Artists Books talks part 2

The second talk I went to as part of Pushing Print was The Art of the Book by  Ciara Healey.

Ciara and I recognised each other from a book event but couldn't place which one. Ciara had a selection of artists books for us to look at as well. I was very much enjoying getting to handle books at these talks.

As a type of art object, artists books need to be seen and handled to really appreciate their construction as well as design and content.
Book arts bypass the constraints of the gallery Ciara said and have and are a valuable vehicle for the dissemination of ideas, including the radical and revolutionary. She gave a brief overview of the artist book, from Dada and Duchamp to Fluxus, Yoko Ono, Ed Ruscha and Sol De Witt. One of the books Ciara mentioned, Yoko Ono's Grapefruit has been republished link here

Ciara then introduced to some contemporary book artists some of whom I followed up, including Barbara Barnes Allen who produces large concertina books that can fill a gallery. Her work uses found objects from where ever she is combined on collaged pages. the everyday is the subject.

Image from Fiber Artist Journey 

Barbara writes on the book arts website  
"My closing thought on these books I borrow from Baudelaire. I paraphrase, but he essentially said that the job of the artist is to distill the ephemeral to the eternal. And so, one of the ways we can demonstrate this concept is by using the most ordinary of things around us to produce art that is of this time and only this time. It can be difficult creating art from ordinary things, but to me, within that concept lays the challenge and the answer. Our everyday defines us, the time we live in and what we observe along the way."

Another book artist Ciara spoke about was Steve Mcpherson   website here
whose works have been installations. In Drift ll  he was inspired by the sea Ciara said, collecting books that were to do with the bottom of the sea and layering them first over the gallery floor. He then layered books to do with the inside of the sea, including fish and sea creatures and finally the top layer was composed of books that dealt with the surface of the sea including ships.
Visitors to the gallery could take off their shoes and walk across the surface of the sea.

Ciara's talk was really inspiring and gave me a lot of food for thought on ways to work with books. Her enthusiasm for artists books of all forms was catching and I've found myself  following up more artists from her talk  If you want to know a bit more about Ciara and her work her own website is  here

Beach Cross racing on Margate main sands.

There are two Beach Cross racing competitions held in Margate each year which draw crowds to watch the quad and motorbikes. The second competition was last weekend and you could hear the roar of the bikes from our house.

I enjoy watching the races, the bikes churning up the sand, (this time because of the wind, quite a lot of sand was blowing across to the spectators) and the jumps they make from the sandunes. As the bikes go round the course you get views of bikes at various stages of the race.

Bikes can get stuck in the sand and you can see how much work it must take to physically race on the beach.  It is an international event and riders do come from Europe to take part.
I couldn't find a programme at this event so can't identify the riders unfortunately.

At the pit stop bikes and bikers make a colourful scene and around the beach there are various stands and stalls.
 The website for the Beach Cross event is here

Artist Books part 1 talk by Angie Butler, part of Pushing Print

Angie Butler in Droit House.

I was able to go to a series of very good talks about artists books held in Droit House and part of the Pushing print festival in Margate.

Angie Butler gave the first talk I went to and she spoke about a wide range of artists producing books often in collaboration with others and had a great selection of artists books for us to handle and illustrate her talk.
Angie talked about John Bentley and the Liver and Lights Scriptorium, website here.
I enjoyed hearing about his project  Liver & Lights No 43. The People.

John Bentley's cards from The People.

  
Where  John made work, portraits of people who had shared his life in someway and people for whom he could recall an anecdote. Inspired by pre-war cigarette cards he produced a set of collectible cards.
Angie had a set of his cards that we could handle and I followed up by looking at his work on the Liver&Lights website.

Book by Andi Mc Garry.

Another artist I followed up after Angie talked about his work  was Andi McGarry and the Sun, Moon and Stars press. Andi hand paints his books and they retain a very free expressive and colourful sense . He and John Bentley made a video together talking about each other and their work.  Video here

Angie also talked a bit about some of her own projects including Your Place/My Place, with Philippa Wood

 A project where she exchanged pictures, info and text about her home with Philippa Wood.
This lead to a book being produced and blogs about the project.

From her blog site Angie writes that the project  is "An online 'tour' of our own houses, and an accompanying artist's book that focuses on an intimate selection of the tour. We hope that by acknowledging the past, discussing the present and investing in the future we not only develop our own relationship, but aim to raise an awareness of how we are connected to the places where we live, and to understand the psychology that underpins our furnishings, decor and household adornments. Our conversations are shown in the comments boxes."    Blog here 

Well worth looking at.

Another of Angie's projects I really enjoyed hearing about was her "Another Old Lady".

This project lead to a book that celebrated Angie's love of typography and letterpress. I loved the inventiveness of her fish and chip inspired book.

Angie writes in her blog

" As we have all been working with given titles from Sarah Bodman's artists book, "An Exercise for Kurt Johannessen', I wanted to uphold the admiration for another's work, and I remembered a text from Andrew Wilson's book, Text Messages', a book of 100 text message poems, No.88 Old Lady Eating A Fish"

Angie's blog about this project is here  

I came away reinspired to engage with some of my own artists books left unfinished and with some new ideas.



 

Pushing Print in Margate

 

The annual Pushing Print Festival started Friday night with several galleries in Margate holding exhibitions. Pushing Print website here  The Pie Factory Gallery held a private view showing a wide range of entrants to the Pushing print Open.

 I really enjoyed the selection which included a wide range of techniques including Sarah Gillett's Earthquake, mono prints on torn off papers collaged on the walls.  I liked the sense  of the powerful nature of an earthquake separating objects and places and the wall paper giving a sense of walls destroyed by the elements.  Sarah's website here 

Jian Zhou's impressively large wood cut, There is a Personal Space. This is a No Smoking Area  had a sense of mystery to me. The trees and rain and circular marks evoked a type of elemental place. It was something you could look at for a long time. Jian Zhou's site here
The Pie Factory Gallery exhibition is open from Saturday 5th – Sunday 20th October. Pie Factory website here

On Saturday a road roller was in the Old Town for a giant printmaking event where a lot of families were enjoying making large prints, pressed by the road roller.

There are a series of talks and workshops running with places left, which are on the pushing print website.