Feeds from Artists Book Sites

Contributing to the ‘World Rivers’ Project

Among those contemporary artists, whose work I deeply admire and respect, is Lee Tracy. Her beautiful art goes beyond the visual and artistically meaningful, it reaches out to make a difference. I have been aware of Lee’s World Rivers Project for a long while, so after settling back to the UK over the past year, I felt it was my time to take part in her project by dipping a white cloth in our nearby River Cam.

The concept of various people around the globe dipping their individual white cloths into a myriad of rivers, and those cloths to be eventually joined as one large river curtain, is vastly symbolic. It resonates with me as an act of caring for our Gaia and creating unity amongst its people. I wanted to respond to that symbolism in some way with my contribution. Each of the contributed cloths will have their own personal story, some have been large community projects, some more private, but all flowing in from their various origins to unite together as one harmonious stream.

I chose a piece of white raw silk. It is in fact, the only white fabric I have in my art studio, but it fitted perfectly for my purpose. It is white raw silk that I bought a lot of while living in Dubai. I now use it often for book projects, especially wedding related ones. I adore this particular white raw silk. My own wedding dress was made of the same fabric. It’s wonderfully versatile too, works even as rather stylish living room curtains! And because I found it so difficult to adjust back to the British weather after the Middle Eastern sunshine, it seemed perfect to introduce the wintery British river to this sunny white cloth that came with me from Dubai. Since me and our daughter have been missing the sand dunes most, I thought it would be lovely to take her along to dip the white cloth with me. I also wanted to wait for one specific day for this special ritual… our one year ‘anniversary’ of leaving the desert sun behind. Maybe it is time to finally accept the grey, dreary chill of the north.

The most natural spot for the dipping was where we cross the River Cam every day. The day was suitably grey, with no sun in sight, but it also was incredibly windy which made everything somewhat more problematic. It was necessary to tie a long string to the corner of the cloth so we could keep hold of it. The white cloth did not want to co-operate in the strong gusts, and the drop from the river bank to the surface of the water was a couple of feet. Maybe the silk didn’t want to swim in the chilly dark river either, certainly looked like it. I never managed to get the cloth to spread open on the river’s surface, instead it curled and folded in protest, didn’t want to fly nor float. Rather it seemed to want to escape.

In the end, the piece of white raw silk from Dubai took two plunges in the chilly River Cam. First time around it curled into what I thought looked like a shape of a boat, maybe hoping for  a chance to sail away… And on the second swim, it had seemingly settled into its folded-in-the-wind fate, shivering amongst the swans who had rushed over from the other side of the river hoping there would be some food involved.

And as I write this, the piece of white raw silk is on its way to Lee Tracy, taking its sunny and chilly stories along, to be whispered amongst the group of all the other white cloths that will be flowing together as one very soon.

As the waters of the world continue to suffer, it is crucial to have those, like Lee Tracy, who work to raise awareness of these environmental issues that impact so many around the globe. I’m honoured to have been part of this worthwhile project.

Posted on 2 December 2011

Bookart Competition December 2011

Posted on 23 August 2011

The Library of Lost Books - Call for Artists/Printmakers

The Library of Lost Books - Call for Artists/Printmakers

The Library of Lost Books is an ongoing project to rescue old, discarded and damaged books, donated by the Library of Birmingham (UK) , and to re-work them, breathing new life into them through the interactions and interventions of

contemporary artists and printmakers. As many of the books date from the mid to late 1800s it is an opportunity for artists to work with books, manuscripts, papers, typefaces and…

Posted on 10 December 2011

Type Sampler

Inspired by type samplers I’ve seen over the years, I decided to create one for my collection.

Open publication - Free publishing - More fonts

If your browser won’t load the image, click here to be taken to the digital file.

The hard copy is 240 x 92mm, printed on two weights of Kraft paper and hand-sewn in a horizontal format. If you would like to purchase a copy, wave your mouse over the top of this page to find the red drop-down Duckshop link. Or contact me directly.

For images of the production, have a look at my letterpress flickr set. For the story of its production, click here.

Posted on 28 January 2012

Edrem

Edrem, (merde backwards), is a collaborative sketchblog from three French/Belgian  designer-illustrators: Sébastien Paquereau, David Zazurca, and Steven Burke. The concept of the  project, as
Read the Rest...

Posted on 4 February 2012

A start?!

Got my LIFE winter issue last week – enjoyed my see my banner design – on print. Now I consider if I should make some DIY banner kits – for sale? A small line of kits complete with instructions, ready cut flags, paperscrap, a little embellishment, string etc. Everything included – except gluestick and paint [...]

Posted on 16 January 2012

‘if it’s between death and magic’ by ryan mcgennisken

‘if it’s between death and magic’ by Ryan McGennisken 11 Feb - 24 Feb Rambler Collective Presents Ryan McGennisken’s debut solo exhibition “if it’s between death and magic”. As a child, Ryan was dragged by his parents, all over the country on camping trips, spending wee…ks at a time on the beach, living from fire cooked meals, fishing [...]

Posted on 26 January 2012

Second Encyclopedia of Tlön

One of my knowledgeable readers (Jack Ginsburg) has alerted me to the fact that Joshua Heller has a wonderful interactive web site about the Second Encyclopedia of Tlön (see my last post).  It comes up automatically when you go to the Joshua Heller Rare Books web site.  Once the page that shows the full encyclopedia has loaded, click on  ‘The Books’ link that is in the black banner.  The set of volumes will suddenly appear in a fanned-out line and if you mouse over one of the volumes it begins to pull out from the ‘shelf’ at which point you can click on it to bring it forward.  Clicking again will open up a window with a description and several page spreads from that volume (use the “Instructions” link to find out more on how to navigate).  The pages shown on Heller’s site are often different from those on the Encyclopedia’s own site (accessible by clicking the images in my last post) so between the two, you can get a nice sense of the contents.

The more I explore the opus, the more I realize how much it is not just a conceptual and visual encyclopedia, but also an encyclopedic experiment in all sorts of different image-making techniques.  Printing on everything from creamy handmade paper to phone book pages, using everything from offset printing to wood-type letterpress, the books use overprinting, negative image printing, collage, digital image manipulation, text-as-image, and more to create the wide-ranging stylistic interpretations that makes up the Encyclopedia.

Post from: The Sign of the Owl

Second Encyclopedia of Tlön

Posted on 24 July 2009