variations on a theme...

coptic binding...

 with leather covered boards

long stitch over exposed fabric 'tapes'...

with black bookcloth covers

and long stitch binding over exposed leather 'tapes'...

with decorative paper covers 

the contents are quite similar in each

with small variations...

all three models explore ways of presenting 

the 52 art gestures of 2012

...

in the red....

currently up to binding my favourite colour 

in the looooooooong book

(its looooooooong, slow process) 

oooo look - is that the word 'immigrants' peeking out on the spine?

how strangely serendipitous...

....

slow growing...

my slow book is slowly growing...

in the evening,
the fire is glowing,
our kidlins have stared dreaming their dreams
(we are early-to-bed, early-to-rise farm folk, so kidlins are usually fast asleep by 8pm)

I get out my booky bundles and start stitching... 

the book creature spills from my lap and along the lounge chair

it's almost 2m 'long' already (how did that happen?)

often one of the beastie cats curls itself inside the book coils...
careful not to tread on the pages - good cats!

I pat the cat and the book 

and go back to stitching

With hands engaged, my mind can wander

I am thinking about my forthcoming BIG road trip to Byron Bay Writers Festival

for my stint as the Festival's first ever artist-in-residence

(gulp)

 I've decided to take this emerging book creature with me

(I'm sure it would appreciate a good road trip -
just as I would appreciate the comforting presence
of a book to stitch...)

...

piercing and binding

 I've started to pierce all the sections that have white spines....

I'm still cutting and folding and bundling encyclopaedia pages (so many yet to do) but I have hatched a cunning plan to start binding this monster.... as I will be commencing the binding with the sections that sport the purest white spines - I've got enough of these already stacked to let me start piercing and binding....

Today I start the binding....

ahead of me stretches months more of cutting and folding and bundling and sorting and piercing and sewing.....

slow work

...

loooooooong books...... looooong time.....

I have completed another very very very loooooooong coptic bound book structure.....

This one is created from an entire (15 volume) set of childcraft annuals from the 1970s - the final book size is 2.7m (109 inches) 'long' (technically it's 2.7m WIDE..... but I'm not going to try explaining that to non booky people....) I started this piece back in June with this and have blogged in a general way about the whole piece at art and etc in a post title 'I think therefore... I bind'

I'm really pleased with this one.... I think it's the nicest one of my 'serpens volumen' or snake books.

In fact, I so enjoy the process of making these that I intend starting off another looooong book..... and as I like the colour gradation (an indication of my obsessive need to sort?) in this latest book, I think I'd like to find another collection of colourful pages to bind...... I rather like the idea of binding an entire set of encyclopaedias in this manner..... maybe it's time to check my collection for a contender....

I like the idea that I may be working on one or another of these loooong books for the duration of my research project...... (I can readily imagine the myriad ways these may be arranged singularly or together)

I've long appreciated the role these (and other obsessively 'crafted' objects) play in my practice - I am very much a process-oriented artist.... and now I'm understanding that I can use making as a sort of meditation.

I have been swamped over the last few months by research reading - most particularly with philosophy - and am currently trying to find my way through various ideas about Pragmatism (especially as espoused by John Dewey and then how his ideas have subsequently been interpreted and critically reviewed) I suspect somewhere in pragmatic philosophy is a way to move around my dissatisfaction with what I so nicely refer to as $%#@-french-deconstructionist-philosophers!

maybe its just wishful thinking, but I'm hoping that I may find a way of using pragmatism (be it from Dewey, or neo-pragmatism or Zen pragmatic philosophy) to connect the various parts of my project (books and land and permaculture and knowledge and...)

in the meantime I can see a lot of loooong books resulting from my loooooooooong time contemplating all this and more....





......

aside....

I completed another circular coptic bound booklet - this time created from pages of an old atlas (maps and the index) this book is intended for the exhibition 'atlas' at artisan books in melbourne (hence the decision to create the piece from the old atlas....)

Orbis Floris - world flower

When I created this piece I was conscious that this was destined for a place other than my MFA final works...... but I am so happy with how this turned out that I am considering making yet more of this form (in exactly this way - I've finally perfected the technique of making these - and the results are really satisfying)

I can now imagine a whole pile of these - some with larger some with smaller circles; some with less some with more 'petal' pages; some with greater, some lesser diameters...... and I can see how these 'flower' forms might occupy a space together.....hmmmmm

and mostly I can really see them made out of atlases or maps - the colours and features are especially nice on the maps!



(I have a very different post on this piece at art and etc. )



..

more binding....

Just before heading off to the symposium I started preparing pages for another long and large coptic bound booklet - this time created from the entire set of childcraft annuals..... which will be arranged according to spine colour, of course.....

more circular forms...

I have continued with my creation of coptic bound circular book forms from childcraft annuals - with what I consider mixed success.... I trialled ideas about double folded page sections: where each contains a main fold (to become the sewn spine) with an outer fold to display the colour sorting of the pages to best advantage....


In the first piece I merely folded over the covering page and did not secure it by any means - it's held in place by the close interaction of the sections.... the piece has a nice enough feel to it (and I really like the way the colours work) - but I wondered if there might be a better way to capture this idea.....

circular bookform created from 'the green kingdom' volume of childcraft
outer dia approx 140mm

so I tried a larger version with the folded pages secured by a drawn thread line (not really visible in this shot)..... I wasn't really happy with the results...

circular bookform created from 'look again' volume of childcraft
outer dia approx 170mm

I refined my idea and process (and selection of pages) and came up with what I believe is a more elegant expression of the idea....

circular bookform created from small section of 'the green kingdom' volume of childcraft
outer dia approx 220mm

the loose form, tight inner circle (which made it a very challenging to bind!) and the rolled outer edges all help make this, rather than the other 2 versions, a more successful outcome.


I still see these however, as being more akin to meditations, doodles or 'sketches' (certainly not as maquettes though!) rather than things that I will make it to my MFA examination exhibition.... The process of creating these is helpful though - I (maybe strangely) find the laborious process quite calming - as the process helps me to clarify my ideas regarding making/remaking books whilst my fingers are kept busy.

circle booklets

As a continuation of my play with coptic binding and form I've taken to my collection of childcraft volumes and have created coptic bound circular forms....

volume 15 - the guide for parents - bound in a simple circle (dia approx 35cm)

volume 14 - about me - (part one) - again bound as a simple circle (approx 12cm dia)

(sections prepared and sorted ready for binding part two of the about me volume)

volume 14 - about me - 2 coptic bound forms

(detail of yellow bound spine )

I have informally posted and chatted about these on my home blog site....

intial (booky) works

I have been playing with form in my initial MFA works - these first pieces are each made from a World Book encyclopaedia 1984 Year Book (my last year of high school). In both new books the sections (collection of folded pages) are created from a single page of the original book - coptic bound to form a closed circle.

the first book form has been bound with a twist to create a mobius strip

the second is bound as a circle - an infinite loop
and when I've been playing with the malleable form
I liked it best when arranged in this manner....
echoing an infinity symbol

I'm pleased with the two forms... but wonder if the huge amount of labour is worthwhile (each one of these takes about a week of consistent work to complete) - I'm not sure how much an audience can understand the process involved in making - coptic binding is the earliest form of bookbinding and dates back to the beginning of the codex as we recognise it today (more than 2000 years) - a book structure consisting sewn sections to create individual pages....

the process of binding these structures has become a strangely meditative one for me - and I think of these almost as warm-up exercises - and the end result as small sketches

equally however, as I'm binding more and more structures of this nature, I can envisage them all together in some way - perhaps components of an installation?.... for now I'll just continue exploring ideas of form through the process of binding...