The last post!

This exhibition was a group exhibition for the Libris Acquisitive Artists' Book Awards at ArtSpace Mackay.

Breath

At last I'm at home, taking a breath after a busy, busy week.





















First stop was Mackay, staying with Dinamow overnight so that I could attend the opening of the Libris Awards. I've spent a week thinking what to say about my experience up there because it really wasn't what I had expected. Perhaps it's because I've spent a lot of time not being an artist and working in business that I get really frustrated with arts administration... but before anyone jumps down my throat I should say that I am trying to deal with my sense of frustration and generally calm down, and also that I'm not pointing at anyone specific here! However, it was deeply disappointing to arrive at the opening to find my book relegated to the shadowy lower back corner of a locked glass cabinet.

Yes, I really do know how difficult it is to please participating artists about the way in which their work is displayed (I have curated several group shows) and yes, I also appreciate that there aren't enough open shelves to go around. But what was the point of asking for display instructions to be included with the work and enquiring whether or not it could be handled only to lock it away in a box where no-one could see it? I'm not just imagining that no-one looked at it: I spent quite a lot of time observing how visitors to the exhibition approached the cabinet and the truth is that they had a brief look at the works that were clearly lit on the upper shelf and I didn't catch a single person looking below at my piece. Not one.

Things weren't helped by the complete lack of any printed information about the show, the participating artists or the work apart from the labels: no catalogue, not even a scrappy piece of photocopied A4 with a list of exhibited works, despite the fact that everything was numbered. I don't know what other people do but I make a point of picking up the catalogue (or scrappy A4 sheet for that matter!) and I use it to make notes about pieces or artists I particularly like, I use it to navigate my way around the show, and I also look up particular artists to see where their work is displayed. Nothing like that here, unfortunately. I thought the choice of winners was, for once, spot-on but I found my overall experience of the show disappointing. I wasn't able to stay for the forum on artists' books which I imagine was very interesting.

It is possible that my overall mood was affected by the significant amount of pain I experienced due to the infection in my jaw after the tooth extraction a few days previously, I don't deny it! I was on whopping antibiotic tablets and mega-pain killers and I felt LOUSY. Luckily for me what made the whole thing worthwhile was the chance to meet people. Diane was absolutely lovely: she picked me up from the airport, gave me a whistle-stop tour of the beachside scenery around Mackay, put me up in a very comfortable bed, and after the opening she and her husband Peter took me out to dinner with their friends! It was absolutely lovely, and so kind. And in addition to being spoiled rotten by Diane and Peter I also got to meet up again with Sue Anderson, Gwen Harrison, Christina Cordeiro, Julie Barratt, dear Duck and was introduced again to Noreen Graham of Graham Galleries and Editions in Brisbane. Wonderful!
















I came back from Mackay feeling absolutely flattened but had great fun last Sunday at the annual Rotary Club book sale in Coffs Harbour. Now at first glance you wouldn't say the local population hides a sophisticated readership but apparently the book sale raises about $40,000 a year so perhaps I'm being a little unfair! I came away with a bag of books destined to be experimented upon, remade and possibly even read, for the grand sum of $35. Marvellous. And once I'd got through that I was able to come home and pack up ready to go to Sydney on Monday.






















Not brilliant photos of the new arrival, but he is SO CUTE! Couldn't get any closer because of the throng which is why these are slightly out of focus, but you get the idea...





















The reason for our trip was that dearest husband had to go and see clients in Sydney but at such short notice that the available flights were around $600 return! So we decided that as we haven't been away at all since our big European trip last year we were entitled to take a few days to drive down, have some fun and drive back - all for much less than the cost of a single plane ticket and we had free hotel accommodation at the Crowne Plaza on Darling Harbour. So darling daughter and I whiled away the time shopping and sightseeing while the other half worked, and in between times we managed to catch up with friends and sample Chinese, Japanese and Korean cuisine. OK, perhaps it is more accurate to say that we spent more money than we would have done if DH had flown down on his own, but I swear I needed a jacket and a new pair of shoes, and darling daughter certainly needed new shoes and there are no children's shoe shops in Coffs Harbour! That's my excuse, anyway.

Set text!

Thank you everyone who has been in touch about the Artists' Book Club idea. There's always a pause while you try and work out how to kick things off, but while I've been busy with other things (root canal, sorting out our holiday, tearing my hair out about our mortgage...) I've also been reading poetry and I hope you'll like the piece of poetry I've chosen as the piece of text to inspire us for the first book.

I've gone away from my comfort zone in a sense because I don't often read poetry and I've been so busy recently I haven't read anything challenging at all. But while I was at the Sturt Winter School I picked up Ampersand Duck's beautiful letterpress book of Rosemary Dobson's poems and thought I'd like to read some of her work. Tracking anything down in Coffs Harbour has been a challenge in itself but today, amazingly, our local library had a volume of her collected poems and I chose the following poem:

Learning Absences (1986)

Being alone is also to be learnt
Long time or short time.

Walking the length of the house, shutting
The doors and the windows

No longer calling casually over one's shoulder.
Returning to find no trace

Of the other, companionable living -
Bread smell, the stove still warm,

Clothes on the line like messages,
Or messages written and left on the kitchen table:

"We need to keep watering the cumquat."
Or, "I have paid the milkman."

At night, at this season, lingering at the window
Not being certain where to find Halley's Comet,

And looking a long time at the darkening sky.

Text taken from "Rosemary Dobson, Collected Poems", part of the Angus & Robertson series 'Modern Poets'. Published 1991, ISBN 0 207 16864 4. Text copyright © Rosemary Dobson 1991.

I hope you like it: I thought it had lots going on in it, and immediately started thinking of making prints before reminding myself that I'm supposed to be thinking about making a 'book'!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the following people are guilty of wanting to be involved:
Moreidlethoughts, Ampersand Duck, Jane Aliendi, Art & Etc, Barnacle Goose Paperworks, Precious Little Birdy, Amanda Watson-Will and of course ME, which makes 8 participants, which gives an edition size of 9 books each. We'll all get a complete set and there will be once complete set left over for exhibition.

Now here comes the tricky part... deadlines! I said 'New Year' initially, but you might want to consider this: the Libris awards are on again at Artspace Mackay, as part of the Focus on Artists' Books V forum in April 2010. These are Australia's premier book arts awards and only happen every couple of years so we might want to put the set of books in for the Libris awards - only trouble is, if we want to do that we'd need to enter them by Friday 4th December 2009!

Now I don't think we'd need to send in the completed books at this point, just photos and an application form (I'm not 100% sure because the entry forms aren't yet available, but they'll be out shortly). Usually it's a case of putting together some high-res photos on CD, completing the form and paying an entry fee - the books won't be required until probably March 2010. So what do you reckon, could we be adventurous and see if we could put something in for the Libris awards? It would be a great start!

What do I need from you now? Really just confirmation that you want to take part and an email with your contact details if I don't already have them (Carol and Dinah, I don't think I have email addresses for you so at the moment the only way I can communicate is via blogging!). I've registered a blog called Book Art Object (for no particular reason - just came up with that name - if you hate it you can register a different one and we'll use that) and was going to set up all participants as members of that blog so we can all post entries and pictures. At the moment it's completely blank and could do with some love and inspiration!

Blue sky thinking...

Just Fun

I keep a little list in my 'Favourites' of blogs and websites I should share with you on this blog, but I rarely get around to mentioning them which is a bit hopeless. So here are some book/bookbinding related sites I've been looking at recently:

Handbound Weekly is a blog that pulls together all sorts of makers of books and book-y things in the Etsy on-line community. It's a great place to browse and see what other book binders are selling, and it's the work of Cindy Leaders, who has her own blog here.

Paperiarre is a lovely blog about handmade books and things from Kaija in Finland. I'm at once of admiring of her evident style and covetous of her beautiful books! I hope she won't mind me saying that she's put ideas into my head about embedding objects in book covers or, to be more precise, she's shown me how it can be done. She also has an Etsy shop here.

And lastly for this evening, I was blown away by the sheer, mad, single-mindedness of Watarou Itou and his paper Castle on the Ocean... Crazy and beautiful, it apparently took FOUR YEARS to make. I'll never complain about my slow rate of output again!

PS., for all you Australian book artists out there, you may not be aware that Focus on Artists Books V has been announced by Artspace Mackay, for April 2010. There is a forum, workshops and an exhibition and you can find details on the Artspace Mackay website together with information about the Libris awards. I don't know why there hasn't been a bigger effort to publicise the event? It's a big thing in the Australian artists book world and yet I found out about it through a comment on Artist Books 3.0 and even then I had to search the internet to find out the information.