Leijonstedt
Art of the book
The reality of it
I thought to illustrate here the battle with time I often have. It is about needing to get some own work done amidst all the family and other work commitments that compete for my time. Being an artist with children at 5 and 1 years of age is not always easy. Luckily my bookbinding studio adjoins our home. It is the only way I can hope to get any creative work done. If I waited for long stretches of undisturbed personal time to spend in the studio, I’d never get any own work done – because I’d never make it into the studio in the first place. I currently need to be content with snatching ten minutes here, a half an hour there, and only occasionally getting a luxurious few hours at a time. But the need to create is so deeply engrained, growing so fervent at times that a few minutes here and there is better than none at all. I always thought I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything in such broken bits. It’s amazing what necessity facilitates. I have learned to switch in a fraction of a second into deep concentration that seamlessly carries on from the last such moment. And the miracle of it is… several ten minute moments do eventually build up, and a little by little a personal project completes, ends up a finished piece. Which wouldn’t exist if I waited for those several undisturbed studio hours at a time.
This is the first and only time I have ever recorded to the very minute a project takes. Writing down all the start and end times, this is how one of my recent projects got completed in just over 40 hours:
Day 1
9.30-10.05 | 10.35-11.50 | 15.30-17.40 | 23.15-00.15
Day 2
8.55-9.10 | 10.00-11.00 | 11.15-12.30 | 13.00-16.20 | 17.05-18.00
Day 3
11.55-12.40
Day 4
13.35-14.00 | 18.35-19.15 | 19.45-20.00
Day 5
11.20-12.20 | 20.40-20.50
Day 6
18.30-18.50
Day 7
8.40-12.00 | 13.30-14.45 | 15.10-18.00 | 20.55-23.15
Day 8
9.00-10.00 | 10.50-12.30 | 16.00-17.00 | 17.50-18.50
Day 9
8.20-9.45 | 10.10-12.50 | 13.30-17.20 | 18.30-19.40 | 22.00-23.45
Day 10
21.40-21.55
~
Artist book: a scroll triptych
‘Mother, Daughter and the Holy Spirit’
acrylic & ink on stitched canvas, 2010
Posted on 29 July 2010
ABC @ BIAD
An Artists' Book Collective @ BIRMINGHAM INSTITUTE OF ART & DESIGN
Birmingham Zine Fest
Is anyone doing the birmingham zine fest? There's a link to the facebook group in the title. I asked about tables with ABC in mind and this is the email I got back:
How many of you would there be? We have communal tables for people who have 2-4 zines each- would this be suitable? Unfortunately table space to have your own table is limited and we are just sorting through table booking emails to see what room we have!
So let me know if you're already sorting out a table for ABC, and if not then please let me know if you'd like to join in selling your stuff. I'm happy to take other people's stuff too that can't make it to the actual event. Just please let me know asap so I can let the people know if we want a table or not :)
Thanks! Chloe x
Posted on 28 July 2010
An Exercise for Kurt Johannessen
An Exercise for Kurt Johannessen
A free download artist's book by Sarah Bodman
Kurt Johannessen made his ‘Exercises’ book in 1994. He says: “Here is a handbook of exercises that hardly anyone has tried. The format…
Posted on 27 June 2010
BEAUTIFUL/DECAY MAGAZINE
Beautiful/Decay Magazine Art & Design Blog
Ashlie Chavez
LA local Ashlie Chavez shoots only in film. Her images are captivating. I love the texture and depth in her work . Her photographs at times have minor imperfections that create beautiful images…reminds me of the human touch that you don’t see with digital. Ashlie collaborates with her twin sister Amber, also a very skilled [...]
Posted on 31 July 2010
Heaven & Earth
My life, my art, my family - and whatever I find interesting...
The Times They Are a-Changin
- and we are all growing older. Greeting for a friend and art-buisness-partner. Of course in a book-like form – we are here talking about a devoted librarian! Happy birthday Laila.
Posted on 26 July 2010
A book about death - Matthew Rose
We interviewed Matthew Rose recently and here is his latest contribution. A Book About Death Omaha’s live stream for the opening on July 31, 2010. Another chapter in this global exhibition: Please follow this link for the live feed URL: http://abookaboutdeatharchive.blogspot.com/2010/07/abad-omaha-live-web-stream-97.html Matthew Rose HTTP://MATTHEWROSESTUDIO.NET/ HTTP://MATTHEWROSESTUDIO.BLOGSPOT.COM/ HTTP://ABOOKABOUTDEATH.BLOGSPOT.COM/
Posted on 31 July 2010
The Sign of the Owl
Book Art—Artists' Books—Bookworks
Second Encyclopedia of Tlön
One of my knowledgeable readers (Jack Ginsburg) has alerted me to the fact that Joshua Heller has a wonderful interactive web site about the Second Encyclopedia of Tlön (see my last post). It comes up automatically when you go to the Joshua Heller Rare Books web site. Once the page that shows the full encyclopedia has loaded, click on ‘The Books’ link that is in the black banner. The set of volumes will suddenly appear in a fanned-out line and if you mouse over one of the volumes it begins to pull out from the ’shelf’ at which point you can click on it to bring it forward. Clicking again will open up a window with a description and several page spreads from that volume (use the “Instructions” link to find out more on how to navigate). The pages shown on Heller’s site are often different from those on the Encyclopedia’s own site (accessible by clicking the images in my last post) so between the two, you can get a nice sense of the contents.
The more I explore the opus, the more I realize how much it is not just a conceptual and visual encyclopedia, but also an encyclopedic experiment in all sorts of different image-making techniques. Printing on everything from creamy handmade paper to phone book pages, using everything from offset printing to wood-type letterpress, the books use overprinting, negative image printing, collage, digital image manipulation, text-as-image, and more to create the wide-ranging stylistic interpretations that makes up the Encyclopedia.
Post from: The Sign of the Owl
Second Encyclopedia of Tlön
Posted on 24 July 2009
