Manly Artists Book Award 2013

Un Chartered Democracy, one of my books for BookArtObject in 2012, has been selected for the Manly Artists Book Award and will be on display at the Manly Library from 18-28 March 2013.
The judges of the award this year are Noreen Grahame and Monica Oppen.

Zine give-away

It's taken longer than I thought it would, but I've finally made the companion zine to my first zine Guess who's coming to dinner?  That zine was recently purchased by Melbourne University Special Collections. Some of you may have noticed that it contained male artists only.

The new zine Guess who's not cooking dinner? involves guessing the female artists included at the dinner table.

If you'd like a copy of this zine you can email your postal address to me through the Contacts section of my website.   There are still copies of the first zine available too if anyone wants one.

The Square and Semicircle Book

A Book is like a Garden in the Pocket (1997), like the box, was made by adapting the same Japanese card structure.  I wanted to reflect geometrical parterre gardens, also a product of  ideas and ingenuity, so it was appropriate to use the square and semicircle pattern as a starting point.

Back then I was very keen to use the materials of illuminated manuscripts, and in this case I used calfskin vellum for the 'pages' and made the drawings with a dip pen and gouache.

My starting point was again the same square and circle pattern.  

I cut two squares and three semi circles out of book board.  

The vellum pages were cut slightly smaller and the spine piece in my case was about 1 cm thick. 

Because of the thickness of the book board when the three semicircles are folded on top of one another, you need to leave a gap between the square and semicircle pieces before assembling the structure, so it sits well when the semicircular pieces are folded in.

I first glued the vellum spine along its edges to the outer side of both squares.

The joins and edges were all covered in Japanese paper and the vellum pages containing the drawings

were glued onto the book in the appropriate places. 

I do a lot of work with circles and use a compass cutter which can cut circles up to 15 cm. in diameter but I also sometimes just use my favourite tool, my Fiskars scissors.

Square or Circular Book Box

The book box above was adapted from a Japanese card structure that I first saw in an old book I have called Creative Cards by Yoshiko Kitagawa, Kodansha International 1987.  The book and box above were also made a long time ago in 1997.

I used the card structure for my 2012 Christmas card and I will show how I adapted it into a book box.  The pattern for the card is based on a square with semicircular flaps.

The flaps are folded over consecutively and when you fold the last one you need to tuck it in under the first one and it looks like this.

The finished book box will also look like that. 

 I added the width of the book's spine to the pattern to create a box structure.

1.  The inner square should be the measurement of the book plus 4 mm.

2.  The width of the book's spine is added to create an outer square.

3.  A semi-circle is then added to each side and its diameter is the same length as the side of the inner square.

4.  The little squares on each corner are used as tabs.  You cut through the outer square on one side of the tab, and fold it on the other side and glue it to the wall of the adjacent side to form the sides of the box.  

5.  The semicircular flaps will then fold in as they did with the card and it will  have the same appearance except that it has depth rather than being flat.

(Thanks Di for inspiring me to write this post.)

True Grit

I've finally wound up the last of my projects for 2012 and have completed my final book for BookArtObject titled True Grit just before Christmas.  I posted the books out to members of Group 11 on the 2nd January.

The book is made up of digital prints of five linocuts with collage mounted in 3D into Canson card and shows a small fishing boat battling huge seas, a text page and a colophon.

I decided to ignore the most obvious connections to the title True Grit.  I thought the most fitting example of unfaltering courage and true grit are the asylum seekers who flee their homeland for Australia by undertaking risky journeys with people smugglers in a desperate attempt to find peace and freedom from persecution.

It's that time of year

 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

 



Unchartered Democracy

 

Un Chartered Democracy is my second Book Art Object book using title #56 of 100 stories in Sarah Bodman's book An Exercise for Kurt Johanessen (with her permission).

 

This book takes the idea of a charter as an official written document of Government as well as a contract executed between two parties - the US Government and soldiers serving on its behalf.  A small number of US soldiers in Afghanistan have committed atrocities whilst serving their country and its promotion of democracy.  Their actions were disrespectful, unethical, unacceptable, unauthorized, unchartered.

 

 

I intended to make a thought-provoking book about the insanity of war and needless killing, the effects on young soldiers working in intolerable and stressful circumstances, and how these situations create an environment where codes of conduct are broken, and to also reflect on the innocent citizens caught up in the mess.

 

 

I used the Turkish Map Fold structure to suggest a map location in the Middle East along with Islamic patterns in soft pink on the back of the pages.

 

The music pattern of a pianola roll containing words from Stars and Stripes Forever was printed onto the pages.

 



 

The drawings depict some of the atrocities committed by a few US soldiers in Afghanistan and parts of the drawings have been hand coloured with watercolour pencil.

 

 

I have been reminded with this book that although the artist creates a book constructing meaning by reflecting their own thoughts, opinions and feelings, once it arrives in the hand of the viewer, the whole thing is recontextualised by the opinions, beliefs and knowledge each viewer brings to their reading of the book.  I would like to thank the BAO members who have received the book and written eloquent and thoughtful responses.