Sneak preview

A few snaps of some of the work currently under production...

Autumn dates

A summer of planning and making and reflecting is leading up to an Autumn programme of artists' book fairs.  Once again I will collaborating on these with Pet Galerie Press.


On Saturday 15th September we will be at the inaugural Plymouth Artist's Book Fair, being held as a part of Plymouth International Book Festival at Plymouth University.

October sees us in Manchester, where Hot Bed Press have expanded the event to cover Fri 12th and Sat 13th, and including a morning of artist-led presentations and discussions.  We are presenting work at this event under the umbrella of LEN, so all my work will have some element of letterpress.

And in November we will once again be attending the Small Publishers Fair at Conway Hall in London with Impact Press.

Charity print

Location

Following on with my ideas about data, place and communication I have been printing onto the index from an atlas, contrasting the uniformity and detail of the locational information with large forms of fractured letter pieces.  One of the results has been this set of prints, each with unique locations listed as it is printed on a different page of the index.  Studied in detail it is possible to find familiar locations between the barriers of the over-printed layer, giving a point of reference to the page.  Viewed as a whole there are visual references to printed newspapers, leading to the expectation of a message to be deciphered from the broken text.

Location - detail

In association with a fundraising event in memory of a good friend who died 2 years ago, I am selling this edition of prints in aid of the charities Breakthrough Breast Cancer, The Haven and Shelter.  

Edition of 15, letterpress print (plum black ink on book pages), measuring 17.5 x 26.8cm, £15 unframed (inc. postage).

Larger or higher resolution images available on request.  

Location - shown in 21 x 30cm (A4) frames

If you are interested please get in touch at: hazelgrainger@gmail.com

A bit of a bind

As an antidote to all of the writing underway at the moment I have recently participated in a couple of Guy Begbie's bookbinding workshops to hone my skills, practice creating hardback books  - which I don't often attempt -  and learn some new stitches.  Here is a sample:

Multi-section hardback book

Snowshoe stitch through hard-cover

Lightning stitch through hard-cover

Japanese stab binding - Hemp leaf stitch

This Japanese binding is my favourite so far, though it did lead to sore fingers the next day.  I used a red buckram bookcloth which I haven't tried before, and although it seemed heavier and shinier than the more paper-like cloths I usually go for, once it was on the book I loved it, and it seemed a tiny bit more protective.  So far this is the most perfect book I have managed to make - until I spill something on it!

I think the stab binding techniques are the ones I will use most in my books as I often work with loose leaves of paper, I also like the visual effect they create of wrapping around the book, explicitly showing how the pages are held.  I will aim to try out some more of these and perhaps experiment with different papers to get a feel of which bindings are suited to each.

Break

I've been trying to get some writing done for my next module assessment for my MA, coming up at the end of the month, which has meant a break from posting here, but there are plenty of things coming soon to catch up on, I promise.

Firstly, a little something I was involved in during the Easter break.  Not my usual style of working by any means, but a fun experience and chance to enthuse about, and make good use of, our collective typewriters. 
http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/12secrets.htm

The letterpress print, as ever, tested our problem-solving skills with layout, and gave a new opportunity to explore some of the medium sized metal typefaces.

Sunset

The sun has set on another artists' book fair (Leeds - full report to follow soon), and in fact the last book fair in 'the season' for me as I can't make it to Edinburgh or Glasgow this time around.  So there is a chance to step back and reflect on how things went, what I might change, where I go from here.

On schedule

It's the usual rush to get just a few more books made before the next artists' book fair - which is in Leeds in less than a week.

Today I have been up-cycling some previously made work.  I originally printed these as greetings cards at the end of the print run of bookmarks for the Bookmarks IX: infiltrating the library system project last summer.  They are composed of 6pt letterpress ornaments, packed together to create the pattern and text.  I only had enough ornaments to print a single word, so these cards were put through the press 6 times to achieve this noticeboard look.

At the end of 2011 I up-cycled the leftover greetings cards into notebooks with blank pages, for the abc Christmas market.  I also took these to the Ffotogallery Book Arts Fayre last weekend, where I observed that people were very interested in them, but then looked disappointed when they opened them to find there was no 'book' content inside.  So I have been flexing my rubber stamps and have now added text to the pages, representing examples of delays and the reasons given that I have experienced over my rail travels.