Autumn activities

An excuse to show this beautiful acer that I snapped at the national arboretum at Westonbirt as much as anything else.

The main thing on the agenda for November is the Small Publishers Fair in London this coming weekend.  I have been assembling advent calendars from my letterpress prints so there will be an unashamed 'seasonal' section on our table.  Hope to see some of you there!

Small beginnings

I received this through the post recently, a card from New York which bore the stamp 'Missent to Jamaica'.

I rather like the idea that the card has been doing a bit of travelling of its own before arriving, and its given me some ideas for a rubber stamp project I would like to try.  More to follow when I have done some experimenting.

All the fun of the fair

Well, things have been so busy these past 2 weeks I am aware I haven't reported back on the Manchester Artists' Book Fair.  So until I get time to fill in the gaps here are a few pictures:

Unpacking and setting up

Table display, complete with brown cover for a 70's vibe 

There was a letterpress demo on an Adana press which was great to see! (obviously 'Adana Press' will now be added to my Christmas list)

Making tracks

At last the books and bits are made, bags packed, and we're off to the 6th Annual Manchester Artists' Book Fair.  I've not been before so I'm looking forward to seeing how / if they do things differently, and have a whole day symposium talking about Photography and the Artist's Book to enjoy first.

Bookmarks are GO!

The bookmarks made for Infiltrating the Library System IX are now launched at the venues.  For folk who can't get to a venue they are also being distributed online by Bibliobuffet who have published this essay about them by Laine Farley.

Art&Fiction have also got a nice link in French on their website.

Blankety Blank

Unseasonably, its been the season to crochet some blankets, here are the latest incarnations.

A purists' blanket made only in shades of grey (and named the In Grey by its recipient), fun to make as I made it up as I went along, inspired by and experimenting with different stitches garnered from Pip over at at Meet me at Mikes.

A surprise for a baby that I heard was soon-to-arrive.  I haven't seen the parents in a long while so I just hope they are into the crochet revival!  Ripple pattern as ever from Pip Lincolne as above, and I have to say, one of the fastest to make I have encountered so far.

Revisits exhibited

The summer has felt like a bit of a catch up, getting some books prepared for exhibitions that I committed to some time ago.  This has included making some more copies in the editions of the Ghost Train and Ticket books, and revisiting and reconsidering some older works.

For a joint exhibition between Universities in the UK and US I have chosen to display Journey, 2006 - the result of a mail art project asking people in global locations to write a postcard describing their favourite journey.  The images on the cards are identical and are displayed together make up one large repeated image or card, as shown in these very dingy photos (note to self to take some new ones when the work is returned).

Journey, 2006

For the  exhibition Correspondence, which will be travelling around Poland in 2012-13 I chose to re-examine the book project Returned, 2006.  This consists again of postcards, sent between the UK and US and I decided to present it in a new format for this exhibition.  

I wanted to use thin light paper reminiscent of airmail letters and settled on layout paper.  My intention was to photocopy the cards, to create a quick rough reproduction, using double-sided printing to create a true copy of each card.  Tests showed that a black and white copy did not show all of the markings on the cards so I used colour copying.  The book is compiled from single sheets, rolled over and stapled on one edge.  The end result is a light, flimsy, temporary feeling book.

Returned, 2006.  Re-delivered, 2011