All in artist books
There are so many things you could make, it can be hard to know where to start. I’ve been making blank notebooks using up old prints that I folded to become the little book covers. Creating these notebooks has put me back into ‘maker mode’. What will go inside them? The possibilities are endless.
Self publishing is a fantastic way to create a printed catalogue of your art project. The images in a book retain the essence of place, the sounds heard and smells experienced there as well as a document of art created ‘on site’. Books can become ambassadors of your work, able to travel and represent you when you can’t be there yourself.
Creating sculptural book structures was a challenge I set myself this weekend. I have been influenced by observing the new and proposed housing developments in the city and how to portray the tension between housing and green spaces.
Creating collages, every day for more than years has given me a creative practice, a visual diary and ways to work through some of my ideas on a small scale. Now some of these collages are featured in a new book Collage Your Life by USA artist /author Melanie Mowinski.
Being gifted Gaelic titles for some of my artworks while in Scotland has given me the key to a map of landscape. My accordion fold artist book Pilgrim Stranger with its Gaelic name Coigrich Taistealach has unlocked this landscape as a place of mystery which I have entered as a pilgrim.
Repurposing your old artworks releases the energy stored in your materials. When you are deep in your creative flow, the impulse that brought you to create at that time is captured in the materials. Like stones, they hold energetic vibrations of your thoughts and emotions which can be tapped into to tell a new story.
A little bit wonky is a good thing in art, it frees you from perfectionism. When it comes to repurposing old artworks, the courage it takes to tear up or paint over the old, is worth it. Old and boring transforms into wild, wonky and unique.
When you are at home is self-isolation, how do you mark time? In the Middle Ages the marking of time was both cosmological and seasonal. Can we turn crisis into opportunity and document our days with creative activity?
Occupy is a powerful word. Ten years ago it was a rallying call for people in over 900 cities worldwide to protest against wealth inequality. Occupy is also the title of my forthcoming joint art exhibition and art workshops in Murwillumbah in August. Both are narratives of human habitation and occupation.
There’s so much been written about love in poems, songs, letters and books. Classic romances and cheap romantic paperbacks, they all have a place in fiction. And why not? It’s a day for silly love songs and picking flowers.
