This week at college

Main event at college for the week was the practitioner lecture, given by Silke Dettmers, who used to have a studio on the site of the Olympic Stadium. Many people lost their studio space there, and on eviction she started taking photos of the "blue fence", some of which were published in the 2007 Guardian story (but aren't in the online version).

She says she's attracted to disasters and has made a number of works from salvaged wood - I found this small-scale one particularly resonant -

"Blue House" also speaks to me -

Artists she mentioned: Anne & Patrick Poirier (Domus Aurea); Charles Simonds; Rebecca Horn (the piano in the Tate); Daniel Buren; David Wilson's Museum of Jurassic Technology (in LA); Vija Celmins' replica of stones; Tim Hawkinson's Balloon Self Portrait; Marian Bantjes' book I Wonder; Helen Maurer; Anna Boggon.

"Some books are to be tasted" is an exhibition of bookworks shown in three countries - Colombia, Poland, UK (website here; view from a participant here).

Read her article about the necessity of wonder here.

Life skills - darning

During a customer-service-failure incident at M&S, which made me resolve to avoid their Covent Garden store at all costs and forever, I had time to reflect that it was silly to be buying the wrong sort of socks, no matter how little money would be spent for them. This morning, after a peaceful hour spent darning, the beloved socks are restored to functionality, if not beauty.

Darning is made easier if you have a darning-mushroom - it's helpful to have the cloth nicely stretched and firmly held. (Or you can tack the cloth to a piece of paper. Or use a doorknob. Or a lightbulb. Or a lemon! Or a wooden craft egg. Or a plastic easter egg, and you can keep the darning kit inside it.) 

Other tips that a happy hour of meandering research has turned up - darn on the wrong side of the fabric; on knits, make the second lot of stitches on the diagonal, for more stretch; you can get thin reinforcing thread for darning heels of sox. And - do the darning when it's wearing thin, rather than when it's worn through!

Back in the good old days, before everything was throwaway, the important skill of darning was taught in school, and girls made darning-samplers. (Images from here and here.)

An afternoon out

First stop, the Transport Museum shop - on the sale shelf, these mugs left over from 2007 -

 Elsewhere, an embroidered map by Susan Stockwell -

 and this rather desirable chair -

On to browse at Anthropologie, where we could have taken home one of these papier-mache trophy heads (but didn't) -

At last, a use for those pre-digital photos -

And faux-cactus - some made of cloth, others of wood; elsewhere, they were stuck with toothpicks for spines -

It was finally almost warm enough to have a coffee outside on a Soho streetcorner -

Back in Covent Garden, another creature that we left in the store -

The highlight of the afternoon was trying on the jolly yellow footwear - a size too large, though, and even after reducing, still costing £115 - as they say, "in your dreams.." -

Fun with sonnets

About a month ago I started filling a notebook with "over-written" sonnets, spending an hour every day or two writing the 16 lines, starting the process of lodging the poem in my memory. They were taken from Poems on the Underground and so should be fairly well known: Donne, Michael Drayton, Keats, Edna St Vincent Millay, Milton, Wilfred Owen, Shakespeare (2), Wordsworth (2).

The notebook is now full - if ten poems can "fill" a book! - and the project has taken on new dimensions.

These strange pages may well look off-putting, unappealing, incomprehensible -- they need some explanation. Yet ... they should speak for themselves...

Looking at the punctuation (always a troublesome aspect in memorising poems) led to the "stitched sonnets", using a four-sided stitch for each syllable and a vertical line for a punctuation mark -

Stamping in the actual punctuation mark simply didn't work. To add interest to the collection, I'm using a different thread (from my wide-ranging thread collection) for each sonnet. Drayton, on the left, is variegated perle, Owen in the centre is variegated rayon, Millay on the right is also cotton. Currently I'm doing a bit of Milton in linen. They take about 3 hours each to stitch; though I've pulled them out to work on when travelling on bus and tube, it's best to be sat at my table (the one with under-table heating), listening to Radio 4, looking up occasionally to see birds in the tree outside.

Here's the Milton - that's the last line being stitched: "They also ..." What's missing from this "before and after" pic is the important intermediate step - the printout of the poem that I follow carefully -

Next step is to scan in the stitched version and print it out with the (typed) words on the back. These two attempts show that lines and words have to be carefully aligned both vertically and horizontally -

The one on the left was printed on typing paper and waxed; the one on the left, on onionskin and not waxed.  Once more are ready, they can be put together into a concertina book.

Another possibility for the over-writing (and help with memorisation) is line-by-line, using the words in each line. Since each line of a sonnet has 10 syllables [though some don't!], five can go each side of the gutter. I have some larger sheets of graph paper with faint squares, and aligned the type to fit the other side of the pages, aiming to make a series of two-sheet sections, each with the largely-illegible sonnet in the middle and a nicely legible version before and after it -

The size comes to 9.5cm wide and 21 cm tall. The mock-up shows a problem with the grain of the graph paper - the way it curls inward shows that it needs to run the other way -

This means rethinking the height of the page to fit the printed poem the other way round. Either the title or the author's name will have to go ... which could be a problem, or could be an opportunity ...

Questions I ask myself - how do sonnets fit in with my theme of everyday journeys? is this project interesting in any way to anyone else, or am I simply having an indulgent time, enjoying writing, memorising, and stitching (and problem solving)? is this worth continuing with, and if so, where's it going? how did I get started on this in the first place?

The starting point, or what I remember of it, is my concern with failing memory. The erasure of forgetting, and the unfelt absence of what has been forgotten; as well, the horrible realisation that a chunk of memory had disappeared for a while and the unwelcome thought that other chunks may have disappeared without trace. As we get older these memory-experiences are very real, yet even while we are younger, remembering and forgetting are things that happen to us every day - they are signposts on our everyday journeys. How better to exercise the memory-muscles than by learning a poem or two? (Even people with mild Alzheimer's are able to memorise poetry, I've been told ... and in trying to check this, have found there's an Alzheimer's poetry project. To be investigated...) Also I'm intrigued by how the process of memorisation works, on the practical and the psychological level.

The over-writing represents the jumble of possibilities as we try to reconstruct the memorised poem. In repeatedly writing a line, you become the poet, in a sense, as you become more familiar with the words. In trying to write the line from memory - and making a mistake - you become aware of why the poet chose the words that finally make up the poem. The length of the re-writing process, and the slowness of handwriting, give you time to consider these things.

Now I have 10 poems half-memorised. Trying to keep track of them as they accumulated day after day was confusing, but each time I revisit them they become more embedded and feel more like "friends". Stitching the poems without any distraction (talk on the radio) is most helpful - I wonder whether music would be a  distraction or helpful in some way.

Things to do to continue or finish this project:
1. add title page and  Index of First Lines to the book of overwritten sonnets; scan pages in, print out with typed version of poems on the back, make into concertina book
2. stitch enough sonnets to make a concertina book; scan them in, print out on appropriate, make into book (possibly by stitching pages together rather than gluing)
3. revisit the punctuation (somehow)
4. can the stitching be done in a different way - on cloth? with a different stitch?
5. think about why, or how, stitching fits with sonnet (or poetry in general)
6. if any of this is going to be waxed, find the right paper; if it's not going to be waxed, find the right paper
7. reconsider fonts for the (computer) printed version
8. write out the line-by-line version along with the printed version; make into a book (consider paper, cover, etc)
9. think/write about how memory "works" as an everyday journey

Desired outcome: several books that complement each other. (What will they be "about"? How can they be "read"? What would make someone want to look at, figure out, know more about them?)

"Seepage"

Now that the author has given permission for me to use her text, I'm moving ahead with making an edition of my first "erasure" letterpress book.

One problem is that printer's ink on tracing paper takes a long time to dry - and can't be laid out and left, but has to be gathered up and taken home. Yet the book requires the transparency of tracing paper. Can it be obtained by waxing another paper? If so, what thin paper can it be printed on? 

Some re-evaluation is needed

Rather than taking this step by step, I plunged in - first, scanning some of the spare pages (my "good copy" would have been damaged on the scanner)

and making a version in InDesign, matching placement of the scan on each page, to be laserjet printed on the papers on hand, and waxed. The winner (in terms of desired transparency) was the onionskin, which comes in an old paper size - 8" x 10" - my half-empty box dates back to the 1990s or even 80s. 

The envelope is made of a lightly heavier paper, also a strange size (8" x 13") and similar vintage. Title is printed on the front; publication details are printed inside the back.

You can see from the smudging around the title how much care - and clean blotting paper - is needed during the waxing - the ink tends to move around! 

I took one example in to college to get some feedback - and should have chosen better. Or been more careful with alignment in trimming, checking before stitching -

The misalignment is even more obvious along the top edge. Lesson learnt!

Other points raised were the floppiness of the book, the envelope format for the cover, the unsatisfactorily slippery feel of the entire thing, and the non-letterpress look of the scanned copy. (Once home, I did a comparison.) At top, letterpress - below, scanned -

This may have been made worse by having used both newsprint proofs and tracing paper prints for the scans - I had no complete set of good examples on one sort of paper. It's more evident on the first page - letterpress on the left -

If you hadn't seen the letterpress version, would the scanned version still come out second best? Probably a better question is: does the scanned version still work (though at this point of the discussion I was feeling that nothing about it was working...)

Why is the transparency so important? It's a subtle thing - the words on the just-turned page overlie the blackness of the previous type, ie the back of the bit of type; in this way the book references its making. Ah,  this is small point that requires a certain kind of cognisance.... It also seems to imply that each page does need to be actual letterpress, not scanned - or at least a more subtly rendered scan.

Next steps - 

1. make an entire book of the newsprint proofs, carefully waxed and carefully aligned.

2. re-align the wonky book, and make a different cover for it

3. collect various thin papers to print next week (22 or 23 May) - then wax these samples

4. consider printing (?15 copies, 10 pages each) on tracing paper, despite problems with drying

5. come up with several options for covers

6. re-scan the pages to get a more nuanced jpeg
7. take the various versions in to college and get more feedback (29 May)

What will make me feel this is finished? Either a completed edition, or a firm decision to abandon the attempt. Then the question becomes: what would be the signal for abandoning it? Which technical difficulty is insurmountable? Or - was it simply not a good idea in the first place? I need a few days to ponder that last point.

A business plan for art?

Available as a print here (no affiliation!)

Even if you aren't making your living from art, a business plan might be useful for helping you focus on the work you're setting out to make, and help maintain motivation. Somewhere, research has shown that when people write down their goals they are much more likely to achieve them. 

This post on the artbiz blog called for 200-word business plans, to include 1) your art or product, 2) audience, 3) promotions, 4) money, 5) how you will overcome challenges or obstacles, and 6) how you will know if you’ve succeeded.

OK, it's worth a try...

1) My product is my exhibition in the final degree show, to be ready in three months from now.

2) Audience: invited and casual visitors to the show - these are people who have an interest in student work.

3) Promotions: writing about my work, and mentioning show dates on this blog; invitations sent out; mentioning show on various online groups

4) Money: the show usually has a shop to sell books made by students

5) My main challenge is to produce innovative work of a high standard, which requires focus on my project theme and critical evaluation of the work as it develops, and copious amounts of studio time

6) One measure of success is a course grade better than just Pass; another is sales of items in the shop. Most valuable, though, would be further opportunities arising from the show.

That didn't require as much thinking as I thought it would, because having the categories helped with focus. It does leave out the immediate thing, which is ... making the "innovative work of a high standard" - and the way that ties in with my hidden agenda, of developing some strands or themes that I'll be able to draw on subsequently. Probably that requires a plan of a different sort.

Collect

Much to see at this high-end craft show, held in the Saatchi Gallery. I like that it runs over the weekend and on to Monday - and that the venue is so spacious -

Lots of jewellery - interesting shapes, made in interesting materials -

Indeed, everything is all about the materials - as well as design and skill-in-making. Here's a tiny selection - starting with the Craft Council's travelling Raw Craft show. This table is balanced to support itself at any height -

 Lacquer and pottery beautifully displayed on an immensely long scroll containing details of its making, and using reclaimed materials like pottery shards, by Tang Mingxiu -

 A neck piece using old paintbrushes! by Jacomijn van der Donk -

 Deidre Hawthorne's sagger-fired pots - she calls them "racers" as they remind her of schoolchildren, lined up, restless and ready for action -

 Nora Fok's cheerful knitted "cherries" necklace, and an intruiging, seemingly endless, plastic coiled piece -

The Project Space had brilliant displays, with the artists on hand - I was especially intrigued by the video tape and paper cutting -

Book du jour - yet more inky books

Lately I've been preparing the pages of the inky books separately - here's some stitching in progress -

The ones with the wax-dipped edges speak to me ... but what are they saying?

Perhaps the white area, showing the ends of the lines (journey lines, written while travelling and screenprinted onto paper which is then saturated in ink), indicates the ends of many little journeys - ? Or maybe I just like black and white stripes!

In the recent batch are some little books (about 2"/5cm square) with stitching added before inking -

Although I'm really enjoying making these, it's time to call a halt. Enough have accumulated for a piece for the upcoming exhibition at college, which will look something like this -

The current title is Memory Overload -- brought on by a combination of our "information age" and the mere fact of increasing chronological age, with the perils that brings.

Moan on Monday - editing artspeak

With a couple of decades of critical engagement with (medical) text under my belt, I find it difficult to read "artspeak" without wanting to use slash and burn tactics on it in an effort to extract its meaning. (Though the possibility that it's meaningless has also crossed my mind occasionally.)

"The LCD screens used in the exhibition serve not only as transmitters of a digital content, but also function as material devices which are constitutive of the artwork itself. Each of the slideshows present a cycle of digitally rendered documentation stills. These cycles display a wide variety of material, including images of sculptures made by the artist, video stills and digital elements, shown in complex configuration with one another. Throughout the duration of each of the slideshows some aspects remain fixed whereas others vary from one image to the next in a seemingly arbitrary fashion."

Here's what I think it means -
As well as showing digital images, the two LCD screens are part of the artwork. The slideshows are sequences of photos of the artist's sculptures, stills from videos, and other digital elements, shown for various lengths of time, so that images on the screens seem to interact with each other.

Stripped of the buzzwords, of course it sounds less impressive. And it's so easy to get caught up in using buzzwords...

Maybe editing artspeak is like editing poetry - query the misspellings (they may be deliberate) but don't change anything - ?

Apostrophe

The greengrocer's apostrophe has made its way to Japan - as shown in this selection of Japanese signs. Delight in further punctuation schadenfreude here.

Storage idea

Seen while flipping through a magazine - and I can't remember which magazine, so can't credit the designer. Beyond being a magazine rack, something like this could help with filing and finding the right sort of paper, and could function as a print drying rack ... it needn't even make that elegant curve at the top, just as long as the wires were angled upward a bit. [Hope my resident carpenter is reading this...]

Book du jour - more inky books

An easier way to apply wax to the edges (easier than painting it on) - just dip! 

 When the pages are painted with ink, the printed lines show through the ink -

 The stitched lines in neon colours look rather like the wires inside the telephone junction boxes on the street* you sometimes see opened up for repair - conduits for information (and this project is about information overload, so it sort of fits in). As the wax pot was available, I dipped them in wax -

The newspaper underneath is getting dense with ink, as each page in each book is painted on both sides. Painting them, and letting them dry naturally, works better than dipping them in ink and then having to pry apart the pages and dry them with a hairdryer. So the books get stitched once all the pages are ready.

(*For information about British street furniture - of any sort, from signs to bollards, and traffic wardens for that matter - try this website. Finger posts, warning posts, street name plaques, traffic lights, war memorials, cattle troughs - clocks, hydrants, litter bins...)

This week's exhibitions

As there was no lecture at college this Wednesday, the afternoon was ideal for seeing a few exhibitions "downtown". First, Mira Schendel - a Brazilian artist active in the 60s and 70s, "in conversation with" several other artists of the time - Bridget Riley, Roman Opalka, Naum Gabo, Sol LeWitt, Max Bill, Agnes Martin.  The big white painting that on close inspection showed faint numbers turned out to be by Roman Opalka, whose lifelong project was to paint the numbers from one to infinity. (He began in 1965 and reached about 5.5 million before he died last year.) This picture is from earlier in his career - it's quite high contrast, and the numbers are in the 27,000s - the one in the gallery must be one of his last works - 'Detail 5558756 - 5564164'.

In the "Leather Forever" exhibition, which was really a glorified advert for expensive leather goods - albeit handmade, and with craftspeople showing how the work was done - this sample case for a shoe salesman was intriguing -

Walking up Bond Street, we were too late to pop in to Sotheby's to check out the works in the upcoming sale, but did stumble upon a photographic exhibition -

Being print-aware people, we couldn't help noticing the compressed setting of the second paragraph - almost illegible! (click to enlarge) -

"The eight international artists selected for the exhibition resist the normal parameters of the photographic medium by inventing their own cameras, appropriating and re-presenting photographs via an alternate process, subverting the purpose of the camera, wilfully destroying it or creating unique camera-less photograms. In each of their distinctive practices, the artists experiment with the boundaries of photography and subvert the central dominance of the camera." Steven Pippin's shot-in-the-back cameras made some arresting images  (photo from the exhibition review here; read how he did it here) -

Finally (elsewhere), an interesting project by Jamie Shovlin - generating covers for unpublished books -

These are titles in the Fontana Modern Masters series (1970s) that for some reason were scheduled for publication but fell by the wayside. Shovlin set up a classification system for the titles already published, based on arbitrary criteria, and used this to generate the colours for the covers - rather an astonishing concept.

The gallery bookshop had a little book from one of Shovlin's earlier exhibitions - Aggregate - which came home with me and proved very satisfying.