A Unique Piece of Leather

It has been very quiet here as I have been occupied by other things, however I hope to be working and posting regularly about my books again.

I made a small book a few months ago called Makes No Sense about World War 1.  It proved to be popular and the edition of 20 have all gone.  As the topic of war seems to be one of my favourite subjects, I decided to make a unique copy for myself.

I sewed the book together in sections and put a black leather spine on it.  I wondered what to do with the cover and remembered I had a great piece of leather stashed away that I had bought as a dud  faulty piece because the black dye had not penetrated fully and had left a kind of tie-dye mark in one or two areas of the skin.  I thought it looked great and decided to use it for the covers of this book.

The front cover (above) also had two holes in the leather which I filled with
red acrylic paint.

Below is a view of the pattern on the back cover.

The final view shows the completed book covers.

Troops Depart for War

It seems I'm still not ready to be finished with commenting on World War I.  

It came to my attention recently that the letters DIE are part of the word 'SOLDIER'.

I've made a few books about the unbelievable loss of life by soldiers serving in WW1 and I couldn't resist making a little zine using this.

I printed an A4 Kraft paper page with the word Soldier in murky green and highlighted the letters DIE in black.  I placed the words in columns like a battalion marching off to war.

The page was then folded and placed into a Kraft card cover onto which I 

glued an image of a WWI commemorative stamp which carries the words 'Troops Depart'.

I'd be delighted to send one to anyone who sends me their postal address.  You can contact me by email through my website. 

A Great Book Weekend at SLQ

A highly anticipated artists book event on the calendar is the yearly event at SLQ sponsored by the Siganto Foundation, and this year's event was better than ever.   This year introduced us to Amir Brito Cador and his presentation on other Brazilian book artists which was a real treat and quite inspiring.  It also introduced us to performances of artists books, and we heard about the projects of newly completed and current SLQ Fellows. It was a really great day and I was obviously so absorbed I didn't think to take even one photo!

The Artists Book Fair held on the Sunday was also hugely enjoyable and successful.  I loved seeing other people's books and sharing a table with my friend and collaborator Jack Oudyn.  We had a range of our own books, some collaborative books and Jack had lots of zines.  Once again I had such a great time mixing with people and talking about books that I didn't think to even take 

a photo of our table.

Thank goodness for Doug Spowart who did take lots of photos and he and Vicki Cooper have written up a well illustrated account of the two day event on their blog here.

There is also an aptly titled blog post (Artists Books Extravaganza) on the 

SLQ Australian Library of Art blog here.   

How fortunate we are to have the State Library of Queensland and it's support from the Siganto Foundation, and we hope these Siganto events and the associated Artists Book Fair will continue.

I had made a little booklet/zine for the day titled Makes no Sense.  I had received a pile of cards from the exhibition of my book Back to the Front in France.  The card had the photo positioned very low down with a huge white area above.  My friend Jack immediately folded it and the image appropriately went to the back, so I used the cards as covers to make 20.  I had enough cards to paint ink onto the glossy surface of others and scratch into it with an etching needle 

to make some of the pages. 

Of course it's about WWI hence the title, and some of the pages are placed upside down or sideways.

Photos of the first few pages below.  

Anzac Day 2015

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to participate once again this year in the exhibition
 Delires de Livres in Chartres in France.
The theme for the 2015 exhibition was 'How about we go........' and I chose to send a copy of my book Back to the Front, which fitted the theme perfectly -
How about we go back in time to the Western Front.

By chance, this exhibition in France is opening tomorrow on our Anzac Day.  Although probably meaningless for many of the French (though certainly not those wonderful people in Villers-Bretonneux who observe and commemorate our Anzac Day every year after the liberation of their town by the Australians on 25th April 1918), it could not have been more appropriate for me.
The exhibition will continue from 25th April to 17th May.

The exhibition venue is the beautiful old Collegiale Saint Andre in Chartres, not far from the magnificent Chartres Cathedral.

I was interviewed recently for a video about Anzac Day on the occasion of the opening
of the Of War and Peace Exhibition at the Caloundra Regional Gallery,
along with the other three participating book artists Fiona Dempster, Barry Smith and Susan Bowers. 
This video was shot by Ellen Ebsary and she has edited it into a beautiful 3 minute film and posted it  onto the ABC Open website.
You can see it here

Pieces for Peace 14 - 18

Pieces for Peace 14 - 18 is an exhibition which will be held in Ypres, Belgium later in the year to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I.  Calligraphy and Books, both traditional and contemporary will be shown, and the measurements for all work has been set symbolically at 14 x 18 cm.

There will be a little group of books from Queensland, as Susan, Fiona and Barry have made books which you can see on their blogs.  The sections offered to binders contained war poems in different languages.  I wanted to make my book uniquely Australian and decided to make a standard codex containing quotes from war diaries and excerpts of poetry written by the men who were there serving in the AIF in France and Belgium, and who were writing about the horrible and shocking realities of what they were seeing and experiencing.  I will probably make a different version with the material as a more visual artists book at a later date.  

I've already made two other books in the past specifically about the first World War - Was it Needless Death (1993) and Red Lips are not so Red (2007).  Like the other two this one addresses the horrors of that war, and I used the Latin saying - Si vis pacem, para bellum  (Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De Re Militari) which means If you seek peace, prepare for war as  my starting point and the theme for the book.  It is a very painful thing to accept that so many of our men died whilst fighting there, far from their homeland, so peace could be achieved.

.

The text appears on a full page with preceding smaller page which shows an illustration and allows the viewer to read a few key words of the text that follows.

I have visited the battlefields of France and Belgium a few times to see the sites of the battles that members of my family fought in - Mouquet Farm, Messines Ridge, Villers Bretonneux, Menin Road and Passchendaele, so I was able to use my photos in the book. The colour and light of the photos were manipulated to a dark, brown, unreal and deathly landscape to which I have added drawings of white crosses as symbols of those killed - the beautiful European landscape I photographed is once again transformed into a battlefield/graveyard. The khaki/brown colour of the pages gives the book the muddy look of the battlefields and trenches.

The book is about the price that had to be paid for peace.

I used some words of Edward (Vance) Palmer, 14th Battalion AIF, to address the effects on the returned soldiers who were expected to get over it and return to normal life in days long before there was any understanding about post-traumatic stress.

The pages are bound in a French Simplified Binding with a leather spine and onlaid leather on the cover.  I have tooled white foil crosses onto the leather 'landscape' turning it into a graveyard.