Playing with gold

Lots happening but frustratingly little to show for it, hence my lack of recent posts. In the last couple of weeks, I have started a new edition; made some progress on my Bind Challenge; completed two of the four days of my Franzband refresher; run a few sessions of an eight week master class with four book artists who are spending time in BEMBindery working on their own projects; and wound up the first part of a short course on illuminated lettering that will hopefully improve my very rudimentary gold leaf skills. None of this has yet generated anything of interest to share and my feeble A (above) is the best I can offer at the moment, I'm afraid.

DEATHMASK

I posted about DEATHMASK when I was working on it back in January and again when it was a finalist in the 2013 Manly Artist Book Awards without, I now realise, actually giving any details of the piece. It's a concertina binding with Geltex covered boards and gros grain ribbon hinges that features multiple images of the death mask of Ned Kelly.  There's something about the apparent serenity Kelly has reached in death that appealed to me when I found a bunch of postcards of the death mask a couple of years ago. The work arrived back from the Manly exhibition last week and has now been posted off to Artspace Mackay where it will be a finalist in this year's Libris Awards.

Bind Date 2

Instructions for the the second of my Bind Challenge tasks arrived a few days ago. The task is to select a song that defined GOOD from a list of the top 100 singles released during the year in which I turned 21 and use this as the starting point for a book/object for the first of my four compartments. The song I've settled on is Riders on the Storm by The Doors. I still feel good every time I hear it. It brings back memories of an exciting time in my life, a time in which we all felt like riders on the storm. Not much else settled yet but I have been having fun with a bit of digital manipulation of a photograph of Jim Morrison, taken shortly before his death in July 1971.

Franzband

I'm signed up to do a four day refresher course on French traditional laced-in (Franzband) bindings in a couple of weeks and, in preparation for the workshop, have needed to source and pull a commercially published book - something I've not done for a while. The book's technical details (size, number and thickness of sections, margin widths, paper grain direction etc) were important but nothing out of the ordinary for any publisher for whom getting the technical criteria right was as important as content and graphic design. That it's proved extremely difficult to find a book that met my specification is, for me, a reflection on the extent to which commercial pressures continue to contribute to the decline in quality of published works. Nothing surprising here of course but nonetheless disappointing.

Bind Date

New week, new project!
The Bind Challenge has been set by Canberra-based book artist and printmaker Lee Bratt. Designed to be completed in five parts, it is a challenge about opposites, about starting at the end and working backwards. The first part of the challenge has been to make a container with four compartments, which I've now done (left). Instructions for the second part of the challenge (which I'm assuming will be to make something to fit in one (or more) of the compartments) will arrive in a couple of weeks. The project is certainly a change from my usual way of working in which most, if not all, of the details are resolved in my mind before I begin and I can't help wondering if I'm going to come horribly unstuck along the way.

Manly Library Artist Book Collection

A couple of years ago, the Manly Library quietly began building a small collection of artist books.  Works are added to the collection through a biennial acquisitive Artists Book Award, donations and occasional purchases outside the award program. A changing selection of works from the collection is on display at the library and the entire  collection can be viewed online.

Despite its short life, the Award has acquired a certain prestige and attracts entries from established Australian and international book artists as well as from young and aspiring practitioners. The 2013 Award was judged by Noreen Grahame (Director of the Centre for the Artist Book) and Monica Oppen (writer, printmaker, photographer and bookbinder) and I was thrilled to have one of my recent works, DEATHMASK (above), included in the Award exhibition.

Affordable Bookbinding Equipment

For years I’ve struggled with traditional tapered backing boards, never having enough hands to hold the boards and book block steady while I accurately positioned them in the backing press and tightened its screws. I recently resolved to do something about this and searched online for a set of lipped straight boards that I hoped would make aligning the boards just that much easier. After a bit of effort, I happened upon Jim Poelstra – a Californian cabinetmaker who runs Affordable Bookbinding Equipment as a sideline to his regular business as a cabinetmaker. His website is a delight. It includes short videos that demonstrate how to use his equipment and is worth visiting even if you’re not in the market for anything at the moment. I particularly liked Jim’s small plough (held in the palm of one hand) and a simple nipping press that converts to a sewing frame. I finished up ordering a set of backing boards and they arrived within a few days. Well made, good value for money and they work.