Thursday, December 03, 2009
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Exhibition opportunity!
Abecedarian Gallery is hosting a juried exhibition of altered bookworks. There is a reduced entry fee student category and awards in that category. Your assistance distributing information about the opportunity is appreciated. Prospectus is available by visiting www.abecedariangallery.com, click on opportunities for artists link.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tarabeans Blog…form AND content
Since Tara posted about her altered book after last weeks crit…and I have been thinking about the physical/digital assignment (book of scans/transformations/autobiographical/20 pager) OMG is that part of the confusion???? How many ways have we referred to this project? Anyways….I decided to post about what she had written.
One of my favorite blogs ever is the CONVIVIO BOOKWORKS blog. I love these guys, the work they make (so unlike mine, but so attentive to details and so crisp and clean in its letterpress work.) I love the letters they send out every once in awhile….just talking about what they are doing and why – and telling stories about their lives and work. I have never met them, but they have answered every email I have ever sent them, quickly – and as if I am a long lost friend that they have just been waiting to hear from. This is from an email I saved – because I love the phrase in bold -
This is a link to their latest project it…
http://www.conviviobookworks.com/pages/Works%20on%20Paper.html
This (in a very round about way) does bring me back to Tara’s blog and to Keith Smith.
Tara’s blog reflects her interests re: ideas and text. Even in her blog itself – there are not a lot of images …. and this is not a criticism …. because there are alot of ideas and thinking going on. She is honest – very honest. And she isn’t afraid to put herself out there and get messy with her thinking. I love this. It is where some hard work gets done and where some discoveries get made.
Text has played a major role in each of her projects this semester…the two she has finished as well as the one she is working on now. I have encouraged her to go back and read what Smith has to say about text – and I am going to share some of his thinking (and my own) here.
Smith outlines the ELEMENTS of the book….
the binding (the binding determines the type of book)
the pages
text and/or pictures
turning pages
display
He continues, “Like the formal elements within the single picture, the elements of the book function work in union to create the book. Each element must be conceived as part of and helps determine the other elements.
Picture, and/or text must be incorporated into the pages. If a writer hands material to a publisher, it is merely stuck into pages as convenient packaging.
Words should not be housed, but revealed by the (book) format.”
Let’s look at it another way as well….a book houses content…but in the genre of bookart – the book becomes the content as well. (not just the packaging).
Thomas McEvilley – in a riff on Wallace Steven’s 13 Ways of Looking at A Blackbird, wrote about 13 ways that we determine content in looking at art work. Very applicable to looking at our books – and in thinking about the elements of these final projects. The ( ) are my questions/comments to you.
1. Content that arises from the aspect of the artwork that is understood as representational. (DO we see nature based on how we have seen it represented in art?)
2. Content arising from verbal supplements supplied by the artist. (Title, what the artist says/writes)
3. Content arising from the genre or medium of the artwork. (How do we come to a painting vs. a book? How is a digital book different than a physical book – aside from the obvious?)
4. Content arising from the material of which the artwork is made. (When, for example, a jeweler works in some other medium than gold, because gold mining is damaging to the environment and does not return profits to the miners themselves.)
5. Content arising from the scale of the artwork. (Especially relevant for land art, earthworks. What about works at the nanoscale?)
6. Content arising from the temporal duration of the artwork. (Virtual work, Film, video, performance, music?)
7. Content arising from the context of the work. (Such as site specific work)
8. Content arising from the work’s relationship with art history. (A piece that specifically references something that came before it. Altered books in some cases – look at Smith’s examples of altered books made using Jansen’s History of Art.)
9. Content that accrues to the work as it progressively reveals its destiny through persisting in time. (Duchamp added content to the Mona Lisa – altered books, again)
10. Content arising from participation in a specific iconographic tradition. (Certain colors or forms, or even subjects, have a particular meaning (very similar to context)
11. Content arising directly from the formal properties of the work. (A Pollock drip painting asserts flux and indefiniteness of identity as qualities that can be found in the world.. Sherman photographs for a certain period formally reference 50′s film stills)
12. Content arising from attitudinal gestures (wit, irony, parody, and so on) that may appear as qualifiers of any of the categories already mentioned. (for eg., Natural Born Killers, which tells the story of a pair of mass murderers while parodying various media forms like TV sitcoms…)
13. Content rooted in biological or physiological responses, or in cognitive awareness of them. (Sexual arousal, disgust, visual responses like persistence of vision (when you stare at an image composed of complements and then look at a white wall and still see it, but with colors reversed) op art)
One of my favorite blogs ever is the CONVIVIO BOOKWORKS blog. I love these guys, the work they make (so unlike mine, but so attentive to details and so crisp and clean in its letterpress work.) I love the letters they send out every once in awhile….just talking about what they are doing and why – and telling stories about their lives and work. I have never met them, but they have answered every email I have ever sent them, quickly – and as if I am a long lost friend that they have just been waiting to hear from. This is from an email I saved – because I love the phrase in bold -
We also just got a fresh supply of Shaker Herbs in for the Convivio Book of Days Catalog… The house smells just like the Herb House at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community in Maine. Smell, great portal to memory.
This is a link to their latest project it…
http://www.conviviobookworks.com/pages/Works%20on%20Paper.html
This (in a very round about way) does bring me back to Tara’s blog and to Keith Smith.
Tara’s blog reflects her interests re: ideas and text. Even in her blog itself – there are not a lot of images …. and this is not a criticism …. because there are alot of ideas and thinking going on. She is honest – very honest. And she isn’t afraid to put herself out there and get messy with her thinking. I love this. It is where some hard work gets done and where some discoveries get made.
Text has played a major role in each of her projects this semester…the two she has finished as well as the one she is working on now. I have encouraged her to go back and read what Smith has to say about text – and I am going to share some of his thinking (and my own) here.
Smith outlines the ELEMENTS of the book….
the binding (the binding determines the type of book)
the pages
text and/or pictures
turning pages
display
He continues, “Like the formal elements within the single picture, the elements of the book function work in union to create the book. Each element must be conceived as part of and helps determine the other elements.
Picture, and/or text must be incorporated into the pages. If a writer hands material to a publisher, it is merely stuck into pages as convenient packaging.
Words should not be housed, but revealed by the (book) format.”
Let’s look at it another way as well….a book houses content…but in the genre of bookart – the book becomes the content as well. (not just the packaging).
Thomas McEvilley – in a riff on Wallace Steven’s 13 Ways of Looking at A Blackbird, wrote about 13 ways that we determine content in looking at art work. Very applicable to looking at our books – and in thinking about the elements of these final projects. The ( ) are my questions/comments to you.
1. Content that arises from the aspect of the artwork that is understood as representational. (DO we see nature based on how we have seen it represented in art?)
2. Content arising from verbal supplements supplied by the artist. (Title, what the artist says/writes)
3. Content arising from the genre or medium of the artwork. (How do we come to a painting vs. a book? How is a digital book different than a physical book – aside from the obvious?)
4. Content arising from the material of which the artwork is made. (When, for example, a jeweler works in some other medium than gold, because gold mining is damaging to the environment and does not return profits to the miners themselves.)
5. Content arising from the scale of the artwork. (Especially relevant for land art, earthworks. What about works at the nanoscale?)
6. Content arising from the temporal duration of the artwork. (Virtual work, Film, video, performance, music?)
7. Content arising from the context of the work. (Such as site specific work)
8. Content arising from the work’s relationship with art history. (A piece that specifically references something that came before it. Altered books in some cases – look at Smith’s examples of altered books made using Jansen’s History of Art.)
9. Content that accrues to the work as it progressively reveals its destiny through persisting in time. (Duchamp added content to the Mona Lisa – altered books, again)
10. Content arising from participation in a specific iconographic tradition. (Certain colors or forms, or even subjects, have a particular meaning (very similar to context)
11. Content arising directly from the formal properties of the work. (A Pollock drip painting asserts flux and indefiniteness of identity as qualities that can be found in the world.. Sherman photographs for a certain period formally reference 50′s film stills)
12. Content arising from attitudinal gestures (wit, irony, parody, and so on) that may appear as qualifiers of any of the categories already mentioned. (for eg., Natural Born Killers, which tells the story of a pair of mass murderers while parodying various media forms like TV sitcoms…)
13. Content rooted in biological or physiological responses, or in cognitive awareness of them. (Sexual arousal, disgust, visual responses like persistence of vision (when you stare at an image composed of complements and then look at a white wall and still see it, but with colors reversed) op art)
Friday, October 16, 2009
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Creative Commons
What do you know about CC? You should be thinking about this as you put your own images out on the web…or utilize the images of others
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
circle press
Ronald King
Artist edition
London, 2008
This powerful sequence of 14 poems is the result of a unique collaboration between writer George Szertis and artist Ronald King.
Its genesis was King’s long fascination with Elias Canetti’s'Auto da Fe', the famously grotesque yet marvelous novel set in pre-war Vienna which contributed to Canetti winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981. To accompany his illustrations, King commissioned Szirtes to write a text inspired by and related to Canetti’s great work.
In 2008 the book was published in a limited edition of 35 copies letter-pressed in Walbaum onto 240 lb Barcham Green mouldmade paper with 15 etchings, one double-spread, thirteen full-page and one half-page; a total of 18 unstitched sections 350 x 260 mm, enclosed in a uniquely collaged card wrap-around and placed in a cloth-bound solander box.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
RISORGIMENTO!!!
Alright - yes - I know....I have been a lousy blogger of late. This will stop here and now - as I will begin blogging regularly with the students who are taking bookarts this semester at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. Maybe some former students will chime in as well (yes, I know you are out there!!)
First step...get these blogs up and running. Would you like to check out what we are looking at, learning about, DOING???? Go to my netvibes site - and there you can find all the resources that we are using. Feel free to send us suggestions -- we are building as we go along.
This is the public component of our work. We will also be utilizing a course moodle for some of the work that we are doing.
I'm happy to answer any questions - always.
First step...get these blogs up and running. Would you like to check out what we are looking at, learning about, DOING???? Go to my netvibes site - and there you can find all the resources that we are using. Feel free to send us suggestions -- we are building as we go along.
This is the public component of our work. We will also be utilizing a course moodle for some of the work that we are doing.
I'm happy to answer any questions - always.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
Joe.....
Yeah I know you missed me...and I know this look is as close as you can get to telling me. Nice guy. Really cool guy.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Lyon - last night
My last night in Lyon was so beautiful and so hard. The city is wonderful. Something to feast your eyes on in every corner of it. A wonderful combination of old, new, color, shape, texture.....
I have a lot of images to put up and talk about in the next few weeks. BUT....this was the last night - the moon was reflecting over the Rhone - with all of the illuminated buildings as well.
And I was sad to be leaving. So sad. Incredibly sad. But today I think - hmmm....I will be going back, I know. The moon, the rivers, the city, the friends....they will all be there when I come back.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
~ Mary Oliver ~
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
~ Mary Oliver ~
An image of the ceiling of the Basilica of Fourviere in Lyon. Neobyzantine guilding ALL over the inside of it. On top of a hill - it gives you a view of the city and surrounding areas that is like no other. I have a little video of that - and will get it up here as soon as I can.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Lyon at Night.
This is what we do..... (well, what the American tourist does...these two do go to work, so I don't have a clue how they do it - but they do it with very little sleep). Meet in the early evening - talk, coffee, wine. Lots of laughing, trying to teach the American how to say things in French (pointless)...then a late dinner. If the weather is nice (not pouring rain - although Virg seems to think that anything that is not HOT and SUNNY is pointless) we go for a walk. Did I mention that by this time it is well after midnight?
Lyon is....magical. In a totally different way from Paris. It is calm. It has a presence - a mystical presence that I need to learn more about. It is the history, the coming together of so many things in its past. But you do feel it....walking on the silent streets at night. Looking in shop windows, moving quietly through the square, talking softly - laughing....lots of that.
I am so thrilled to be here with these two good friends. We already know each other in many ways....and so when I see something moving and burst into tears (I can hear those of you who know me laughing....) - they aren't bothered - they just wait for me to contain myself and we move on. More soon.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
It is always better when you have a friend to point out things that you wouldn't see otherwise, take you to places that are more fun with someone else....or just point out when you are about to make a raging cultural blunder.....(who knew that you would never give peonies as a gift to a French person because that is a flower that goes on a gravesite?).Spent the day being tourists....walking around icons and small streets...drinking and laughing with Virgil and his friends. We are about to head for the train station for our trip to Lyon. I hate to leave Paris....it is truly one of the most intriguing places I have ever been.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Paris seems to hold unlimited beauty. Now that I have found my bearings and have an adventure on the metro everyday, I can see the scope of the history and diversity within the city. Yesterday I bought a bunch of peonies at a "magnifique" shop that was a work of art in and of itself - near the Ecole des Beux Arts.... I was missing my garden, and walking by the school - seeing students inside the gates - carving and drawing - just heightened the feeling.The candles were burning in St. Germain des Pres. I find myself going into everyone of these cathedrals....they are incredible. They are also cool (it has been hot and muggy) and a quiet place to take out the map and figure out where I am. This particular one is / was connected to a once enormous Benedictine monastery. It has the tomb of Rene Descartes. These candles, always lit, are very very moving to me.
At the end of the day - I am back to my neighborhood...I climb the streets up and up and then the large stone staircase to my apartment building. At the bottom of the hill, the neighborhood is full of African immigrants...the hair shops and textiles and smells of food cooking are wonderful. Everyone out on the streets...everything is a feast for the eyes.
Monday, June 09, 2008
The switch from the west coast...to Paris
It took me a while to realize that part of what I was experiencing were not only the differences between Paris and County Clare. It was the difference between a quiet rural village - with the sound of the sea and the presence of the clouds over the limestone hills - and a HUGE urban area full of people and tourists...where I am on my own for now and don't speak the language.Most of the things that have happened to me have been comical. Like the ride from the airport - that involved a forty minute traffic jam. No lanes of traffic (that I could see) ....we just forgo those...and everyone laying on the horn and screaming at one another. Did I mention my taxi driver wore a suit (very stunning) but we were unable to speak to each other - even a word. I handed him my map and he delivered me to...well...it was the top of a hill....but the bottom of a very large, very old, pedestrian stone staircase. Me and my 700 pound suitcase. Ahhhh, but that, is another story. Au revoir.
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In making this book I struggled with paper weight and paper color. I am not a fan of yellowish looking papers which was the choice for the first book, so i chose a whiter paper. This paper was a heavier weight and in turn created some issues with the smaller books fitting in the case. The content in the book is somewhat mysterious and isn’t very literal but follows along with common numerology symbols that have been used for the numbers 1-4 over the centuries. I really did enjoy making the content for this book, it was probably my favorite part.