Last week (22-26 August) was National Book Week, and I was asked, as part of the residency, to hold book workshops for each class. I was also asked to dress up for the book parade as my favorite book character! So here I am, dressed as Professor Snape, alongside the school’s own art teacher, Julie, who was an excellent Sybil Trelawney. My beaker contains potion of fizzy drink with blue food colouring, which I told the children was made of  ‘slugs, snails and snot, plus one blue jellybean’. None of them wanted to try it.

I wanted to introduce the idea that books could be different shapes, and could work in different ways, so I decided to show the children examples of artists’ books and teach each class a different structure. I bought a stack of gorgeous coloured paper, and with the help of my local TAFE (Canberra Institute of Technology, CIT) who kindly allowed me to use their industrial guillotine (bless you, CIT), I chopped the stack into various shapes and sizes to help the class run smoothly.

Preschool

With these children, all aged 4 or 5, I kept things simple, and we made what I call ‘Secret Pocket’ books, using the ‘Pants’ fold and cut technique that I use when I show people how to make concertina books or zines. I don’t know what the ‘normal’ title for it is.

You can see here how we folded the paper into eight parts: fold lengthwise in half, then fold the width in half and then each side in half again. Then I made a dot on the third fold, and the children cut with scissors up the long fold to the dot (then the paper looks like a pair of trousers, which is why I call it the ‘pants’ fold. I make them walk for the children before we fold it). We then folded the sections back and forth and around the corner to make a concertina book, and sticky-taped up the corner fold to make a pocket. I’d shown them one I’d made earlier, with pictures of vegetables I like on the pages, and a picture of a vegetable I didn’t like stuck in the pocket, like a secret. They loved the story, and when they started drawing, they came up with all sorts of ideas.

Kindergarten

I decided to up the ante and get the 5-6 year olds doing some origami folding to make simple but fabulous books using the waterbomb-base technique. It was a bit like herding cats for a while, because the last bit of the folding can be a bit tricky, but we had a great time (and some help from Adam, one of the parents — thanks!) and everyone came out the other side with something that they loved.

Year One

Year One and Year Two both made flag books, but I kept the Y1 (6-7 year old) version simpler with only two rows of panels. Again, it was like herding cats for a while as we folded the centre concertina, trying to keep the outside covers unfolded, but once they got drawing and sticking a lot of fun was had. They did some wonderful narrative work, often making each panel into something akin to an animation still. I tried to encourage every class to use coloured pencils rather than textas, as textas tended to just soak darkly into the paper, but the pencil pigments sat on top of the coloured paper, and kept their vibrancy, also working in collaboration with the background colour.

This is the outside of Ruby’s ‘Twirly Whirly Picture Book’.

And this is the inside!

Afterwards they all sat in a circle and read their books to the class, one by one.

Year Two

When I told the Year Twos (7-8 years old) that they were doing a trickier version of what Year One did, they puffed themselves up and showed themselves totally deserving of my expectation.

The best bit of the class was having time at the end to show them lots of my book samples and to be able to really have a close look at the catalogues I’d brought along.

(Year Two have media clearance, so I can show you photos that show their faces properly… of which Imogen is taking full advantage!)

They were particularly taken with my flip books. One is a commercial book I’d picked up from the National Film & Sound Archive, of the moment in North by Northwest when Cary Grant is swooped by the plane; the other is one I’d made myself, of my head bouncing up & down like a rubber ball.

In fact, Year Two liked me so much that they’ve asked me to come back for another session, to make a tunnel book with them, another form they were very taken with when I showed them an example!

So I think Book Week was a success, and expanded every child’s notion of what a book is. I also have a renewed admiration for the teachers at the school and all their hard work and energy. I will be wholeheartedly supporting their industrial action later this coming week, as ACT teachers are among the lowest paid in the country. Also, this week is National Literacy and Numeracy Week, so I’m doing pen & ink sessions with them all, using bamboo pens with the littlies and real handles & nibs for the older kids. Fun!

Those Who Travel is a very special collaboration by four artists: Sarah Rice, Patsy Payne, Ampersand Duck and Shellaine Godbold.

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this is a gap

A stunning artists’ book of original, unpublished poems by Sarah Rice, accompanied by a suite of exquisite images by Patsy Payne, produced using lithography and pounced graphite drawings. The layout has been designed to create a spacious, airy feel, and the binding has been kept light and fluid to reflect the dream-like quality of the pages.

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this is a gap

Printed on Arches BFK 250gsm paper, the book is hand sewn with no adhesives, and has a pale grey Magnani Pescia loose wrap cover, embossed with the title.

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this is a gap

The text is hand-set in metal type, using English Garamond, and printed on a Vandercook SP 20 press in a silver ink.

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this is a gap

What you have seen here is only a selection of the 40 pages. Painstakingly produced, this book is available in a limited edition of 16 copies. The dimensions of the book are 250 x 150 x 5mm.

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COLLABORATORS

Dr Sarah Rice is a ceramicist and art theorist whose philosophical bent has influenced many art students at the ANU School of Art.

Patsy Payne is a renowned printmaker, and is currently Head of Printmedia & Drawing at the ANU School of Art. She designed the book, produced the lithography stones, and pounced the drawings.

Ampersand Duck set and printed the text, and bound the books.

Shellaine Godbold is a fabulous artist and she did the lithography editioning (with flair).

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this is a gap

Available now for Aus$450 plus p&h. Contact me for more details or to purchase. I will send you an invoice that can be paid by Paypal, EFT or cheque.

All money from the book is being donated to Sarah Rice.

Every few years the Technical Officers put on an exhibition to showcase the fact that they, too, are professional artists maintaining their own practice. In 2009 the show was called Art-i-Techs, and it opened on Wednesday 25 March at 6pm in the Foyer Gallery of the School of Art, Liversidge Crescent, Australian National University.

The show ran from 25 March to 4 April 2009.  I showed Transmigration (along with its prospectus), Pr0n Coktales and a couple of informal bindings.

A wide view of both my plinths

Transmigration + the prospectus for the book

on the left, pr0n coktales, and on the right, a few fun books I made to demonstrate techniques to students

I gave an account of the exhibition opening at my personal blog.

Exhibition statement:

I have a burning desire not to waste materials, and my personal artist’s books are made from paper or other materials left over from more formal projects. Many of my unique books are made from the print proofs, ghosts or off-cuts of commissioned letterpress work. I make them as a souvenir of a collaboration, or as an extension of themes that run through the text I’ve been working upon.

I am an avid reader and chronic daydreamer; I often spend so much time with the words and images of a single book project that it is refreshing to rework them in a different, more playful context, which allows me to extend my appreciation of the original text beyond the realms of the traditional page layout.

I also like to trawl second-hand book sales and rescue under-appreciated books to rework them into something people might value again. I might use the title and/or cover of vintage novels to begin new stories that the viewer can continue in their own imagination. In any case, my working methods seem perfectly in tune with a world that is once again recognising the need to re-use and recycle as a cultural process.

Selected works from the show:

Grieving: Let Go, 2009. installation of folded original letterpress pages
(from Poems to Hold or Let Go) and a vintage book spine.

Nightladders: After, 2009. Vintage book cover,
concertina papercut from offset-ink press proof pages.

Nightladders: Escape (detail), 2009. Vintage book cover,
papercut from offset-ink press proof pages.

Nightladders: Escape (detail), 2009. Vintage book cover,
papercut from offset-ink press proof pages.

Me, Like a River, 2009. Concertina flag book of
letterpress offcuts from the book Shared Rooms.

Never Kill a Dolphin, 2009, from the series ‘Jetsom’. Clamshell box from vintage book cover,
lined with the book’s illustrations. [sold: private collection]

Opening on 14 May at 6pm, Books to Hold or Let Go showcases Australian and international binders working with the text of Ampersand Duck’s fine press publication Poems to Hold or Let Go by Rosemary Dobson and Rosalind Atkins. The exhibition will run until 20 June, and associated events (floor talks or readings) are being negotiated.

Poems to Hold or Let Go is a 56pp volume printed using photopolymer plate and boxwood wood engravings on 125gsm rag mould-made Magnani Vergata laid paper. The binders have received the book in sheet form (folded but unsewn), and it is totally up to them what they will make of the cover. To see the original volume, go here. I am really looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!

I have asked participating artists to send me images of their work in progress, so watch this post as I add to it over the next couple of months.

First up is Sydney bookbinder Barbara Schmelzer, who has decided to do a German vellum binding and is sharing images of her preparations to  airbrush the vellum:

Next is Mia Leijonstedt, who is one of our international binders: She is Finnish, but working from the United Arab Emirates. Mia’s contribution to the exhibition will be a soft cover binding with “long-stitch” structure. According to her:

Most often long-stitch bindings leave the sewing showing on the spine but this will be covered. The base cover is maroon goat skin laminated with silky fabric and the onlays will be dyed parchment.

Showing the general colour scheme of the binding and the preparations for sewing –
soft leather cover laminated and folded, endpapers dyed and trimmed.

A close up of book just before sewing.

Book sewn with white thread in long-stitch style. Thread dyed black on the spine side.

Front cover of the binding open, showing the doublure laminate and endpaper.

Preparing to cover the sewing with dyed strips of parchment
that will also form the basis of the binding’s final design.

Next we look at a few images showing some of South Australian binder Mark Gilbert’s planning processes:

Mark’s been drawing up his ideas…

Making maquettes and practising his blocking…

… And is now fully into production.

Lorraine Brown,  formerly of Sydney but now working from Queensland, is still working on her cover design, but so far the book is sewn on 5 cords (each cord being 3 ply unbleached linen yarn, wound 3 times to create a 9 ply cord) using waxed linen thread, and the endpapers are Canson Ingres Vidalon cream 100 gsm plus a decorative paper. Here’s a shot of the sewing:

Lorraine is sewing onto cords using a sewing frame.

There are a number of ‘alternate’ bindings emerging as well. Printmaker Lee Bratt, of Canberra, has constructed a concertina format for her book sheets:

A view from above. The poem pages are removable.

A detail of the front panel, featuring one of Lee’s prints.

Genevieve Swifte, also from Canberra, is working on a very conceptual version of the book. Here is her initial ‘promotional’ image:

whets the appetite, somewhat, doesn’t it?

It’s very exciting, seeing all these ‘tasters’. Here’s more:

“The wooden boards having been cut to size. Next step is cord attachment and sewing…”

Victorian bookbinder Elke Ahokas’s book is bound in a Carolingian style. The covers are of Victorian Coobah (Acacia salicina) which will be oiled. The text block is sewn onto hemp cords using waxed linen thread.

“The front cover, un-oiled as yet….”

Dario Castello is the president of the ACT Bookbinders’ Guild. Here’s a peek at his work:

a detail of the front cover

Joy Tonkin, of Book Arts Canberra is preparing an exposed sewing technique in the style of Jean de Gonet’s binding.

The book is sewn onto snake skin tapes.  The hollow-back spine is covered in oasis leather.  The boards are a wood veneer with polycarbonate and leather onlay decorations.  The endpapers are hand-made papers from Nepal.   The book is housed in a box made from hand-made papers, lined in suede, and titled in kangaroo leather on the spine.

Linda Newbown is also from Canberra:

an open-book view of Linda’s binding.

Linda says:

Laced-in binding. Vellum spine, paper boards, kid leather (from found glove). Bound 2009.
Binders hold the printed pages momentarily. We bind the pages so that you may more easily hold them. The bindings will show signs and marks from the binders’ hand. We have held these pages and now let them go.

Less than six weeks until the opening! Watch this space!

Author: Rosemary Dobson
Artist: Rosalind Atkins
Design & Production: Ampersand Duck

Printed 2008, released 2009
&Duck Selected 2

Colophon

Poems to Hold or Let Go is the second volume in the Ampersand Duck fine press series, ‘Selected’.
Printed with photopolymer plate using letterpress processes in Garamond, accompanied by two exquisite boxwood wood engravings on cream 125gsm rag mould-made Magnani Vergata laid paper, in a cased binding of teal Buckram and letterpress-printed navy Wibalin with a dustjacket of wood and metal handset & printed Wibalin. 56pp. 240 x 163mm. Edition of 200.

A view of one of the printed sheets in production, featuring one of the two Ros Atkins wood engravings

About the book

Poems to Hold or Let Go is a selection of 41 poems by beloved Australian poet Rosemary Dobson that spans over 60 years of outstanding writing. It is a conceptual rather than chronological selection, leading the reader on a journey through the poet’s themes and preoccupations, then forking off into an autobiographical direction. The volume includes three later poems that have never been published in book form. The two original wood engravings act as portals to and from the journey, with two seminal Dobson poems acting as prologue and epilogue. The title is chosen by the poet, and suits the philosophical meanderings the reader will undergo.

This whole volume was designed with great care in consultation with Dobson, and the printer’s late-process surprise gesture to her was the use of metal Garamond type in the dustjacket design that had once belonged to her late husband, Alec Bolton, proprietor of the Canberra private press, Brindabella Press.

About the contributors

Rosemary Dobson

Born in 1920, Rosemary’s career as a writer of poetry began at school (Frensham, in the Southern Highlands of NSW). Rosemary’s career continued with early acceptance of publication in literary journals. She has published altogether since then 14 volumes of poetry, two books of prose and (in collaboration), two volumes of translations from Russian poetry. She has edited several anthologies. Her most recent volume, Untold Lives and Later Poems, won the 2001 Age Book of the Year award.

Rosemary has received a number of literary awards including the Patrick White Award for Literature (1984), the Australia Council’s Writers’ Emeritus Award (1996), a DLitt from Sydney University (1996) and the Order of Australia for services to Australian Literature (1987). In June 2006 she won the NSW Premier’s Special Award.

She was for some years on the Editorial Staff of Angus & Robertson, publishers. In 1951 she married Alec Bolton, printer and publisher and Founding Director of Publications at the National Library of Australia. Subsequently taking early retirement he founded his own printing press, the Brindabella Press, much praised for the standards he set in all aspects of book publication. He published 23 books, nearly all of poetry, before his untimely death in 1996.

Rosalind Atkins

Rosalind Atkins is a highly regarded printmaker whose prints have been published in conjunction with the works of some of Australia’s best-known poets, including Les Murray and Judith Wright. She graduated from RMIT with a Bachelor of Fine Art and followed that with a Graduate Diploma of Fine Art. She is a member of the English Society of Wood Engravers. Rosalind has exhibited extensively, and is collected widely by national and international institutions as well as private collections.

Prospectus

Every ‘Selected’ volume has a letterpress-printed prospectus that is sent to press supporters and other interested parties. If you would like to be on the mailing list for these, please contact me.

Purchasing

Aus$350.00 ea +p&h
Also available in binding sheets: Aus$150.00ea + p&h

STATUS: Available

Contact me for more details or to purchase. I will send you an invoice that can be paid by Paypal, EFT or cheque.

All volumes are signed by the artist and printer; a limited number early in the edition are signed by the poet. Early sales will therefore obtain fully signed volumes.

Also

Associated with this book release is an exhibition of various fine bookbindings of the sheets of Poems to Hold or Let Go. Thirty sets of book sheets were set aside for this purpose and numbered in roman numerals as a separate deluxe edition. The exhibition was called Books to Hold or Let Go.

Collaboration details

Author: Nan McDonald
Artist: Jan Brown
Design & Production: Ampersand Duck

Printed 2007, released 2008
&Duck Selected 1

Colophon

Transmigration is the first volume in the Ampersand Duck fine press series, ‘Selected’.
Hand-set letterpress in Bodoni accompanied by relief prints on 280gsm Arches BFK grey paper, in a cased binding of ochre Buckram and relief-printed navy Wibalin with a dustjacket of acid-free acetate. 40pp. 240 x 163mm. Edition of 90.

About the contributors

Nan McDonald

Born in 1921, Nan McDonald also began her career writing poetry at Hornsby Girls’ High School where she contributed poems to the school magazine, twice winning the Ethel Curlewis prize for verse. Proceeding to the University of Sydney, she graduated with second-class honours in English.

In 1943 McDonald joined the editorial staff of Angus & Robertson Ltd. There she worked with such people as Alec Bolton, Beatrice Davis and Douglas Stewart. Recalled by Rosemary Dobson as ‘the best book editor in Australia’, she made a considerable – though largely unacknowledged – contribution to the publication of Australian fiction and history for some thirty years.

McDonald’s poetic output was small but highly regarded, with poems appearing mostly in Sydney journals from the 1940s to the 1960s. Her first collection, Pacific Sea (1947) won the first Grace Leven prize for poetry in 1947. Her poems appear in most modern anthologies, but critical perspective is still lacking.

McDonald spent much of her time in the Wollongong region, commuting to Sydney to work. She died of cancer in January 1974 at Mt Ousley.

The 14 poems in Transmigration revolve around themes of birds, sea, bushwalking and human interaction and interference with the environment.

Jan Brown AM

Jan Brown is a sculptor who sees drawing as an integral part of her work. She has a passionate interest in living forms, especially birds and animals.

Jan taught life drawing at the Canberra School of Art for many years, retiring as a Senior lecturer in 1987. Her initial training was as a part-time student at East Sydney Technical College, and later as a full-time student at Chelsea School of Art, under the direction of Henry Moore.

She was born in Sydney in 1922, and has travelled widely overseas, living in London for ten years and returning to London and Europe on a regular basis. Her home, since 1957, is Canberra, where she lives with her husband and family.

She has been actively involved with the promotion of the visual arts in Canberra and in 1992 was made an Order of Australia and also an Emeritus Fellow of the Australia Council. In 2005 she was honoured in the ACT International Women’s Day awards.

Jan’s drawings for Transmigration were not made for the book, but selected by her and the printer from her extensive drawing archives. Her drawings, many made in the same locations that Nan was writing about, were scanned and cast as photopolymer plates, then printed as embossments, slightly inked with transparent ink to darken the paper colour.

Jan Brown and Nan McDonald were exact contemporaries. They both cared deeply about the same issues, and frequented the same walking paths. They never knew each other.

Purchasing

Aus$350.00 ea + p&h
Also available as binding sheets: $150.00 + p&h.

STATUS: Available

Contact me for more details or to purchase. I will send you an invoice that can be paid by Paypal, EFT or cheque.

This is the front of the 4pp DL-size prospectus for Transmigration
Every ‘Selected’ volume has a letterpress-printed prospectus that is sent to press supporters and other interested parties. If you would like to be on the mailing list for these, please contact me.