Counter Plymouth Artist Book Fair

Plymouth Arts Centre hosted the Counter Plymouth Artist Book Fair

Sunday 19th October 2014

This was a great (and my first) opportunity to display my books at a local book fair. It was great to see what other artists created and talk to them about their work. 

It also raised questions about pricing book art work, which we all agreed, was very difficult. Typically, a buyer would be prepared to pay a couple of hundred pounds for an small original watercolour painting, but not for an original, one-off hand made book. Both artists would have spent hours working in their art, not forgetting the time spent training, qualifying and reading about art. Is the problem the book concept - once read, it's finished with? 

It is frustrating and I came to the conclusion that I would still make the larger, more complex one-off books, but also focus on making multiples of smaller, inexpensive books that people are prepared to buy.  By doing this, hopefully more books will sell and more people will get to know my work. I guess it's about getting the balance right!

A selection of my hand made books.

Place Names in Devon, England

A hand made book using reply paid envelopes, a map of Devon and stab binding.

The inside is a handwritten list of all the place names in Devon.

Continuing with my theme of repetitious tasks! Again, I feel that the capital letters in a natural handwritten size work well, especially in two columns on each page. There is also a steady spatial quality to the alphabetical order.

I had seen other artist's work using maps and envelopes, and after collecting the envelopes over a period of time, I decided on the theme of place names, (which the old map fitted into well).

The list of names intrigues me, particularly the localising of some of the words, such as coombe, meaning valley. It's also worth considering the sound and rhythm of the place names when read aloud in list form. 

'Place names in Devon' 2014

Prepaid envelopes, map, tapestry wool, ink

Extracts from September

A hand made book using extracted text from the Plymouth Herald online during September 2013.

This is a good example of a hand made book that has had quite a few hours work put into it! From extracting the text, to typesetting, then painting the cover and assembling pages and binding. It does have a lovely solid, finished quality about it, but i feel that I should have made more than one. 

I was talking to Alexandra Czinczel,  a book artist, who creates wonderful pop-up books, usually in singles. She spoke about her keenness to make multiples when she starts out the making process, but by the end, although loving her work, she feels finished with that idea and ready to move on. Thus the multiples don't get made!
(@AlexCzinczel thechinchilla.com)

I agree totally, but still resolve to make more copies!

'Extracts from September' 2014 SOLD

Goatskin paper, card, inkjet printing, watercolour paint, buckram, acco fastener