlays extracts from the Schubert song cycle, to make a palimpsest or dialogue with the past creation. The collagraph images and text were all made from recycled packaging. The cover of the book is made from formed white paper pulp, making a soft and fragile binding.
The final set of images were of Carolyn’s latest and largest project, which took her work as far from the Livre D’Artist concept as possible. The Falcon Bride is a story within a room, ‘a room-sized book’ based on ideas gathered during a visit to Krakow; it incorporates hand-painted books, prints, made and found objects, reworked photographs, model boats and a wicker mannequin ‘Bride’.
It brings together many of the ideas and techniques she has used in previous projects into a theatrical space where the viewer can linger and physically explore the presentation, removing the barriers of the two dimensional page.
During her talk Carolyn encouraged us to think of books outside the normal flat folded sheet format. Her work is tactile, adventurous, inventive and shows that books do not have to be precious, delicate objects hidden in boxes and cases.
As a contentious discussion opener she quoted a Today programme considering whether the climate changes in our planet should affect our view of permanence and posterity. Should we worry about the longevity of artefacts? - might our attitudes to artefacts change, the emphasis shift to embracing decay and enjoying them in the here and now. Carolyn’s view was that as an artist, considering the nature of the materials she was using, and recycling found objects and organic materials, was as important as leaving a record of ideas for the future."

Rachel Ward-Sale for Designer Bookbinders

A new Hunting the Wren picture

see Modern Works on Paper Fair below.......

Watercolours and Drawings with Modern Works on Paper Art Fair

This takes place at the Royal Academy of Arts, 6 Burlington Gardens W1S 3EX

Thursday 31 january - Sunday 3 February

with a section called COVERED again, at which Parvenu Press will be exhibiting.

times of the Fair are

thursday - 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.

friday 11 a.m. - 8.30 p.m.

saturday 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

sunday 11 a.m. - 5.30 p.m.

I am stand 9 - just inside the door.

Family illness has meant I haven't finished everything I would have liked, but I have made some new extensions from the Falcon Bride work, and will be showing 'Hunting the Wren' and 'Love Poems and Curses' - which wasn't finished for this Fair last year ( see blog archive for March and April for more pictures of these.)

I am finally ready to part with 'Beauty and the Beast' - see image above, having played about with filming it.

There are still some Winterreise's available to order, see last January's blog entry for images, and some Carnival boxes too; and collagraph prints from the 'Falcon Bride'.

Designer Bookbinder Lecture

I said I would put up more pictures of Carnival boxes - and other things too, but they need photographing and will take longer....
Above is the first box I did - a sort of manic George Bush/Bugs Bunny Goes to War box...
actually I just realise it is on its side - I am so used to cricking my neck I didn't notice - will rotate when I have more time..... ( and add another of the inside with G B lookalike inside)

these are some that followed, ( spot the mini-mackerel in their coffins) with below- the sort of images there are inside; some drawings I made in the Munich Toy and Puppet museum, alternated with collaged bits from papers....I seem to remember there was a lot about 'hoodies' at the time, so I found a few alternative hoodies...
I am also having a sort of Baselitz moment again......

I then made a couple of Dr Caligari boxes - the Somnambulist is coming out of his coffin inside, and the outside has angles all over the place as in Expressionist cinema - I had fun with that; the second box I varnished so that it had the air of a celluloid dream, with shellac so it's a honey colour...

......For those who weren't there - the lecture was titled - Books and Stuff; the Quiddity of Artists Books, so I talked a lot about using materials - how as an artist I speak through them; how I used to make my own paint.

I showed a personal selection of slides of other people's work to open up the debate of what an Artists Book might be.

Talked about the contexts of showing - the freedom to define one's own; structures to bounce off, but the permissions the form gives; changing definitions in different historical contexts ( mentioned the 'Breaking the Rules' exhibition at the British Library )...

methods and processes, contemporary papers, the rhythm of processes, cutting text by hand ( Gawain and Lorca's Sonnets of Dark Love ) and the power of being able to do things one's self; and whether the doing is more important than the end product.

I had earlier listened to a discussion on Radio4 - Start the Week - missed the beginning of it but it seemed to be about posterity, or the possibility of lack of it, and how it might or might not alter how we make art - and this led on to technology, ecology and self-sufficiency.

I mentioned briefly the more communal book projects I have done and then went on to show Bluebeard's Castle and Beauty and the Beast, and how these led into making different sorts of books, worlds, installations, and how the viewer might relate to these....

ending up with a brief discussion of the 'Falcon Bride' , the importance of the gaps between things, and how art and life can intertwine in a ritualistic way.

The Falcon Bride at LAB07

Here it was - as much as I could squash onto my stand; the poppy image on the right belongs with Peter's stand next door.
I think it was too much for people to get to grips with really and many passed nervously by, but there was also a lot of interest and some positive comments, ranging from - it was a bit different - to - it really seemed to mean something about something I cared about .
It was frustrating for me as I really could see how I needed to spread it out in the way I had in the galleries , and with some comfortable chairs, and with time slowed down; but it was good to be able to introduce it to some people who had missed it in Sussex.
It was interesting for me to see my books in the context of what was going on in the rest of the fair; it won't really alter what I do but it is good to have glimpse of the outside world.
I am now planning how it might become a bigger limited edition book, including and pulling together various parts into one volume, for the WOP Fair at Burlington House in January-
3 days sitting and looking at it all helps the mind move freely about.

I'll be talking about my work with slides and a few real examples
at a talk organised by the Designer Bookbinders
at
The Art Workers Guild 6 Queen Square London WC1 at 6.30pm
(nearest tube stations Holborn or Russell Square )
on Tuesday 4th December
( entry £7 for non-members )
see www.designerbookbinders.org.uk

LAB07 at the ICA

They are coming thick and fast - next stop is the London Artists Book Fair at the ICA.
I will be showing a reduced version of the Falcon Bride Installation, and showing some of the film footage I took of it at West Dean on a mini dvd player.
Following requests, there will be a few bits of it reproduced for sale - the Boat Books, sets of the Krakov cards, and the printed Falcon Bride book in the box; as well as some prints.

I am stand 63, in the Upper Gallery this year, next to Altazimuth Press; the Fair is in 3 different rooms so follow the signs so you don't miss anything.

The Fair is open
12 - 6.30 on friday ( tomorrow, 23rd )
11-7 saturday
11-5 sunday

Three days is exhausting in some ways but on the other hand it gives slightly more time to get round and see everything - Oxford felt particularly frantic this year , it is such a social Fair - catching up with people from two years back, and two days isn't long enough, especially when having to cram in giving a talk as well. However it was lovely to see lots of new faces at the talk about Peggy and gratifying to find still a lot of interest in her ideas.
I suppose my main point, thinking of her in relation to Private Press printing and Artists Books, was just how much power hand-printing gives you to get your ideas out into the world, and in a relatively unmediated way. Also how important the two-way relationship with those looking at what you are doing is and how it is worth considering how that takes place.

The biggest excitement at Oxford for me was seeing the new amazing pochoir books and monoprints done by Walter Bachinski with Janis at Shanty Bay Press. The colour in the pochoir work is glorious and I love the images as well.
It was real treat to see his illustrated talk, and wonderful to have a meal with them( together with Denis Hall and Carol Manheim ) and get to know them better, arranged by Simon and Gill McMinn who were putting us up and looking after us in a very wonderful way. It was great to catch up on some of the work I was missing in the rush at the show, in Simon's own fantastic collection over breakfast.
Altogether it was a wonderfully social weekend as we started off getting to Oxford viaCheltenham, and Chipping Camden to meet Stephen Cohn and Laura - he wrote to me after my image appeared on the Agenda edition in which he had written an article about Rilke and which included his translations; we enjoyed seeing his prints and presses. Driving round the Cotswolds in glorious autumn sunshine and colour was a real joy.

The most recent excitement has been the wonderful new show at the British Library - Breaking the Rules - Avant Garde Books in the first half of the 20th century, curated by Stephen Bury. We have been twice already, there is just so much to see and enjoy, its quite fantastic. For me it put flesh on the bones of some of the less well known names I had heard of when writing about Peggy's trips to Russia and the Ukraine. I loved the way it was arranged in cities and set things in context. It was a real shame our Russian friend Dmitry Sayenko missed the opening by a few hours as he had to catch his plane back to Germany to put up his new show.

Dmitry really got into the swing of Lewes Bonfire Night, it was a wonderful evening - he also liked pebbles at Hope Gap - where we all started collecting pebbles and letting our imaginations run riot - Brighton, Chichester Cathedral and West Dean.

Together we also went to the Baselitz exhibition at the RA ( second time for us ) - another really great show; amazing to think what he was doing while I was at art college, and that I never saw; incredible how little exposure German art seemed to get in the 60's and 70's in the general run of London exhibitions. Beuys was very visible in London, but despite visiting Germany a lot as a child and teenager I lost touch at the crucial point it seems - I should have been more pro-active. Interesting to ponder what I would made of it then; had my head down printing wallpaper and being bucolic on the south downs ( that Peggy has a lot to answer for ) -love it now.
Love too many things - hard to focus on what I love best!