Unravelling Signatures Exhbition

An altered book...my first one


I have just finished making this book for an exhibition to be shown at the IMPACT 8 printmaking conference in Dundee later this month.  I will be helping host some sort of open portfolio with all our books at some point during this 4/5 day event.

The idea was to use Blurb, the online publishing company and make a book within their constraints and alter it.  This was quite challenging.  The paper was truly awful, even though I upgraded from the basic one. Numbered pages appeared on some of the pages in a different font to the one I was using for the text to name a couple of the problems I was faced with.

However I am actually really pleased with the result.  It is incredibly fragile and will probably be in tatters by the end of IMPACT, but I will have a couple more up my sleeve.

'Shadow Boundaries'
 8.7cm x 8.7cm x 1.4cm
A folded and constructed book with three inserts

A New Project

Rive, reve pluie et bruit/ Shore, dream and rain noise

Very excited.  Just been awarded a grant from the Arts Council of Wales for a collaborative research and development project with my lovely friend and fellow printmaker from Quebec, Madeleine Samson.  So if any of you out there want to join us for a bookmaking collaboration and/or bookmaking workshop either in the Moray Art Centre in Findhorn or in North Wales email me for further information....limited places.

BCF Books

I am excited to say I am going to be published in a book promoting British Artists Books at the end of the year....my Snow Book is going to be the proud entry......

Unravelling Signatures

Working at Last.....Studio still in chaos...especially the press printing area but here is a progress report on my latest project "Unravelling Signatures" an altered book project that will go on exhibition at the IMPACT 8 conference in Dundee.

It is an interesting challenge to make a book, publish it and then try and alter it in some way.  And it is a bit chicken and egg syndrome what comes first.....to just make the book and think about the alteration after publication or try and alter the dummy in some way to forsee any problems that might arise....

So....I have collated all my images now....I am satisfied that they are a coherent gathering that flows and I have enjoyed the process immensely.  I am now embarked on a journey of research regarding the shadow, wonderful.  And as you can see from the images I have altered my title, "Shadow Boundaries".  I love it when things link up....In the past I have taken lots of photos of shadows and not really connected with it until now and I have also suddenly remembered the only poem I learnt by heart as a child: My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson.  And of course researching Carl Jung's  construct of the shadow which is opening up lots of possibilities.

 The Dummy Cover

I am just trying to work out now if there should be some blank pages scattered throughout the published to book to add bits on to or cut bits out.....I am thinking perhaps that I want to somehow create shadows with the book itself.  All a bit of a learning curve as I am new to altered books.

Snow Book

Another and finally at long last completed book .  This has been over two years in the making.  Many many versions have been fiddled and manipulated, heaven only knows why I have put so many processes into one tiny little book making it intricate and complicated to make....never again.  But I am very happy with the final result and it has an interesting destination which I will divulge soon.

Folded, embossed, stitched and dotted with text from an old Eastern block typewriter, (called Erika!) the ‘Snow Book’ is a culmination of work started on a residency in Quebec City and completed in the UK.

This is the embossed cover with a small stenciled wrap

The book in full view

 This is a chine colle woodcut

Digital Image

Transfer copy print from a large drawn rubbing of a Canadian wooden snowshoe




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Altered Books


My new project:

In North Wales

Walking and creating work.

I have  been invited to create an altered book, which I have not done before.
So I went searching in second hand book shops for an appropriate book.  And here it is

I am a bit tentative, I was always told to look after my books, not mark them and certainly not destroy them.  So I have a bit of childhood programming to crash through.

So my start is a walk round Llyn Crafnant and some photos.  And I liked the book so much I bought another for safety!!!!!  I want to be brave enough to really go for it and alter it in quite a radical way.

A Spoon and A Glove

The book collaboration is finally finished...(that was a long weekend!)
It took a long time and lots of experimentation to devise the spine for the pages and then I ruined one book by gluing a page upside down....I won't do that again in a hurry.  Trying to photograph it was a challenge due to usual lighting issues.  I used a reflector made out of tin foil in the end which helped.  So here it is in all its glory.

 The front page

 which opens out to become the Glove and the front of the Spoon

'A Glove and A spoon'.....

every day is a school day

handing a spoon

with a silky glove

I eat art

Madeleines' page

My page

Moiras' page

Information about our book:

 

'Following a democratic decision to challenge ourselves, we chose a glove and a spoon as the subject matter for this collaboration.  There was resistance on all our parts as we were initially each drawn to objects of a more organic nature.

In leaving our personal desires behind we decided upon those two objects and sought to challenge our personal needs to stay within our comfort zone.  We gravitated towards a poetic rhythm and searched hard in this response to both objects'

The back page which opens out and

folds in.