PRESS and RELEASE - Book Fair pics

Fun Day, fun show.
Picture at top is my stand; others are of the display of some of my Carnival books in the main show - you've one week left to see this ( closed mondays ).

The Garden of Earthly Delights

See it at the Press and Release Book fair saturday 24th 11 - 5....

Doesn't it look nice in French....

PARADIGME /COMPTOIR INTERNATIONAL DU LIVRE D'ARTISTE CONTEMPORAIN
Centre de Ressources pour l'Edition de Création.
jeudi au samedi, 15H à 19H et sur RDV le reste de la semaine.
Rens: 04 91 33 20 80
bookaffair@wanadoo.fr
www.atelier-vis-à-vis.org
41 rue Clovis Hugues
13003 Marseille

"MAI DU LIVRE D'ARTISTE À LA BELLE DE MAI".
Du 9 mai au 31 Mai 2008
Exposition Internationale de Livres d'Artiste Contemporains .
Allemagne- Belgique- Canada- Grande-Bretagne- France- Hongrie- Italie-
Pays-Bas- Russie- USA.
Avec la participation de:
Stephan Weitzel (D)- Vicky Roux (B)- Geohew Ink Press (CDN)- Derek Cowan
(CDN)- Parvenu Press (GB)- Reassemble Press (GB)- Atelier de La Dolve (F)-
Atelier Vis-à-Vis (F)- Coco Texedre (F)- Istvan Damo (H)- Ilona Kiss (H)-
Marcello Diotallevi (I)- Franco Magro (I)- Collectif Knust (NL)- Recycling
Press (RUS)- Beata Wehr (USA).
Un éventail de créations internationales dans le champs du livre d'artiste
contemporain.

Brighton: ARTISTS BOOK FAIR at the Phoenix Gallery

This is part of the PRESS and RELEASE exhibition currently on at the Phoenix, and takes place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday 24th May. Peter and I will have separate stands and have both been working hard to come up with something new in time; a lot of my stuff seems to be out and about at the moment and big new stuff still unfinished. I apparently have 'My Mackerel Lover' exhibited in Marseilles at the moment; pity I couldn't manage the PV.
I'll put up some pics of the new smalls when I finish them ( probably friday!) - I've been tidying up and got down to several archaeological layers of prints on my big press, and found lots of bits of prints from 'The Garden of Earthly Delights' that I have had fun re-assembling into little theatrical booklets with overlapping pages; as the big book was so popular ( but expensive and limited in edition )
I hope these will be a cheaper alternative for those who liked that book.
The show in Brighton is great fun as it has been very cleverly and excitingly arranged, so I am looking forward to a day in Brighton in Festival Time and seeing other exhibitors and their work.

Meanwhile, the day symposium at the V&A was a lovely experience - great to meet lots of heads of Arts Libraries ( especially in the pub afterwards on a glorious summer evening before it got cold again ).
The Blood on Paper show has some fantastic work in it, wonderful Kiefer, Tapies, and Chinese exploding books. Don't miss the Certain Trees exhibition upstairs - tucked away and badly advertised, in room 74 - concrete poetry and Ian hamilton Finlay and others - lots to look at there; and I also loved the Collaborations exhibiton full of stage designs and mini sets, lots of ideas there too.

The USA prints from Hopper to Pollack in the prints and drawings room at the British Museum is also a fabulous exhibition; masses of good stuff, good labels with printmaking details and further explanations in the excellent catalogue. Over the last few years there have been some really stunning shows here - and they're free so you can keep going and going. I'm delighted to see the show is coming to Brighton next spring, so I can keep on going for some time.
Enjoyed the 1968 prints at the Hayward too.

Reading-wise - I've enjoyed the new biography of O G S Crawford immensely - absolutely fascinating; it's called Bloody Old Britain and by Kitty Hauser, whom we met a couple of years ago when she was writing it and wanted to talk to Peter about aerial photography. We went to the launch in the Colony Room which was interesting - sadly due to relocate apparently - will never be the same. I fantasized as to whether Peggy Angus might have met OGS on a boat to Russia in 32/3 and what they might have said to each other; Kitty's research would have been really useful context when I was writng Art for Life.
I went to a show in South Heighton - part of the outer Brighton festival trail -
and went in to see Ursula Mommens, now 99, and had a wonderful chat, and came away feeling very nostalgic; the sense of time arrested and the pictures on the walls in Grange Farm, and the smell of the first cow parsley - that I always associate with going down to Furlongs in the spring ( the close contact with weeds and nettles on the way to the Elsan bucket, the incredible lushness after the dryness of London streets )and the extraordinary conversations one has with people who have lived such a long time, have such amazing memories and stories, and have moved into an almost beatific limbo-land where near is far and far near, was very special. It also made me angry - that old people are often not appreciated in current society and that their lives are often so difficult, despite all our 'progress'; and leading on from that , how family unfriendly everything is as well, women and children and working life and fathers........will it ever get sorted - but that's another story; all the big issues in the news seem to be asking the wrong questions which will have the wrong answers.

Press and Release

PHOENIX GALLERY ; BRIGHTON
PRESS AND RELEASE - 26 April - 7 June
Tues - Sat 11 - 5
'A celebration of Artists Books and independent publishing.....'
I have some small pieces of work in this exhibition and look forward to seeing it.
www.phoenixarts.org
I am also talking at the ARLIS Artists Books Workshop at the V&A on 9th May which accompanies two exhibitions just about to start there - 'Blood on Paper' and 'Certain Trees, the Constructed Book, Poem and Object 1964 - 2006'.
see the NAL web pages about artists book:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/prints books/features/artists books/index.htmlor BL web pages
http://www.bl.uk/collections/britirish/modbrifin.html

It's April already....

....and the work piles up
literally
It's been a difficult year so far, lots of time spent looking after ailing members of my family, alternated with spurts of activity done with a disconnected head and hand ( often an interesting alternative way to work ).
I am trying to get to grips with using allergy free and benign Japanese plywood, rather than my favourite old rough, packaging plywood that I used to enjoy hacking away at with my scalpel. I am trying out using gouges on the softer wood ( less sharp knife-work) in a very free manner and making reduction prints with several layers of colour ( and without working much out in advance ).
I have also bought a new supply of wonderful hemp paper from Khadi; it is a good size for folding into a book page, either in 2, or especially in 4, which makes the best use of my (not particularly large ) etching press ( 18" wide with an extra long -40"- bed provided for me by John at Rollaco).
The smooth hemp paper means I can now print the woodcuts with the press without the texture indenting the blocks like good old Nepalese loktar J4; I must say my spooning hand is relieved about this development.
I have just read a quote from Hilary Peplar talking about his Stanhope Press '...when man first discovers how to make anything, that thing which he makes is good....' - I am not sure I am taking it the way he is thinking but I do find I am always excited about changinfg my way of working and new materials, there is an excitement in the battle which supercedes all other aeshetic considerations and in a way that makes 'good' or 'bad' irrelevant.
I read this quote in a wonderful new book by the (sadly) late Peter Holliday 'Edward Johnston; Master Calligrapher' - brought to fruition after his death by his sister Susan Skinner and published by the British Library and Oak Knoll Press.
I went to the launch at the Ditchling Museum, where there were several members of the Ditchling Craft Community , and enjoyed various discussions about why we do what we do.It was a bit like arguing with Peggy (Angus) all over again.
The previous day I had been to the opening of an exhibition of drawings by Peter de Francia at Charleston. The handout was a reprint of something Norbert Lynton had written in 2004. he quotes de Francia writing in 1984 -
'One of the most deep-rooted prejudices that this country suffers from is that of a profound aversion to philosophical concepts of any kind and notably to such concepts forming the basis of either the structures of culture or systems upon which critical theory can be founded ....Amongst practitioners and critics the very notion of art having a direct relationship to politics or sociology invokes responses close to panic or incredulity.'
I am still thinking about that one.
Norbert reckoned the English ...'can take the rough art and smooth, wild and pacific, decent and indecent, and yesterday's shock horror sensation is today's norm, but we will not put up with art that says anything significant, art that troubles our minds.'
Probably.

I am still making books about the Falcon Bride....
here she is passing through the kitchen studio - the photographs are by kind permission of Judith Kazantzis who took them when she last came round for a meal.

correction; correct blog address

http://www.bertramrota.blogspot.com