Luckily the conference was mostly indoors (unlike the filming session of Winners and Losers attempting to work on the grass just outside the conference) so apart from a wild wet trip over to another Monash campus for an exhibition opening, we all stayed pretty snug.

(A detail from Scott Lyon’s Fleurons exhibition at Postbox 141 in the city)

Impact7 was a densely-packed intellectual experience. In fact, many complained that there was too much content, and indeed, with six parallel sessions at any one time that weren’t strictly aligned, it was very hard to mix and match the papers and try to catch a broad range of topics. There were many streams of subject matter, from traditional printmaking to digital media, from letterpress to artists’ books. The two hot topics seemed to be cross-media platforms and artists’ books. I can’t speak for the media sessions (merely that there were a lot of them), but every session on books was standing-room only.

Highlights of the conference for me were (in no particular order):

• All of Sarah Bodman’s showcasing of international artists’ books. She also brought a selection of books inspired by Ed Ruscha, and left them out for people to handle without gloves, which was fantastic. I like her relaxed approach to the book world.

(Sarah wore many hats during Impact, both as speaker for herself, for her collaborator Tom Sowden, and as a session convenor. Here she’s talking as herself & Tom about their Bookarts Manifesto project, which was a wonderful project because, unlike Drucker’s attempts to categorise everything, the BM acknowledged from the outset that it is impossible to define the genre, and then went on to explore just how crazy big it is. This is an image of some of the ways different artists positioned themselves within existing categories, adding more and rearranging the elements for themselves. I was excited to see my contribution to the project on the top left of the image!)

• Seeing all of our Book Art Object works in one spot, arranged by theme. Some of the books haven’t been distributed yet, so it was a treat to see the newer ones. There were four BAO members at Impact: myself, Sara Bowen, Rhonda Ayliffe and Amanda Watson-Will, and we spent some time together, out of which a new theme for the next edition has emerged, based on a work by Sarah Bodman. We all spent time blogging about the conference (27 posts in the week between us!) so head over there if you want to see some BAO perspectives (that link takes you to one of the Impact posts, rather than the general blog).

(None of my Impact photos are very good! Here’s Rhonda, standing by our wall of BAO books.)

• Paul Coldwell talking about Paula Rego and her Nursery Rhymes book (one of my bookshelf’s treasures, albeit as a Folio Society edition)
• David Ferry, whom I encountered in Korea years ago, giving an hilarious talk about Double Acts/Double Takes/Double Entendres that had us all chortling.

(Here Ferry is illuminating all the various characters in The Biscuit Nativity from Vis magazine.)

• Talking face-to-face with Book Arts high priestess Johanna Drucker at the end of her skype keynote talk, as I asked/made an observation about Fluxus being a dress rehearsal for the archive headaches that the internet is giving curators and librarians. Like many people also observed, her talk was a difficult and frustrating experience thanks to the vagaries of skype (low quality sound, drop-outs etc) but the moment that her face appeared, things just seemed better. A shame she hadn’t talked to us with occasional images, rather than attempted a powerpoint-like presentation.
• my session, not for the fact that I talked, but because the two other presenters were also discussing letterpress issues (despite our session title lumping us as ‘Globalization, national identities and the post-colonial perspective’) and at the end we managed to have a conversation between the three of us and the rest of the room, which was wonderful.

(An image from Jacqueline Naismith’s talk about her NZ design students, working with letterpress to explore visual notions of local food; this is ‘colonial goose’, which was a popular colonial dish of stuffed mutton flavoured to taste like goose!)

• Braving the storm and getting drenched in order to be at the launch of Monica Oppen’s exhibition and book The Silent Scream: Political and Social Comment in Books by Artists, an amazing array of books by an amazing array of artists (and I’m chuffed to be included in that array).
• ANU’s Art History Professor Sasha Grishin outing himself as a zine reader in the last day’s panel on zines, and then proceeding to talk about his habit in terms of a drug user. Wonderful! Followed by a mini zine fair where I stocked up on all the back editions of Plastic Knife, among other things.
• All the amazing exhibitions around the campus, of which I’m sure I didn’t see all, no matter how widely I wandered.
• Experiencing Ruth Bain, the conference manager, who seemed to have swallowed The Little Book of Calm. She was incredible.

There was so much to do, so many thoughts to think. It will take a while for my brain to process all this new information.

(These are some of the people who weren’t rushing around between sessions trying to see & do everything.)

I caught up with lots of people I haven’t seen for ages, some who I only get to talk to at conferences, and met a whole heap of new people. I keep hearing of people I missed, which isn’t hard because there was a transient conference population of 300-400 people. Woah!

(Ancora Press, with Brian McMullin showing his printing skillz in the background)

I also popped downstairs to Monash’s Ancora Press, which is probably the last surviving bibliographic press in Australia. A bibliographic press is one used to explore traditional textual issues, teaching English students about how books used to be make and the kinds of errors and subtleties that arise from hand-setting and printing. Ancora Press is now shared by the English department and the Art/Design department, which makes an interesting mix and also makes it hard to keep the type ‘nice’… traditional printing methods and graphic design/art methods are completely at odds with each other, a topic I find endlessly fascinating, having one foot in each camp.

(Nicci Haynes and Genevieve Swifte, my Canberra comrades. Genevieve is showing her portfolio.)

(Here’s my portfolio table, looking as colourful and attractive as I could make it with travel luggage limitations!)

(A dark photo of master printermaker John Loane)

John Loane (Veridian Press) talked about his longstanding and ongoing working relationship with Mike Parr as a keynote address. It’s rare to have John talking without Mike dominating the space, and this time Mike was overseas, so the audience had John all to themselves. The talk was fabulous, but it struck me most of the way through that if a woman presented a body of work this gendercentric, she’d be typecast as a radical separatist. The only female presence in what we were shown (over decades of work) were some breasts Parr had drawn on himself. I get to talk to John a lot because he’s living in Canberra these days, but he’s a humble man, and it was nice to see more of what he does and says.

(Here’s a pic of Rhonda Ayliffe on the left, Paul Uhlmann (WA) in the centre and Nicci Haynes on the right. There are other interesting people at the table but out of shot: Iona Walsh (Canberra designer/printmaker), Amanda Watson Will, Sara Bowen, Annie Trevillian (Canberra textile printmaker). We’re eating at a fab little Sri Lankan cafe around the corner from the conference.)

And finally, a bit of Melbourne texture. I had a great week, and look forward to seeing what emerges from all the ideas and connections. Congratulations to Marian Crawford and Ruth Bain for a STERLING effort!

The words to Grieving go:

Friends die, one after another;
Each time a dark disorder
A ceaseless banging of shutters

Upstairs there, in the mind;
Bearing of wings, loud weather
Days, nights together.

To force on the mind order:
Journeys taken on maps,
Attentive delving into

The roots of the language.
A search for the true invention
Of form by line in drawing.

Also, renewal of linen—
Keeping the old customs
Putting sides to middles.

Thus, mind and hand stilled
And with a gentler grief
To draw down the blind

The white holland blind
Like a banner of love
Against that wild confusion.

(© the poet, published in Rosemary Dobson, Poems to Hold or Let Go, Canberra: Ampersand Duck, 2009)

There are so many great ideas in there that translate to paper: language, drawing, form, line, linen (or in this case, rag), folding, ritual, the mindfulness of repetitive movement and simple motions.

I decided to make something out of this forlorn and seductive pile of paper, and once I started working with it, I couldn’t stop. My solo exhibition at Megalo Print Access in September 2009, Pressings: Recycled Bookwork, had four pieces made from this one pile of poem, grouped into two pairs:

This is all four pieces (or both pairs) in situ at Megalo, although the one on the far left (in the foreground, not on the wall on the left, which is a completely different work altogether) is cut off. The first two are plinth works, made of small geometric folded elements that can be reconfigured in various ways depending upon mood, inclination and plinth size.

Grieving 1: Folding the Sheets and Sides to Middles

This is Grieving: Folding the Sheets. All of the pieces shift incrementally in size, and the largest, single centrepiece has an inky black centre made from overlaid black inked fingerprints.

Here’s a closer, vertical view. You can see the text of the poem, again and again, alternating in direction, forming a rhythm.

This is the piece that was hiding in the room view above: Grieving: Sides to Middles. These folded elements of paper are not hand-inked, but run through the press rollers at the end of printing, which gave them a very light, even, almost gauze-like black texture.

Folding sides to middles is an old laundry ritual, where worn sheets would be cut in half and resewing them with the less worn edges now in the centre, where they would get more wear. It is also a very evocative line for me when working with paper, either folding sheets (of paper) for bookbinding or when using origami methods.

Grieving 2: Hold and Let Go

The second pair is quite different, and is site specific, although it could probably be installed again at any other gallery that has white walls

This is Grieving: Hold, and it is a unique piece constructed from a vintage book spine, antique thread (bought still on its Victorian-era factory bobbin) and pieces of the poem. It is mounted on a metal rod that inserts into the wall, and you can view it from both sides.

This is the obverse side. It’s very hard to photograph. Here’s a detail of that page panel, handsewn:

I love the shadow of the text on the other side.

Grieving: Let Go, it’s companion piece, is much freer. It is another work that can change shape at will. This time it was a tree of kites taking off from a book spine, but maybe in the future it can be something else:

Another one that is hard to photograph.

It was very meditative and calming to make these works. A few months later, I made a final Grieving work, and now I think I’ve redeemed that printing mistake, well and truly.

These works are all for sale or available for exhibition. If you are interested, please get in contact.

I’d just finished a whole body of work centred upon a poem by Rosemary Dobson that I’d accidentally overprinted during the production of her collection, Poems to Hold or Let Go. I worked with the pages in various ways: overprinting them, using origami on them to form sculptural elements, and I thought that this would be a chance to finish the process, to draw a veil across this particular train of thought. I see this as a broadside rather than anything book-related.

I’ve had an old linen hankie in my ‘collection’ box (or one of them, specifically the textiles one) for years — and isn’t it great when things finally find a purpose? I can’t remember if this one has special family significance or if it was given to me by someone… I wouldn’t have bought it. It’s gorgeous, with real handmade lace around the edges.

The text of the poem was transferred from the original letterpress print to the hankie by eucalyptus transfer (which leaves a wonderful lingering scent of eucalyptus, very Australian) and then I used some antique thread to hand-stitch a weeping thread veil over the text. It really is antique — it comes straight off a Victorian-era factory bobbin and has marvellous slubs and stains through it.

The Hankie Project link above gives a post to each entry in the exhibition, which looked wonderful. I’m sure there are plans to travel the works, so it might turn up somewhere near you. If you’re ever in Alstonville, on the far north coast of NSW (an easy daytrip from Brisbane), visit Julie’s gallery, which specialises in artists’ books and print works.

If you’d like to see the process of putting the exhibition together, and all the wonderful studio visits made by Anna-Maria to the craftspeople involved, here’s a link to all of her posts on the subject.

THE SERIES

These letters do not spell anything out deliberately; they were chosen to go with the images, which are little metal ornaments that I bought from eBay years ago. Feel free to make them spell things; Anna-Maria made them spell R&D in the show, others may want the word FORD, or maybe your name is DROF. Heh. The letters are 72pt Gill Sans, printed in a bright sexy red. All have little hand-filed deckles at the head and tail, and are numbered and signed.

Each of these is 45 x 32 mm in dimension, so you’re probably looking at them at a larger scale (which won’t do them any favours).

They’re not really meant to be lined up together, so I didn’t put a lot of effort into making the height of AMPERSAND DUCK match up. I designed each one as an individual, taking into account the balance of each image on the ‘page’.

Edition numbers are:

D: Dragonfly — 20

O: Owl — 20

R: Rat — 20

&: Ampersand — 10

F: Frog: 20

They are all still available.

THE OTHERS

Speaks for itself.

45 x 32mm, in an edition of 9. Still available.

Hammer Time. Hand-coloured.

55 x 32mm. Edition of 6. Still available.

Almost Ace. I just love this one. In amongst a box of miscellaneous letterpress stuff was this tiny little logo with the letters ACF, and I’ve looked at it for years wondering if anything could be done with it or should I just chuck it. One day… BING! I saw the way forward.

Printed on red Japanese washi, 42 x 30mm. Edition of 11. Still available.

All of these broadsides are Aus$10 each plus p&h.

I made a selection of paper works using discarded sheet music, letterpress, and various fun things that I found along my trail. What follows are bad phone camera images that are placemarkers until I can get some better ones: I’ve just arranged to have some better ones taken while I’m up in Mackay!

This is called The Midnight Serenade. It’s not really wearable, it’s more a thought about how people treasure a song. Each bead is made from a line of sheet music, and the whole bracelet is the entire song. It is sitting on some bits of pianola roll, with the title of the song, inside an old cigarette case.

Another not-really-wearable piece, called Secret Thrill. Again, something about treasuring music, this time the secret love of a daggy song. It’s a wooden bangle covered with the sheet music of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, with lots of rhinestones that have been stuck on the inside of the bangle.

More on treasuring music. In fact, the whole suite of works are about music, nostalgia and holding something close to yourself. This one, using sheet music and origami, is called Humming. It sold on opening night.

A close-up of Humming.

This one is a collage work on paper. I was playing with an old hymn book that had lovely thin, fragile paper. I was making origami shapes from the paper, but it wasn’t feeling like anything special. Then I found myself becoming entranced with the yellowy amber-like quality of the copious amounts of decaying sticky-tape that had been used by a previous owner to hold the book and pages together. There was no page left under the tape, only this luminous transparent gold. So I made a piece using the tape. It’s a conservator’s nightmare, but it’s a beautiful golden piece. I called it Stain.
.


A close-up of Stain.

This is the end of a pianola roll, collaged with text. I called it Blue. The holes in the roll when looked at from the side looked like electronic pulses, and as I pondered over them I found myself humming ‘Blue Monday’ by New Order. When I thought about the words, they seemed very straightforward and simple. I looked through my cut-up collection of books for the right paper colour (it had to be a very particular aged brown) and found it in an old cheesy edition of Little Women. I found all the words I needed in just two chapters of LW.

A close-up of Blue, with text.

I made a stack of posters to advertise the show, using wood type on newsprint and sheet music. Finally, I printed on the backs of the two books of sheet music I’d taken apart for the posters. I thought I’d make them a bit special for the show, so i collaged them. This one is called Vocal Chords

.

A close-up of Vocal Chords.

And this one is called Reflex.

A close-up of Reflex. The song lyrics on the right are the ‘rap’ from Michael Jackson’s Thriller. I can’t believe they made Vincent Price say y’awl’s neighbourhood!

All the works are for sale through the ANCA Gallery until the show finishes.

I showed two of the pieces from my Pressings exhibition: Grief (Sides to Middles) and Night Ladders (Escape).

The show ran from 23 March to 11 April 2010.

]]> http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/03/18/paper-works-at-brenda-may/feed/ 0 http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/03/16/country-show-2/ http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/03/16/country-show-2/#comments Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:55:37 +0000 duckie http://ampersandduck.com/art/?p=130 Continue reading →]]> Country Press 2 was an exhibition at the ANU School of Art in October 2009. There was one of these the year before, hence it was number two.

I offered to make a promotional poster that could double as my work in the show.

'wood chop' is on the left, 'fairy floss' on the right

This was the first thing I printed in my new studio, on my new press, and I used the poster to test out what Kitty the Vandercook could do… so each poster took multiple passes of the press. The metal type (the names) took two passes for each colour scheme, and the wood type (the top half of the poster) took four passes of the press each, one for the background colour run (hard to see in the reproduction!), two for the main colours, and one for the — hand-applied — rainbow roll on the number. The stars were then hand cut and stamped.

The poster itself is quite large; we scanned one to make an A5 invite for the show.

One of the (many) lessons learned with these posters is that soy-based ink doesn’t like drying on coated paper stock. I can’t buy oil-based ink locally anymore, so the learning curve was a double one working with the press, and working with the ink. Still, I think they worked out ok. There are 10 of each colour.

These are still available, and priced at Aus$50 each plus postage and handling.

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

(I also made some quick splash posters to hang around the campus. They were souvenired pretty quickly!)

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]

]]> http://ampersandduck.com/art/2010/03/13/pressings-recycled-bookwork/feed/ 0