"facial"

 

This is another small book of anonymous faces that surface constantly when I draw as in New Facebook  and Double Sided  Later I use snippets of found text to direct the marks once they start to come alive. Since so many of these chancey portraits lately have been elderly and somewhat wrinkled, I needed an appropriate cover paper - hence my re-discovery of an old Japanese process with paper, Momigami. 

I had played with this process several years ago for a book about skin - Cutaneous .  

The process makes the paper tougher and more durable, yet flexible and soft like fabric. It depends whether you need a crisper paper and starch based glues will help you. I believe the Japanese craftsmen do make garments using this process with mulberry paper.

Playing with papers and gums and starches and information on the web, I have found some papers that work very well. I can go into more specific process notes if I get feedback from other interested book /paper artists. The paper on this book used cartridge paper not known for its wet strength, pomegranate ink, and aloe vera. 

After folding and kneading and dying the finished paper was sanded with fine wet and dry paper to give a soft, wrinkled, skin like finish. This paper was glued to a more robust thin card for the cover. The paper seems to have a memory for the creases and gluing or hot ironing it does not remove the wrinkles.

The images weremade using gouache, gesso, inks and waterbased stains from pomegranate, avocado and red gum onto 160gsm pastel paper. The book is 15cm x 13cm and is the only copy.

"Change transform II"

 

In 2020,  Jonathon Oxlade and I made a varied edition of two books "Change  Transform" . One of these was entered in the Manly Artist Book Award 2021 and now 2 years later we have both revisited the remaining book to make "Change Transform II". The book will be entered in HARD design show curated by Calum Hurley in Melbourne Design Week 18 -21 May.

This book follows the same condition that in making any change, nothing must be subtracted or cut off the original.  However, in addition to folding, cutting and changing the shape of pages, we have made small additions to the pages by responding with thread or pigment to make marks that effect the change and transform the pages and provide a way of linking or seperating the pages. 

The book also makes use of colour and form to focus and link different pages in a gentle, suggestive manner. The collaboration produced new, exploratory results that excited both of us. 

"points of reference"

I am delighted that Points of Reference has been included in this years Manly Book Artists' Award 2023. It is always exciting to be amongst so many of the wonderful book artists this award always attracts. In this blog I will attempt to give some idea of the processes involved in getting just one of the three puzzle/game like books that make up the whole set into a final book from an original, related idea 10 years ago.

The original small unique work 16 century map was a  trial attempt  at juxtaposing the exterior old European map (showing Mesopotamia and the Euphrates, the Northern hemisphere’s cradle of civilization) with the interior Australian map of the Kakadu National Park to get at the concept of Tjukurpa, by which Australia’s Anangu refer to the creation period. This little book was acquired by Robert Bolick for his Books on Books Collection. a few years ago in 2020.

In discussions with Bob, he introduced me to  the work of a very early Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe and his amazing life.  Bob expressed interest should I ever revisit this early book in another context and design including references to Tycho Brahe later on. So recently, a documentary showing how Judy Dench was related to this astronomer reminded me of an earlier interest, I revisited my notes on Tycho and made plans to make a new series perhaps for an exhibition.

Luckily, I had blogged about the first book earlier on - (so much more reliable than my failing memory). The new artists' book is Points of Reference and consists of a series of three  related books boxed as one collection of which this is the first.

Each book has two puzzle like pages of contrasting sides or charts. Originally, I explored the possibility of contrasting one of Tycho Brahe's charts with a view of the night sky as seen from an indigenously significant location. However, I abandoned both because of difficulties with copyright issues and possible cultural sensitivities. 

Instead, I contrasted an image of Brahe 's constellation Stella Nova 1572 {with a reference to his golden nose piece, having lost his original nose in a duel} to a modern imaginary space map referring to some of our satellites and space stations , showing the increasingly crowded sky full of commercial and abandoned space junk around the Southern Cross which is a special constellation in our part of the world.

inside 

outside cover

insides

covers

This section is the most difficult to process (so many plans and areas to explore and research)but I will talk about the other two parts of this book later, one section at a time if I don't runout of steam.

"Where " indeed

 

Where is a companion piece for the previous book Where are you. Both were done together but this one was more exploratory and experimental. Some of the pages that Trace Willans had treated had shiny and waxy surfaces that are not easy to draw on or stick to, so this was the proof before the next proof. The result is that each book has quite a different feel. Not cohesive and thematic but more random and open ended. 

Where has more collage and found text as this worked well when working on seperate pages, rather than thinking of the more thematic book. I think this gives the book a more lively, almost cheeky feel. Both A/P's work in different ways and I wonder how we'll proceed if we decide to make other work derived from them?

Both little books have waxy, textured covers are about the size of a playing card and  fit comfortably in the hand. The deckled edges and bindings help to make them feel precious and intimate and they are beautiful art objects in themselves.

There can be problems working with someone else, but when it works  it's wonderful with both of you adding something unique  as well as sparking off each other. The result is always more than the sum of two totals. 

where are you?

Just when I'm seriously thinking of the end of my blogging days, along comes a blogger from the past - Trace Willans, and a little book  "Age Marks" we made together in 2014 . After exchanging some emails we are once again planning to do some more work together. 

Just as well I was still "out there" floating, adrift in the ether. Here are a few images from our tiny artist proof Where are you? , a tiny little book about getting lost. 

"Bits"

cover

"Bits”  started life as a silk screen print “Torso” from my art student days in 1975.  The print brought back memories of my days as a young student at Art School. By incorporating some selected fragments from the original into a new series of drawings and books, around the more intimate “bits of torso”, I have been able to relive old memories from my youth.

I have been busy making quite a few smaller books, mainly of drawings during the quiet times around COVID. They are made for giving away to special friends. This little book of drawings has found its way into the collection of one of my friends who collects pillow books.