Six members of Artists' Book Club Dove met on a wet Saturday morning yesterday, some of us splashing through a flood to reach the Dove. My photo shows how much the weather had changed by the time we went home after a shared feast for lunch. It was a great meeting, with lively discussion ranging wide and deep. Clare was unable to be with us, so we had to make do with vastly inferior mass-produced flapjacks.
Here are a few photos from the morning: firstly Janine's books for the show in Appledore in September. Two books of family history, with images transferred to silk organza, and a sketchbook with machine-embroidered cover and band.
Next, Jane's spider book, made according to Diana's instructions last month. The pages are collaged with pieces of indigo-dyed paper.
Pauline, with advice from Diana, has made an album for her mokuhanga prints. Each double-thickness page has a window, and each print on translucent kozo paper is pasted between them so that it can be viewed from either side with the light shining through, or not. It is a gorgeous work of art and craft. Pauline also brought 'Gaia' a beautifully collaged spider book. Bron and Judy too showed some very exciting spider books, which fired up those of us who had not yet made this unfamiliar book-form. Judith brought fascinating stories from her research for a project she's involved with in Exeter.
And here are my books for the Appledore show. 'Defence Pages' is a very long concertina sewn with raffia onto spirea twigs. It documents a collaborative outdoor work made by six of us in April 2003. 'Down Words' and 'Deep Words' are vertical concertinas made in 2020 using rubber stamps that I cut from dense foam. One takes the reader deep into the earth, and the other explores the deepest parts of the ocean.
Some members will be taking part in Robin's mokuhanga course next month. Otherwise we shall not be meeting until October, after Somerset Art Weeks. Till then, here are the sweepings from my notebook.
July Dove-droppings
a white bread book
there's a brown bread coming
oozing orange oil
'inspiration has to find you working'
the ideas would not have come
if I had not first made the book
it works from the middle outwards
square works better than narrow
we're still inspiring each other
after all these years
the folds wear out
after months at sea
sea-glass and fossils
a stone has fallen out
enjoy the structure
the imaginary life
picking grasses and cow-parsley
for sherbet dib-dabs
I interfere and disrupt
they are all amazed
I seem to have turned into my dad
an avid collector of stones
bits of the cathedral
a Saxon font in the garden
the back is as good as the front
after it's been beaten
a handful but not the whole thing
on display in the headmaster's house
six ancient fire engines
drawn by horses
you need a wet half and a dry half
book-boiling and shadow puppets
up a tree in Papua New Guinea
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