ART, FAME, AND BEEVES

Here are some zingers from the sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957):

I met icon-makers during my youth in the country. I remember that an icon-maker before starting to paint, or a maker of wooden crosses before starting to carve, would fast for a few weeks in a row. They prayed continually that their icons and crosses would be beautiful. Before it is begun, the creation of any artist needs a pre-established orphic atmosphere. Today painters work with a beefsteak and a bottle of wine by their side. The sculptor holds a chisel in one hand and a glass in the other. The vapors of alcohol and rich food come out of the artist’s mouth and pores like the fetid emanations of a horrible corpse. This kind of thing is no longer pure art; it is art governed by the earthly forces of alcohol and over eating. […]

One day, in Switzerland, in front of a beautiful mountain there was the most beautiful of cows, and she was contemplating me in ecstasy. I said to myself, “I must be someone if even this cow admires me.” I came closer; she wasn’t looking at me, and she was relieving herself. That tells you what you need to know about fame.

Both of these statements were taken from: Roger Lipsey, An Art of Our Own: The Spiritual in Twentieth Century Art, (Boston: Shambhala, 1989), pgs. 228 and 229, respectively.

NO CONCLUSIONS

Making notes this morning for the Al-Mutanabbi Street panel discussion this evening (scroll down for info). This is what I’ve ended up with:

I have never been to Al-Mutanabbi Street. We were not there. Most of us probably will never be there. How can we bear witness to an event that occurred so far away, so long ago? How can we make ourselves witnesses to what we never could have seen? Why is it important, in this time, and in this place, to continue to witness, to see? How do, or can, these broadsides actually make a difference? Or are we simply tossing pebbles into an ocean of tragedy?

I have lived my entire life on Al-Mutanabbi Street.

Every act of violence, every bomb, opens a wound in the world. It destroys everything near it, continuously, even well after the bomb has exploded, the dead have been gathered, and the rubble has been cleared. Even three years after it happened, the bomb, this bomb, our bomb, any bomb, continues to incinerate any action or any language that tries to get near it. These words you’re hearing now are dust before they’ve left my mouth.

If not for this bomb and for this project, I never would have heard of Al-Mutanabbi Street. 130 people were killed or wounded in the attack. There are now 130 different broadsides in the world: produced, producing, embodied, and embodying. Broadsides can not protect anyone from a piece of shrapnel, can never heal a wound, or “right” a wrong. They are, at best, shrouds, or photographs of the lost, creased and worn.

130 acts of creation, laid over this wound in the world. 130 moments of remembrance, burying the dead. 130 pieces of shrapnel, continuously opening and reopening the wound. 130 broadsides, by more than 130 artists and writers, who have chosen to try to see, to feel, to make.

I have come to no conclusions.

We will live our entire lives on Al-Mutanabbi Street.

AL-MUTANABBI STREET STARTS HERE (ON FRIDAY)

If you haven’t seen the show of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Broadsides yet, or if you’d like to learn more about Al-Mutanabbi Street, the project, and its future, you should come to the panel discussion “Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here” on Friday, April 30th. Along with the panel discussion there will be a screening of the short film "A Candle For The Shabandar Cafe," which is about a café that was destroyed in the bombing. All 130 letterpress broadsides are still on display, but the show comes down on May 2, so this may be the last good chance to see them. I will be a member of the panel, as well as:

Grendl Lofkvist (printer)

Celeste Smeland (artist/printmaker)

Tom Ingalls (Graphic Artist)

Felicia Rice (printer)

Beau Beausoleil (poet)

And this is all taking place at the San Francisco Zen Center. I hope to see you there.

Al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Exhibition
April 2 – May 2
Panel discussion on April 30th at 7:30 PM
300 Page St.
San Francisco
news.sfzc.org

CURRICULATING (4)

I want to elaborate on the facilities post, particularly in regard to the idea of having a Book Arts program that teaches students how to use production presses: both high-speed letterpress and offset lithography. Why is it important to have this equipment? How is it beneficial for the students?

There are a few reasons why I think it is important to teach this equipment. The first is very practical: learning to use these presses will help students in finding a job after they graduate from school, because these presses are still used commercially (in small studios, generally). With the number of small, commercial letterpress studios still growing, more and more of these jobs will be available. And as I know from experience, being a letterpress printer at a small commercial studio is not a bad way to make a living, especially for someone just out of school. And commercial printing is an education all of its own.

Offset is a bit trickier, as small run shops are moving toward digital presses (should the program have a good digital press as well?). There are a few Book/Print programs that teach offset printing (University of the Arts and Columbia College in Chicago come immediately to mind) and the number of artists who print their own offset books is extremely small (see JAB 25). If offset is going to mean something as a medium, it needs to be used by artists and designers who fully understand its unique capabilities—it needs to be used for more than 4 color reproduction.

Which I think brings us to the more “abstract” reason for integrating this equipment into a Book Arts curriculum: that the use of this equipment enlarges the field of possibilities for artists, and for the art as a whole. It changes the terms of production—quantity and reach expand, without sacrificing the elements of finely tuned control that we expect and demand from “analog” processes. When the terms of production change, the discourse within and around a particular medium changes as well. Letterpress no longer has to be precious, and offset no longer has to be mechanical to the point of absolute transparency. What the processes could mean grows. How they mean becomes observable in a different way. The discourse groans and expands.

Of course, we are basing this whole premise on the larger idea that an educational program in the Book Arts should expand the field. Some might argue (more in the way that they teach and less in what they say) that the job of academic institutions is not to expand the field, but to maintain the (or establish a new) status quo. How can a program be continually expansive? Just by having some fancy equipment?

COMPOSITION n

“Let us now perform the work of daylight.”

Piet Mondrian, from The New Art—The New Life: The Collected Writings of Piet Mondrian, ed. and trans. by Harry Holtzman and Martin S. James, Boston, 1986.

CURRICULATING (3)

Now that we have the general setting of our Book Arts program figured out, we can move on to the really fun stuff: studio equipment and classes. Today’s post is on equipment, guided by the following questions: what specific equipment does a book arts program need? Are there types of equipment not commonly found in schools that could be used to broaden the program in interesting and valuable ways? (We are, after all, trying to build a new, distinct program.) And remember, in our perfect world, money is not a problem. But we will only ask for what we really need.

As mentioned in the last post, the Book Arts department would or could share a building with the Printmaking department. It makes sense to me to share, because there’s no need for multiple studios dedicated to one technique, and having everything in the same building will make the combination of techniques (which we want to encourage) much easier. So the Printmaking department would have its usual run of studios: intaglio/relief, litho, screenprinting, and digital. And what studios would Book Arts have? First a list:

Letterpress
Bindery
Papermaking
Offset Lithography

Then some brief descriptions:

Letterpress: The letterpress studio would have all of the traditional components: 3 or so Vandercooks of a few different makes/sizes, a small proofing press, and one hand-fed platen press. It would have a generous selection of lead and wood type, and part of the budget set aside to replenish worn faces. There would be equipment for making photopolymer plates—a nice A2 size platemaker, and maybe even an Imagesetter for making film. The thing(s) that would make this letterpress studio a little different from the rest is the inclusion of some serious production presses: A Heidelberg “Windmill” Platen, and a Heidelberg Flatbed Cylinder. Why these presses? Because they change the terms of production for letterpress: suddenly it becomes reasonable to print an edition of 500 or 1000 or more of multiple colors and a fair amount of complexity. The problem (and an interesting pedagogical problem) with these presses is their complexity: you can’t really teach a class to use them efficiently and/or safely by giving one demo to a group of 10+ people. They require individual training and a lot of time on press to gain proficiency. They would perhaps come in later, as independent studies for advanced students (already the equipment shapes the program).

Bindery: All the standard bindery equipment: book presses, nipping presses, lying presses, etc. Tools for leather binding as well. A foil stamping machine and type for it. Generous table space. A small hand guillotine for trimming books, and a large (30” wide) electric guillotine for cutting paper. Board shears too.

Papermaking: One or two 1-2 pound Reina and/or Valley beaters. A hydraulic press, vats, and moulds large enough to comfortably accommodate 22” x 30” sheets. Vats and moulds for Japanese papermaking. A forced air drying system. Some brilliant solution for drying felts with ease. Drains in the floor (though we will teach the students to be neat).

Offset Lithography: This is equipment that I do not know at all. But I think it could be an exciting part of a program, for the same reasons that the production letterpresses would be. But offset is even faster, and it opens up possibilities for photographic work. 1 or 2 small, Heidelberg offset presses, and all of the darkroom equipment necessary for making plates. Maybe the offset studio would have its own guillotine. I’m not really sure what else an ideal offset studio would have—suggestions are welcome.

& of course suggestions are welcome for all of the other parts of this thought experiment as well.

To be continued…

CURRICULATING (2): GROUNDWORKING

So that first “Curriculating” post (just scroll down to see it) was kind of a mess. But it got this thing started. Let’s review the premise of this investigation, and begin to lay the groundwork for the rest.

The “Curriculating” posts are (or will be) a thought experiment, an attempt to imagine what a dedicated Book Arts curriculum, or major, would look like. At this point, I have no idea what shape the entire experiment will take, or when and where it will end. But that’s the end, and we need to begin at the beginning.

(At this point I am having trouble deciding what to write about next—do we begin with a foundational philosophy for the program, or do we jump right in with a description of the program itself, establishing its parameters and context? Although it makes a certain sense to begin by trying to establish some overarching principle(s), I think such things will have to emerge as the thing is worked out. In fact, perhaps the goal of the entire experiment is to yield such a philosophy.)

As the program is built and refined, it is important to note that this will be the imagining of an “ideal” situation—for me. (Or perhaps it is a way for me to realize my “ideal” teaching situation.) And so there will probably some big, real world problems that I will skip over or simply not see. For example: we are going to assume that money is not an issue—that the resources to make the program its ideal size and breadth are there. This is often not the case in the real world, especially now, when it seems like every department in every school is constantly under the threat of having its funding cut down or completely taken away.

Our Book Arts Department will be one department at a small school focused on the visual arts and design. A general listing of the other available programs: Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Ceramics, Fibers, General Fine Arts, Graphic Design, Illustration, Digital Media, and Intermedia. And since we’re talking about ideals there would also be an Art History/Criticism/Theory major as well. The overall goal of the school is to produce professional working artists, whether they are designers with full-time employment, or studio artists depending on the sales of individual pieces for their income. There would be BFA and MFA programs in all, or most, disciplines. Our focus, for now, is on the BFA program(s).

Book Arts would be its own autonomous department, connected to, but not a part of, any of the others. As such it would have its own core faculty and its own classroom/studio space (perhaps in the same building as Printmaking). The ideal number of faculty members is hard to determine at this point, but let’s say 5 or 6, with a broad range of approaches and areas of expertise in the field, both in the studio and in theory/history. There would be other faculty as well, perhaps adjunct or perhaps culled from other departments to provide more in-depth coverage of subjects not usually found in Fine Arts programs. Example: a studio class about concrete and visual poetry.

A studio class about Concrete and Visual Poetry? Can you imagine such a thing?

PRODUCTION IS RECEPTION (10): WHAT YOU WILL (9)

Picking up some momentum on printing again. The images that follow are a series of set-up sheets from What You Will. “Set-up sheets” are the sheets of paper that are run through the press to test feeding, impression, registration and print quality. They are often fed through multiple times, resulting in layered, haphazard compositions. Each of the set-up sheets below have been “tagged” and will be released (inserted randomly) back into the main pile of set-up sheets. And after every week I will pull them again, scan them, and post them here. So it will be yet another way for us to track the process, the growth in complexity of the book. The sheets that you are looking at are the result of printing 11 different plates. (Note: the images got cropped a bit: the real sheets are slightly taller (about a half inch) than the bed on my scanner.)










This last image is a close-up of a section of text, so that you can get a sense of the layers of transparent ink. Eight of the eleven plates printed so far have been printed directly on top of each other to build up images like this.

NEW LIFE SCHEDULE

Trying to be organized. Trying to have goals. Trying to achieve them. Trying to stop trying, get on to the doing.

MONDAY: Write, Work, Print (Books), Read
TUESDAY: Write, Work, Prep for class, Read
WEDNESDAY: Write, Teach, Read
THURSDAY: Write, Work, Cut/Peel Broadsides, Read
FRIDAY: Write, Work, Cut/Peel Broadsides, Read
SATURDAY: Read, Print (Books), Other*
SUNDAY: Read, Print (Books), Other*

REPEAT.

* Could include one or more of the following: Prep for class, Grading, Writing emails, Watching movies, Reading, etc.

STRUCTURE & STRUCTURE

When we say we we may mean us. & by us we may mean &. & by its nature will never fall apart, therefore it is not an adequate representation of us, we, or, and. Perhaps this & nothing more.

CURRICULATING (1)

At most colleges and universities, there is not a degree specifically in Book Arts. Usually any Book Arts classes fall inside the Printmaking department, or exist in some other strange extension, like the library or the English department. Sometimes, students can cobble together a pretty thorough Book Arts education by taking classes from a series of departments. But usually they just get a sample. So a thought exercise: what would a Book Arts curriculum look like? What classes would it entail? How would it be structured? How would it relate to other departments? Is there a Foundations program specific to Book Arts?

(I don’t foresee this being a simple task, so this subject will probably occupy the IDE(A/O)(B)LOG(Y/UE) for a little while, for the week, or longer. Perhaps with interruptions. Almost certainly with interruptions.)

This is a fun exercise for me, a way to think through and visualize what an “ideal” teaching situation (for me) looks like. So in keeping with that ideal, we’re going to place this program at the kind of school that I understand best (and think I want to teach at, ultimately)—a small school focused on visual art. (& I suppose that we can expect this “program” to reflect my other biases as well.)

One of the first problems that we run into is the radical inclusiveness of the book. How can we define a curriculum for a field that has been notoriously hard to define? Most academic art programs are defined by media: the Painting program, the Photography program, etc. But books are not a medium, they are a form, an entire cultural paradigm that can easily include all of the media, together or one at a time. (Note: it could be argued that any medium can contain any of the other media (ex: a painting containing photographic images, photographic images deployed across a 3D form) but the difference is this: when media are combined the boundaries of those media are stretched and/or dissolved; all of a sudden a painting is no longer just a painting, it’s a sculpture. But a book can contain both painting and photography and printing and drawing and always has sculptural qualities, and still be, easily and recognizably, traditionally, a book.) So then a Book Arts program stands with other hard to define or perpetually changing academic programs, like Intermedia/New Media, or Digital Arts. Could we base our program on such structures already in existence?

Possibly. But we may need to go further, because the production of artists’ books extends out into fields normally outside the direct purview of the Fine Arts (Department). What about classes in Graphic Design, Typography? What about classes in Writing? Creative, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and/or critical? All of the above? How would a writing program change when bent toward the visual/material nature of language and books? (Aside: what if the Book Arts program was sub-divided into Concentrations, like a BFA in Book Arts with a concentration in Bookbinding or Visual Poetry? That seems like a frightening amount of specialization, the kind we want to avoid, the kind that could negate the expansive, critical potential of the program that we’re outlining.)

-------------------------------------

A brief break from writing this post, and now I can see that this subject is very complex, and my handling of it is going to be very disorganized. But for now, let’s end on this idea: One of the most compelling and fertile aspects of the book-as-art is the questions it asks of the other “art media” and other areas of culture, that it asks of how art and art objects are made, distributed, and received in this culture. The book has enormous critical potential, the book is potential. How can a Book Arts curriculum communicate that? How can the curriculum be positioned critically, in order to ask questions of how art and art objects are made, distributed, and received in this culture?

Or are we asking too much already? Better to try and fail. Oh, to be drawn out and continued.

AL-MUTANABBI OPENING THIS FRIDAY!!!

Al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Exhibition
April 2 – May 2
Opening on April 2 at 7:30 PM
300 Page St.
San Francisco
news.sfzc.org

The panel discussion will take place at the SF Zen Center, on April 30th at 7:30 PM.

I hope I will see you there.

PRODUCTIVITY

What follows is an excerpt from an in-progress analysis/review of the artists’ book Things I Wanted To Tell You by Kristen Merola, published by Preacher’s Biscuit Books:

It is possible to put forward a metaphoric reading of the book. We could start at the title, Things I Wanted To Tell You, and assume that the illegible writing represents those “things,” and that those things have been made unspeakable, either through their own urgency or through the layered complexities of delay and time. This then, would be a book about a relationship, a relationship ended or suspended, with many things unsaid. We could put forward such a reading, if we like our books to end when we put them down. Or we could elaborate a different reading, one based in the relationship between the images and the text, the images of the text, and that reading could be extended productively, infinitely. Because we want our books to keep going after we put them down. Because we are concerned with the real book, the book in our hands, and the processes that it enacts.

AS IMAGINED IN SPACE AND LIGHT

Picture a grid, rigid and impossible. Picture a grid as a physical object, permeated by space, now bending, now sagging, now descriptive of its own lilting surface. Like the pages of a notebook curling and crumbling under daylight. Picture the grid cropped and framed, a photograph of bent space. Gravity. There is nothing as human as a grid. With lines close enough to hum in silence. With lines far enough for the fingers to pass through. Seen and gouged. Surface and city. Silence, pressed through to the other side. Against which light is draped. Against which the morning is swallowed. Silences accrue to noise. Against which the morning dissolves. There is nothing as human as a grid, now bending, now sagging, now descriptive of its own lilting surface.

PRODUCTION IS RECEPTION (9): ON AL-MUTANABBI (1)

This is the most difficult proofreading I have ever had to do.


This is the most fun proofreading I have ever had to do. They say it starts with one word.


These images are of laser printed proofs for the colophon/info printed on the back of the Al-Mutanabbi broadsides. We wanted to put the information in English and Arabic, so we had to enlist some help from some friends. All of the Arabic handwriting on the sheets pictured above is corrections and/or brief lessons for me. Even in the simplest, most mundane parts of a project there are possibilities to learn fascinating things.

ON AL-MUTANABBI

On Al-Mutanabbi
Poem by Justin Sirois
Arabic translation by Haneen Alshujairy
Letterpress with hand-mechanical printing and delamination
Variable edition of 15
12” x 18”
2010
Not For Sale


This poem and broadside were made as part of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Project. What is the Al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Project? The official text from the poster:

On March 5, 2007, a car bomb exploded on Al-Mutanabbi Street, the center of bookselling in Baghdad, killing 30 people and wounding 100 others. The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition sent out an international call to letterpress printers to craft a visual response that would bring attention to this bombing.

You can read more about the project and see some of the other 130 broadsides here.

A note on process: This broadside was made in essentially the same way as the three described here. The primary difference is how it was delaminated. Instead of removing all of the surrounding paper, 130 different cuts were made into the sheet, and the paper was pulled away for as long as I could keep it intact.

But wait, there’s more: for those of you in the Bay Area, the San Francisco Zen Center will be hosting the first exhibition of all 130 broadsides, and a panel discussion about the project. The info:

Al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Exhibition
April 2 – May 2
Opening on April 2 at 7:30 PM
300 Page St.
San Francisco
news.sfzc.org

The panel discussion will take place at the SF Zen Center, on April 30th at 7:30 PM.

THE UNDERSTANDING CAMPAIGN

Because learning a new language can see help us see the world in a different way.

Link!

WE WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU THERE

Registration is open for the Pacific Center for the Book Arts Printers’ Fair, at Fort Mason in San Francisco on Saturday, May 15th. The deadline on registration is soon, March 26th.

&

Registration is open for the 2010 San Francisco Zine Fest. The early bird deadline on that isn’t until July, but don’t wait too long—we are pretty sure that the tables will sell out this year. And there are now three stages of pricing: $30 for a 1/3 table, $45 for a 1/2 table, and $90 for a full table. The Zine Fest will take place in the usual venue, the County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park in SF, on Labor Day Weekend, September 4th and 5th.

I would really like to see some more artists’ book and/or literary small presses at the Zine Fest. I know you’re here in the Bay Area. That show is a perfect venue for you.

I think that I’ve written this before, but shows and fairs like these have become my favorite way to show my work. They’re just so much fun.

RECEPTION IS PRODUCTION (3): LIBRARIES, CIRCULATION, CHANCE

The last post related a story, my personal experience, to the thoughts behind the New NewLights Press Library Policy. In light of that post I have been thinking about libraries, about how we, as (re)searching, potential readers, interact with libraries, and how the physical space of the library affects those searches.

It is important and necessary for libraries to have Special Collections containing artists’ books and small press books. Those collections are a great service both to the public (who now have access to amazing work, for research or just because) and to the artists and publishers (economic support from collecting institutions).

But there is one downside to having one’s work in Special Collections. Although it is (in most cases) accessible, it is not “out there.” Only the librarians and a lucky few others are allowed to browse the shelves of Special Collections. (But everything “back there” is usually stored in archival boxes, so browsing the shelves isn’t really that much fun anyway.)

That browsing, that wandering, is for me one of the most important aspects of the experience of a physical library. I rarely go to the library unless I need a specific book. I look that book up online, before I even set foot in the library, and write down the call number so that I can go right to it. And when I get to the library, I do, usually, go right to it. But then I wander, in the area around that specific book, to see what other books have been grouped with it, by the subject and by the way the collection has been alphabetically distributed across the physical space of the shelves. Looking, reading, looking closer, reading closer. The experience is often overwhelming. The wanderer in the library stands in the channel of the discursive flow, with a cross-section view of that channel, able to navigate through any plane that they choose. (This is both similar and different to than standing in front of a shelf at a bookstore, where the reader is simultaneously subject to, subjected to, the flows of discourse and of economics. In the quiet land of the library, where every book is free, money fades into the background. In the pulsing land of the bookstore, money is the river that has caught everything in its current. (What about small bookstores, used bookstores?))

And so in that wandering the reader finds books that they did not know existed, that can contain and lead to new thoughts, new directions. Wandering like this has led me to unimagined books, and some of those books have become extremely important to me.

If there are artists’ books and small press books in the library, in general circulation, they have the potential of both being searched directly and borrowed and of being discovered, of being a marvelous, convulsive accident that can reorient a reader’s relation to language and to how that language is distributed through culture. Books live (they always and only live) out there, in the active hands and desiring minds of readers.

LIBRARIES & CHANCE

About two months ago we put up a post concerning The New NewLights Press Library Policy, stating, essentially, that if a public and/or academic library buys a NewLights book for their Special Collections, we will give them another book (perhaps the same one, perhaps a different one) that they can put into general circulation.

I wanted to describe here, briefly, the experience(s) that motivated that idea and decision. When I was a graduate student at Arizona State University, I had, for the first time in my life, full and privileged (I was teaching so could check out books for months) access to a great library with an enormous collection. I could get my hands on just about any book that I wanted. They had some real treasures in their Special Collections, including a book printed by Nicholas Jensen, the Frenchman, (the inventor of the Roman typeface for books) in Venice in 1475. That book was one of my favorite to look at and handle (it is in Latin, which I cannot read), to contemplate the strange connections to history that all of us have.

But another important part of the experience of that history, of that library, the part that really informs the new library policy, is the experience of browsing the shelves, the circulating stacks, and the random finds of treasures that I was able to check out, take home, and spend real time with.

I rarely went to the library without a particular book in mind. And I would find it relatively quickly, and then wander around that book, seeing what else was near it, grouped into the same subject, arranged by their author’s names and the haphazard vertical structuring of the shelves. I would often walk away with several more books than what I came for, and those books opened new doors—doors that I couldn’t conceive of before I got my hands into those books.

And sometimes there were actual important (at least to me) historical works in the stacks. The poetry stacks had a bunch of small press editions, made by presses that I look up to, of the work of writers that have influenced me. And there they were, on the shelf, waiting to be checked out and taken home (Note: most of them had been placed inside an outer hardcover for protection, with the original cover still intact inside). I got to take home a copy of Jack Spicer’s Book of Magazine Verse and a pirate copy (the Jolly Roger Press) of his Holy Grail, to name just a few.

And after I felt that I had communed with them thoroughly I took them back, to wait for the next amazed person to find them, to read them, and to continue their work.

MONDAY’S ARABIC LESSON

Why? The main reason is because Arabic (both the spoken and written versions) is really interesting. The second reason will be printed, photographed, and up on this blog soon.

RECEPTION IS PRODUCTION (2)

[& so now infused with new old memories. & so now back again and subject to the flux, again. There is much to be done. Where did we begin?]

Recently the Pacific Center for Book Arts opened up registration for their annual printers’ fair. And the meetings for planning the 2010 San Francisco Zine Fest are underway, with registration opening soon. The CUNY Chapbook Fair hangs indeterminately in the future, and the 2011 Codex Fair, a year away, is moving as fast as it can. And all of these upcoming fairs, oddly, make me think about fairs.

Over the past few years art fairs have become a big deal. A lot of money gets spent on them, and even more money gets spent at them. For the moment of the fair the spectacle can expand and infect every piece of culture held up in sacrifice to it. And so we need not concern ourselves with such fairs. [If we ignore the raging and ravaging of the spectacle, will it cease to exist, cease to have power? Doubtful. We must produce against it. Hold your labor like a knife, like the blade of a plow. Cut into the spectacle like it was the land, it is the first land of culture.]

The concern then is small fairs, sometimes local fairs, sometimes not. (Sometimes one gets lucky and an international fair happens in the city where you live.) Fairs have become, over the past few years, my favorite mode of public display for the work. Mainly because the format allows one to sidestep the issue of “display” altogether. The books are there, on the table in front of their maker/seller, and they are there available for full perusal. No gloves and no cases. And if you like one, and if there’s more than one of the one that you like, chances are you will be able to take one home.

And not only do potential readers get to handle and interact with the work, but I get to interact with all of those potential readers as well. And “the crowd” at every show is actually made up of two groups: the people that come in to see the show, and the people that are there exhibiting as well as looking. And we are all there together, a community is visible, the connections are felt. And the community always gets a little bit bigger with every show. It reminds one of the necessity of kindness in this endeavor.

[Hold your kindness like a knife, like the blade of a plow…]

HITTING THE ROAD

& heading back East in pursuit of time. Posting will be sporadic for the next few days.

MATCHBOOK STORIES

This looks like a good, fun challenge, and an interesting project:

http://www.matchbookstory.com

THE WHAT YOU WILL PROSPECTICARD

Prospectus/Postcard for What You Will
Letterpress printed from photopolymer plates
4” x 6”
600 or so were printed
2010


It may not look like it on your screen, but there are actually three colors printed on this card: black, transparent gray, and opaque white. The white is really difficult to see on these scans, and you’ll never get to read the text sleeping inside it unless you sign up for the NewLights Press Analog Mailing List by emailing me (newlightspressATgmailDOTcom) your mailing address.

& a note about the books themselves: I will not be putting them on pre-sale, but I am currently taking “reservations.” So if you would like me to hold a copy for you (they will cost $20 by the way) send me an email at the address above.

RECEPTION IS PRODUCTION (1)

Richard Artschwager. Book. 1987. Multiple of formica and wood. object: 5 1/8 x 20 1/8 x 12 1/16" (13 x 51.1 x 30.7 cm).

A tremendous amount of thought/energy/force/potential goes into the production of books. An activated book is like a channel through which that force passes, and that force builds, becomes more productive, with every reader that it lodges in, passes through. If a book cannot be read, then its energy, its potential, expires in its pages.

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Last week a call went out to various book artists inviting them to submit work to an open call (non-juried) gallery show. One of the lines describing what they wanted for the show and how it would work caught my eye—it said, essentially, that all work in the show was going to be available to be handled, and that artists should take that fact into consideration when submitting. A day or two later a second email went out, noting that due to a large amount of complaints about that policy, they were now giving artists the option to choose whether their work should be handled.

A few years ago I decided that whenever I show NewLights Press books, that they would be shown so that they can be handled. Even the unique books. Even the really fragile, really labor-intensive, really expensive, unique books. I would rather have them completely destroyed through use than preserved, untouched and unread, in a perpetual, pristine, vulgar state of undeath in a glass case or in a vault somewhere.

Many years ago I saw a lecture by the artist Richard Artschwager. During that lecture he stated one of his guiding principles: “painting is art that you look at like this:” (mimes standing in place and staring) and “sculpture is art that you look at like this:” (mimes walking around and looking at an object). Neither of those mimes, of those modes of looking/reading, works for books. Books are different from other forms of art because they function differently in the world.

I understand why the gallery went back on their initial impulse to have all the work available for perusal, and I don’t fault them for giving the artists the option to choose how their work is shown. But I do wish they held that line as a curatorial principle.

PRODUCTION IS RECEPTION (8): WHAT YOU WILL (8)

In both of my teaching lives (the Academy of Art University and the San Francisco Center for the Book) last week my classes and I discussed “how to plan a book.” In both of those discussions I used the actual examples from the current NewLights project What You Will. I also made a new handout (based on one from my previous professor, John Risseeuw) that lists and explains the different stages/mock-ups that go into planning a book. So what follows, in this extra-pedagogical “Production is Reception” post, is based on that handout and these discussions with my classes.

SKETCH:
General sketches of ideas for the layout of the book. Can by physical or digital, often both.


STORYBOARD:
A series of small drawings showing the individual page spreads, either with sketches or text labels to show which content goes where. Used to determine the sequence of the pages and the amount of pages necessary. Done in pencil for flexibility.


ROUGH MOCK-UP:
A simple, 3D sketch version of the book, usually on newsprint or bond paper. The content of the pages is indicated with sketches or labels. This mock-up follows the binding structure of the final book (same number of pages grouped into same number of signatures) but is not actually bound. This mock-up can later be used as a guide for composing your final pages.




WORKING MOCK-UP:
A fairly precise mock-up showing the actual compositions of individual page spreads to scale. This may take the form of a working digital file, or could be done on flat or folded sheets of paper that are the actual size of the book. This mock-up is to get a sense of the actual composition of the pages and how they function in sequence. There can sometimes be several working mock-ups (or one that is changed many times) as the book develops.






BINDING MOCK-UP:
A mock-up of the book at actual size with the actual materials that you are planning on using. This mock-up goes through all of the steps of the actual binding, from the initial cutting of the paper to the final trimming of the book. It is used to test the materials and to check measurements. If something is wrong or is not functioning properly, this mock-up is adjusted and redone until everything is right.






Three important notes about these stages: 1) they do not necessarily proceed one right after the other—there is often some back and forth (say between the storyboard and the rough mock-up) and sometimes several steps are done simultaneously. It’s important to let the book grow and change through the process, instead of locking it all in when still in the early, abstract plotting stages. 2) There may (and will probably be) other steps and mock-ups between these. 3) This is a condensation of my own practice; other artists have other processes that work better for them. So the best thing to do is to be attentive, both to what others do and what you need, and adapt & synthesize your own processes.

PRODUCTION IS RECEPTION (7): WHAT YOU WILL (7):

I had some trouble figuring out the design for the jacket of What You Will. I knew what size it was (roughly), I knew what color the paper was, and I knew, basically, how the design on the inside worked. But the cover wasn’t quite coming together.


I put it down. I digressed. I came back to it. I put it down again. I picked up another book, The Pink, a book of Kyle Schlesinger’s poems that was released in 2008 by Kenning Editions. The Pink has a striking cover, designed by Jeff Clark/Quemadura, a poet and graphic designer that lives in Michigan, that designs some of the nicest looking books out there.


While I was inspecting The Pink, looking closely at the printing (screenprinted, I think, with a glossy ink at such density that it becomes three-dimensional, the type coming up from the surface of the chipboard cover) and flipping it over and over again in my hands—


I came to a realization, probably a similar realization to what Jeff Clark had a while ago—the book does not need to have the title and author’s name on the front cover/jacket. That was the problem I was having with the design—getting all that info displayed appropriately and interestingly. But I just kept moving the type around, never questioning its necessity, never questioning the “rule” that was governing my actions. I flipped The Pink over and over, opening and closing it, feeling the paper and the ink. I re-realized the objecthood of books—it’s funny but not surprising that I would have to “remember” one my primary artistic concerns. I thought that if I could make an interesting cover, interesting enough to turn a viewer into a reader, seeking the information not there, getting them to investigate and realize the book as an object, then the design was successful.

And now I was free to follow and work through the design ideas already set forth in the pages. And the book begins to function as a total object, complete with missing parts. And its made-ness becomes part of the experience of the text-book-object.

INCOMING, OUTGOING

If you would like to join the NewLights Press analog mailing list you should electronically mail your analog address to me at my electronic address: newlightspress[at]gmail[dot]com.

Why would you want to join the NewLights analog mailing list? Because you will get strange, wonderful ephemera in the mail—things having to do with larger NewLights publications and events, and things that are pieces in their own right.

I am going to start printing the prospectipostcard for What You Will tonight, and I would love to send you one.

ANOTHER FIRST DAY

Today is the first day of my Book Arts 1 class. I’ve been working on the syllabus for the past week, tweaking and refining. The current version is a strange patchwork of old and new, of professors and colleagues past, present, and future. It’s interesting, from a teaching theory perspective, to see which parts of the syllabus change and which remain the same, to observe how my approach as an educator, the goals of the class, its context in the overall curriculum, and the needs/concerns/culture of the institution affect the way that the thing is structured. Here’s the opening section, the “Course Description:”

This class is an introduction to books as an art form—both in concept and structure/design. The class is structured around learning a series of binding styles of increasing complexity and expressive possibilities. We will cover all of the foundational skills and concepts for bookmaking (folding, sewing, pros and cons of different types of adhesives, and paper and board grain) as well as some low-tech printing and image generation techniques. Class discussions will include the history of the book, and the unique conceptual problems presented by the form. Individual class periods will be made up of demos, hands-on exercises, discussions, critiques, and some work time for the homework assignments. Field trips and guest speakers (if arranged) are TBA.

This is an informal, experienced-based course. How much you get out of it depends on how much you put into it. Ideally the class will function like an “art laboratory” where everyone involved is working, sharing ideas and learning together. Beyond the concepts and skills essential to a committed bookmaking practice, it is hoped that this course will open a window towards self-expression and awareness.

NEXT BRILLIANT WEEK

Kyle Schlesinger, the author of the forthcoming NewLights book What You Will, will be in the Bay Area next week, and there will be some readings. The first, on Tuesday the 9th, is a reading by Kyle at Mills College. You can view the event details here.


The second event, on Wednesday Feb. 10th is the release reading for the new issue of ON: Contemporary Practice. The details for that:

ON: Contemporary Practice 2
edited by Michael Cross, Thom Donovan and Kyle Schlesinger
Wednesday February 10 at 7:30
Moe's Books
2476 Telegraph Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704-2392


Both events should be great. Hope to see you there.