telling or creating a story .....

What is it that makes an artist's book a success?  For me there are two elements foremost on my mind when I plan a book - how I will present it visually and what story am I telling.   This is not a strict rule in my making but I do prefer to ponder these issues before I begin creating an artist's book.

As I am about to start some teaching I have been beavering away in the studio creating further examples of my artist's books to share with students.  Next week I will post on a book which was conceived with a story inbuilt, whereas this book is very much about trying to create a story from a couple of etchings that I found in my drawers and which I had never particularly liked.

There were two prints, very graphic though using one of my favourite techniques in the printmaking arsenal, sugar lift.  I love the free flowing forms you can give your work with the sugar lift process.  With these two prints I had experimented with different colour ways and obviously was not happy with them as they have been buried in a bottom drawer for years.  I decided that as they didn't work as prints, I would take them apart and create a story with them.  You can see in the photographs below that I cut them into a favourite landscape shape and then decided to use some ink solutions to change the work into something I preferred.

The problem arose when I was trying to construct some kind of storyline for my 'artist's book' and I ran into all sorts of problems as I could not find a way to present the pages in a way they came together to tell their story.  I thought I could mount them onto a Fabriano 640gsm paper and emboss around them.  Still I could find no story to tell.

I thought that I could include further mark making work in behind each image to see if I could find storyline.  No luck.

Somehow this way of presenting the work and trying to fabricate a story was never going to work so I almost gave up.

Finally, I realised that the pages only made sense when I laid them out as a landscape book - a long thin story line of marks both subtle and bold which tramped their way through my landscape story.

And so after much playing around and juggling the eternal 'I could do this' or 'I could do that' I had made a decision and went ahead and sewed my book using a grey blue thread which actually brings out some of the lovely blues still present on the pages.

I now have a seven page little landscape book, 24cms x 5cms and the truth is, I really don't think it works that well as an artist's book.  And that is how it happens sometimes - you start with no plan and really try hard to pull a story together and it just doesn't work.  Other times, especially if you begin with a story in mind before creating the artwork, you find a story line which comes together very easily and rings true.

So now I have quite a cute little book which you can hold up close and examine closely, finding all the embossed marks I created before the book was laminated and sewn and though I have accepted (or have I ....) that there is no story here to tell, I can just enjoy a wee visual adventure.

 

a map of me and my place ......

Mapping 'my place' - the image is not as yellow as this, just really aged.

I have been working really hard in the studio for the last ten or so days and am only now just starting to work out where I am heading with this very large book.  As I have been working through the planning I have come to realise that I can't divorce my emotions and myself from the land I live on - all are inextricably entwined.  From the onset this book, which will be about six metres of work, was going to be just about this beautiful block of land we live on.  As 'the story' has been evolving for me visually I realise that though the books will contain many fragments of things that have meaning to me around the land, it is starting to contain much more.

I am feeling the need to include some of the pieces missing from my life now, by including marks and images which will represent some of the major happenings in my life since moving here towards the end of April 2010. By pieces I mean incorporating work that reminds me of those recently absent from my life and also the newcomer who has fulfilled my life.  So my story about the land will now be one overlaid with a more personal story - all pretty obscure but it will all mean something to me.

Well, that is the plan .... As we know, work can have a way is leading us off in tangents.  This body of work has already taken a fairly major shift of direction.  

Below are some of the photos of false starts, which may yet lead into other images,  beginnings of ideas, the trying out of technique to make the lines I want to use and so forth.  I have found that I am needing to experiment every single step of the way as I am using layers of different papers left over from my father's architectural practice, various other transparent and fine papers and I have to work out how they all react to various techniques.

Heading for the bin - though some of the ideas I will re use.

A bundle of old, very old, tetra set from my father which will find its way into some of the work .

Blending and bleeding with conte - one of my favourite tools.

I decided my book needed some king of cohesive thread running through the pages to help tie the story together.  Hence an afternoon of printing on numerous papers.

Ideas forming.

Working out how to suggest rather than draw lines.

More possibilities I think.  For me it is like working into already messed up paper which is far less daunting that facing the big blank white.  Only I need to muss up lots of paper and create layers into which I can work and then paste them down onto the papers I am using.  Pasting has proved almost hazardous with may of the film papers and tissues.