More Canberra Puts on a Show for BAO

There are also spare copies of BEMBindery's BAO4 titles. So if you are not part of Groups 1,2, 6 or 9 and have missed out on a swap with Ampersand Duck but would like to be part of our September BAO exhibition at UNSW Canberra Library, perhaps you might consider a swap with me. I have four spare copies of 41: It's beginning to hurt - below and here -

and one spare copy of Curtains - below and here:

If you think that you might be interested in a swap, drop me a line: terence dot uren at bigpond dot com

Canberra puts on a show for BAO

Hello BAOers

Bembindery and I are both Canberra participants and both in different groups (I'm in groups 1 & 6, and he's in groups 2 & 9).  We're also members of the Canberra Craft Bookbinders' Guild, and in the course of a conversation we agreed that between us we (theoretically) have a pretty good cross-section of BAO edition 4 works, and that it would be wonderful to exhibit them.

So! We have applied for, and received, a place in the UNSW Canberra Library exhibition program for September this year, with a six-week run.

If you are in any of these groups: 1, 2, 6 or 9, and haven't finished or sent your books to us, we would love you to do so by 1 September 2013. If we get all the books, it will be a marvellous exhibition. Even if we don't, it will still be lovely :)

There's another way you can be involved as well: I have a number of leftover books from earlier editions, and if you are not in these groups (or even if you are in groups 2 & 9, but you will already be in the exhibition!) and would like to do a swap of a BAO4 book for one of these, I'd be very keen, and it would supplement what we have from our groups.

I have 6 copies of Paper Wrestling, which was BAO Edition 2:

(more images and details if you click the PW link above)

... and I have 8 copies of It's Raining Still Lives, my BAO 4 work, which is two stories in one book. I didn't give a follow-up from the sneak peek, so maybe now is the time.

I chose to work with two stories because I'd become interested in playing with a way to weave two texts together; with the BAO project I experimented with lots of different structures, like a woven concertina, and sewing into a concertina spine, and a flag book, but of course a large part of editioning for BAO is that you have to pare down your idea to something that is able to be reproduced without a disproportionate amount of labour, time and money, and able to be easily sent around the world. And working with hand-set letterpress means that this consideration and planning is doubly important, so that the process can be streamlined into as few runs of the press as possible.

I also had a subject that had been floating around in my head for a very long time: fertility -- the pressures placed upon women to be fertile, to act upon it, and how the failure to be fertile can impact upon lives. This book does not even begin to touch upon these themes adequately, but it makes a small start, in a way that is quite ambiguous and is loosely informed by my own experiences and feelings.

So I chose the titles 'It's Raining', and 'Stilled Lives', and I held them close in my head for months while I worked on other things, trying to find an inroad that would merge my interests and the book structure ideas I was playing with. I wrote about three different versions over the year, each time simplifying, concentrating, taking away anything judgemental, trying to find the right voice.

I wanted the stories to be very grey inside a grey issue, and I decided one way to do that was to absolutely highlight as many binaries as I could to frame the stories: black and white, sans serif and serif, ink and emboss, hand-cut and cast, matrix and fingerprint, hand-applied and printed, first-person and third-person.

I don't pretend to be an image-maker. My strengths lie in text, so I did the best I could with the images, and had a lot of fun in the process. 

I printed the book as a whole, then cropped it in the middle, and then sewed it in to the cover. One story flows along in one direction, then the book turns, and it flows along in the other direction. There is an order, but it doesn't matter if they are read out of that order. 

In the 'first', a woman is having an ultrasound, and it doesn't go well, but in what way can be interpreted by the reader. In my case, it was a missed miscarriage (I had two), which means that there is nothing thriving in the womb by the time of the ultrasound but the woman has had no idea up to that point and has felt pregnant right up to the moment of the news. This story was inspired by my second experience, when I knew by the look in the technician's eyes (because I'd gone through it before) but no-one would confirm the news until a week later, for whatever bizarre reason. However, my text could also be read in the sense that defects or disorders had been detected as well, which calls for hard decision-making on the part of the mother.

In the 'second' story, a woman, perhaps the same woman, is ordering a 'reborn' doll online. Do you know about reborn dolls? They fascinate me. They are pitched publicly as 'collectables' but there is a whole world of pain, longing and desire underneath the surface, especially when you read the comments and chat of any provider's website. They can be bought ready-made, or as a kit to make yourself, or they can be ordered as a custom purchase, with characteristics of your choice, which means you can have them made to resemble your grown-up children as babies, or the grandchildren you don't get access to, or the baby that you lost or never had. They can be so lifelike that there are news stories about women who buy car seats for them, and police breaking into the parked cars to release the baby from the car after a concerned member of the public has reported it. I tried very hard to write this story from a non-judgemental perspective: there but for my son (who is described by all doctors as a 'miracle'), or my cats, or my art practice, I might be that woman. 

So. There you go: It's Raining Stilled Lives. It's very much a women-centred book; men have responded to it sensitively... they see the subject and the pain, but it leaves them a bit confused. Feedback from the women has been incredible, and I'm so glad it touched them.

If you would like to swap your work for a copy of this, or Paper Wrestling, email me: ampersandduck at gmail dot com. I'll accept offers strictly by order of offer, so don't delay.

And if you are in our groups and want your work to be in our exhibition, please get making/finishing/posting! We would love a full complement of your amazing works.

PS Congrats to Sara, who managed to successfully crowdsource her funding to get overseas, and yay to everyone who pitched in to make that happen! She will certainly make the most of her experience.

Al- Mutanabbi at John Rylands Library: Manchester

I know quite a few of us BAO-ers are also part of the Al-Mutanabbi Street project, and I recently visited the exhibition at the John Rylands Library in Manchester (UK). The building is wonderful and the exhibition looked great in its surroundings so I just thought I'd share a few photos with you of my visit.

Really worth a visit if you can make it there, even just to see the architecture! Was great to see the collection of artists' books too, but also frustrating as most were closed and all behind glass - the eternal struggle with displaying book art!

Abigail

Artwork sent to printers!

Finally I sent the Turn Left artwork to the printers today; this means delivery sometime this week, and then I need to trim, fold and turn it into the piece I am envisaging in my head - its evolved from the last time I posted.... and for some might be a little removed from what you expect a book to be, but to me it is a bookwork through and through.

I am also moving forward with the Motorway Services piece; that may take a little longer than this one, but I'll get there soon. Feel guilty I missed the Bristol deadline....

And another one...

I'm not very good at remembering to post opportunities, so sorry about the late arrival of this one.

23 Sandy Gallery is pleased to present EcoEditions, a juried exhibition open to national and international artists.

THEME – EcoEditions asks the question: can books save the world? Can artist books raise consciousness, create awareness or change thinking? Let’s use our powers as stewards of the earth to report on the state of our environment, ecology, sustainability, pollution, climate, recycling and our planet in general.

MEDIA – This exhibit is open to handmade book and paper arts related works created as either edition or one-of-a-kind. Artist books, sculptural books, book objects, altered books, zines, and broadsides are all encouraged. Despite the confusing title, this show is open to both limited edition and unique or one-of-a-kind works.

You can find more information at the gallery's website HERE.  Good luck!

Second parcel off to Sarah Bodman

Thank you to everyone who posted me their books recently: I have now sent a second parcel to Sarah Bodman, ready for the second part of our BookArtObject Exhibition at the University of the West of England.  Huge thanks also to Sarah for making the exhibition a reality - Sarah's enthusiasm for our project has been a great incentive, and it is down to her generosity of spirit that she's turned Edition Four into a two-part exhibition in the Tom Trusky cases at UWE.  You can also read about the exhibition in this month's Book Arts Newsletter HERE (click on "82.pdf" to get to this issue of the newsletter!).  If you don't already follow the newsletter, it is a great resource for all things related to Book Arts and well worth reading.

As you know, I have great fun receiving your books, photographing and cataloguing them, so thanks to you too for letting me have a sneak peak at them before sending them off to Sarah!  In this parcel I was delighted to wrap up work from the following artists:

Sandra Winkworth, Fiona Dempster, Jac Balmer, Helen Malone, Rhonda Ayliffe, Terence Uren, Dianne Patmore, Aine Scannell, Kathy Boyle, Barbara Millman, Amanda Watson-Will, Anna Mavromatis, Penny Peckham, Gail Stiffe, Victoria Cowan, Momo, and myself.

And if you're in Group 12 and you're wondering where YOUR copy of my book "A Burning Question" is, the answer is ..."coming soon!"  I've almost finished making the edition and hope to get the books out in the post to you within the next week or two.

So what happens if you haven't yet finished your book/s and they weren't included in the first two parcels to Sarah Bodman?  Well the answer is this: a) don't worry - you still have a bit of time let to complete your edition; b) please send it to me as soon as you can so that I can photograph and catalogue it for our BAO records and then send it on to Sarah in the UK; and c) it won't be exhibited at UWE, but there may be other opportunities for exhibition in the future.

If you think that you CAN'T finish your book or that you won't be able to participate in this edition at all, PLEASE LET ME KNOW as there may be someone else who would like to take over your title.  I completely understand that life gets in the way of art most of the time, so please don't feel bad about it, but it would be really good if you could let me know so that I can reorganise the different groups within Edition Four.

Opportunity - the Sheffield International Artists' Book Prize

My brain is a bit fried this weekend, thanks to a sinus infection, and I'm not working at top speed but looking through my emails I realised I haven't shared this artists' book opportunity with you and I should have done it a month ago - sorry!

Bank Street Arts in Sheffield, UK, is holding the 4th International Artists' Book Prize and Exhibition later this year and is inviting entries now.  More information and entry forms can be found HERE, and it's worth considering as it is one of the few FREE TO ENTER exhibitions!  Perhaps your Edition Four book would be worth entering...?  Whatever you decide to put forward, good luck!

SOME PAPER (and other) FAVOURITES

Amanda started this, here     http://bookartobject.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/slq-follow-up-fun.html                                       and Robyn followed with her selection.

At first, I thought I was too much of a butterfly, flitting around so many that I like and finding choice almost impossible, but I decided to go with Robyn's idea of including paper engineering.

Benja Harney does many stand-out pieces in paper, but I think the leather collaboration pretty much tops it for me. http://paperform.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/pop-up-by-petit-h/

I saw this  http://ianbrooks.me/post/50607565134/derailing-my-train-of-thought-by-thomas-wightman on a Tumbler site  last week and thought immediately of  Brian Dettmer

And for almost as long as I've been blogging, I've loved Cecelia Levy's work, whether books or re-interpreted paper, often from books.

Of course, we could also cruise through the list of BAO contributors!

Who's next...?

LIBRIS AWARDS 2013

Rather than put up a lengthy cross-post here I'll just give you a link to my blog, which features work by some of BAO's members.

http://moreidlethoughts.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/more-from-the-libris-awards/ 

Throwing my hat in the ring....favourites :)

Detail Image - Altered Book by rObfOs

I thought I might throw my hat in the ring in response to Amanda's recent post about favourite artist books / book artists.  I must admit picking a favourite artist book, for me, is like picking a favourite child - IMPOSSIBLE.  I am a fickle and inquisitive creature and my loyalties change with each new day and each new book, but I find I tend to vintage and scultpural qualities.

I was interested that the majority of "favourite" books chosen by the SLQ speakers were of a traditional and safe format, I thought they may have chosen books that pushed more boundaries. However, there is beauty in diversity, and I was extremely interested in their choices.

I find I am as unable to pick favourite books as I am to define them, but I would like to list a few book/paper artists whose collections of works have left lasting impressions upon me.

In no particular order (I hope you find something new & exciting to pique your interest):

Artist 1)   Daniel Essig - Beautiful wood and metal sculptural objects as vessels for books
Artist 2)   Julie Shaw Lutts - Collage & ephemera cleverly contained in book form
Artist 3)   Marlis Maehrle - Light and delicate paper vessels

PS:  Great idea, Amanda :)

Helen Cole talks about the Libris Awards

Helen Cole, the judge of the Libris Awards, has written a post about the awards as a guest blogger on Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper's blog.

 

You can read it here

 

http://wotwedid.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/2013-libris-awards-the-judges-view/

and she has also blogged about some of the books in the awards on the SLQ Australian Library of Art blog here
 

 http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/ala/

The webcast of the SLQ Siganto Seminar, The Trouble with Artists Books is now available on the State Library's website here
 

http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/audio-video/webcasts

Update!

I'm almost ready to send off the second box of books to Sarah Bodman at UWE for "BookArtObject Edition Four, Part II" - the exhibition!  Perhaps we need a more catchy title for our shows - something to consider in future! - but it is GREAT to have our books out and about and to be able to share what we're doing.

Sarah's asked me for photos of more of the books and I've had a "slight network problem" which, in simple terms, means all the photos I've taken are there but not currently accessible... luckily I'm married to an IT whizz, who is in the process of fixing things.

Meanwhile, thank you to everyone who has supported my Pozible crowdfunding campaign!  It is a little unsettling to put yourself on public display and ask for monetary assistance, but so far it has also been a very positive and humbling experience.  To everyone who has texted and emailed me, sent me a message on Pozible and pledged a donation to my project, thank you.  It gives me a very warm and fuzzy feeling inside.  Even if you don't want to make a donation, feel free to go on over to the site and watch the video my friends Shane and Jo made of me in my studio!  From far away you'll get a little glimpse into my world.

SLQ Follow-Up Fun!

As you've seen below in Helen's post and also over at Double Elephant , Sara Bowen's blog, a number of us were lucky enough to attend a seminar on artists' books at the State Library of Queensland.

I thought that as there are a few reports on the seminar floating around the blogosphere (see Helen and Sara's posts) and the talk itself will be available soon on the SLQ website to download, that I might propose something a little different.

The second part of the talk was most interesting I found, as two of the speakers shared a short list (four or five) of their favourite artists' books from the SLQ collection. They spoke a bit about what they felt made the book so successful and of course showed us some pictures.

It was fascinating to be introduced to some new books, some by artists who were also new to me, to see some "old favourites" appear, and afterwards to think of some books which did not appear that may have been expected. Of course, it doesn't really mean much, as there are some 400+ artists' books in the collection and only nine were presented by the two speakers. Nevertheless, it has occupied my thoughts quite a bit since the afternoon.

So I thought that it might be fun to ask BAO blog readers to offer up a choice or two (or as many as you like really) to share with one another. In doing this, we need to observe good netiquette, so here are a couple of guidelines.

1) PLEASE no downloading images from peoples sites or blogs to post here.
2) Instead, just provide the name of the artist, and the book, and a link to their work.
3) Please do tell us why you really love the book.
4) It's just for fun, so don't feel as if you absolutely have to work out your absolutely most favouritest AB in the world before you can join in.

And to kick things off , I thought I would share two of my favourites.

1) Cell Memory by Macy Chadwick which you can see at Abecedarian Gallery. I actually own a copy of this book, so now I can read the text which is beautiful. Initially I was drawn to it because of the interaction of the pages with light, the sense of fragility and the idea conveyed by the title. It speaks of the wonder of nature, of cells, and the body.

2) Vessels by Adele Outteridge, seen on the Uni of Melbourne site. I think this book really speaks to me because I used to be a potter, so the vessel form really hits a chord. Also, I am drawn to the delicate ephemeral effect of the transparent pages and the metaphor of the book as a container for knowledge. To me, this work has a lot of power because it is both beautiful and very strong
conceptually.

As you can see, I tend to rave on a bit, so please don't let me put you off. I think it could be terrific if a number of you do jump in and share your favourite ABs for others to see.

LIBRIS AWARDS WINNERS

I've been having an email exchange with some of the members who had work accepted for  the Libris  Awards and it occurs to me that perhaps I should post some of this here. Particularly since both Ronnie and Sara entered their BAO  works.



At any exhibition, of anything, there are always some who are delighted and feel that it's a vindication of their own "good taste and intelligence" and always those who feel somehow slighted that the one they liked  was passed by. I think it's one of the best markers of human differences !

So, I've had a chance to see these up close and personal, as they say.

And,personally, I like "Wave Form." I also like that the tumbling "wave" can be scrunched back into its box, looking more like a book. (That should please the woman who has difficulty with the concept of artists' books!)

Kelvin's piece is interesting, but I'd call it an installation, not a book. However, all the discs came in and can be returned to a box. In this case, not a hand-built container, tailored to the work, but a big old Kodachrome  [I think] cardboard film box. So, just as much "a book" as the first one?

And the Youth Award is, by all interpretations and popular perception, a book. A book-ish book, read left to right. And quite lovely in its simplicity.

Now, see what you think...

http://www.artspacemackay.com.au/whats_on/news/and_the_winner_is...

Di

PROGRESS REPORT

Yes, I am still working on my final BAO title.

By now, you should all have received "Silent Wolves."  Thank you to those who have let me know it arrived.

And for the Group 10 people,  here are some progress pics. As you can see, much progress has been made... in the filling of waste paper baskets!

I am afraid I may have damaged my poor printer, but I simply don't have the time or money to haul it to a repair man (if there is such a chap around here!) right now.

So, once again, I re-jigged things, which I'll write about  later. For now, have a sneak peek and a laugh. Go on, I did. Well, no, actually, it wasn't very funny.

trimmings

brimming basket

cover

A brief summary of "Wolves" is here