Bookmarks II: Exhibition/Project Website
November 2004: This exhibition is part II of a two-part project (the first part was completed in May of 2004) to encourage people to appreciate artwork in the format of bookmarks and to visit artist’s book venues and libraries. To find out more visit our bookmark page.
Little Treasures:
an exhibition of collaborative artists’ books from the Centre for the Artist’s Book, Grahame Galleries + Editions, Milton, Queensland, Australia.
4th October - 12th November 2004
All the works in Little Treasures are collaborative artists’ books produced between 1998 and 2001, and each is the result of a through-the-post joint project between Stephen Spurrier and an invited artist.
For most, the undertaking was an introduction to the book, and for some, working through-the-post was a first while for others the venture represented an initiation to the art of collaboration.
In 1996 the then Melbourne-based painter and printmaker, Stephen Spurrier, spent ten weeks working in the Printmaking department at James Cook University in Townsville, North Queensland. Away from his usual studio this sojourn provided the opportunity of working in sketchbooks, and the Printmaking department’s close proximity to, indeed its symbiosis with Lyre Bird Press, “allowed me to think of the potential of books and their relevance to the sequential style of images on which I had been working during the past two years...that same year I also visited the second artists’ books + multiples fair in Brisbane and was impressed with the variety of approach of artists, and began looking specifically at the concertina”1
Returning to Melbourne, Spurrier began relating the concertina format to his current imagery, and his own books began to evolve. A weekend workshop with George Matoulas learning traditional sewn book methods reinforced his preference for the concertina format.
A collaboration with Wilma Tabacco on the Vending Machine project Gallery Artomat for the 1992 Melbourne Art Fair, and a ‘must’ at each subsequent fair, was a portent of future collaborations. For the 1998 fair Tabacco and Spurrier worked with a group of 15 artists. Each artist produced individual works the size of a collector card. The cards were then packaged in bundles of three or four, and made available through vending machines. The project parodied the art fair even to the extent that Tabacco and Spurrier gave themselves the title of 'Gallery Artomat directors'.
While the works produced for the Art Fair project were not direct collaborations, for Spurrier the experience proved instrumental in establishing bonds with some of the group, which led to the current artists’ books collaborations.
In 1998 Spurrier took up his present position as head of Printmaking at The University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba. By this time Spurrier had produced a number of artists’ books, and since 1996 had been carrying on a mail-art collaboration with Ron McBurnie on 'The Mandible', a quaint yet to be completed project.
Spurrier’s collaborators are no mere accompanists. Usually two sheets of paper the size of the proposed concertina, one with images, the other blank, are posted to the artist. The only instructions being the subject matter. The recipient may start with with either sheet, but the name of the artist who makes the first marks in the collaborative work is noted first on the cover. This has been Spurrier’s modus operandi with the 13 artists involved to date.
Some Little Treasures present a fascinating obsession with charting the human body, laying out its organs and other body parts, like a kind of series of medical manuals, but not the kind used by medical science. The earliest collaboration is Brain Dotting, 1998 made with Wilma Tabacco. Other titles with Tabacco include; Tongue, 2000 -with the sub-title (Lick Lick)- and Spleen, 2000. They use a mélange of watercolour, rubber stamps, drawing and collage.
Also from 1998 is Our Mental Prayers produced with Ron McBurnie. The entire surface is jam packed with information. The overall effect of the collages, rubber stamps, painting, drawing and even saliva is, however, not ‘busy’ and is not exhausting to the viewer/reader. Our Mental Prayers holds the key to the understanding of the brain of the artist.
Work in preparation passes back and forth by post, some only once or twice, and others many times. This through-the-post activity is recorded best in the Ruth Johnston collaboration, Remnants, which contains scraps of wrapping paper with stamps and postmarks from Eire, where Johnston was artist-in-residence. Even the cover is fabricated from torn packaging.
Johnston remarked about the collaboration, “The process was sometimes more difficult than I would have anticipated. I learned as much about myself as I did about Stephen in relationship to how much it is acceptable to adjust sections of another person’s work and how much the editing of my work affected me.”
Another of Johnston’s works is Aliens Registration, signed by Spurrier in 1999 and Johnston in 2001. The drab green cover (one of the few books in the series not bound by Spurrier, but by his co-collaborator) prompts memories of officialdom. Snippets from the Irish ‘Aliens Order, 1946’ (taken from Johnstone’s own registration) sparingly adorn some pages, and in some cases share the space with. visa like rubber stamps. Two or three pages are made up of fragments taken from maps of Ireland. Drawings of heads titled ‘alien’ and ‘absentia remind us of the holders of Aliens Registration.
Butterdick, 2000 with Catherine Parker is the largest book in the series. Based on the Butterick sewing patterns, a sinuous red line runs from the red cover through the pages joining an angel/devil like winged figure, whose penis is also wing adorned, with other figures in an entirely new pattern. Before being asked to participate John Neeson, “...hadn’t considered the artist’s book or working in collaboration on such a project. So I had no preconceived idea of what I might do.”
In Signing the Circle, 1999/2000 Neeson proceeded to cut circles out of the watercolours prepared by Spurrier. What a brave move! The circles were then ‘signed’ by Neeson. The question is, did the title come before or after Neeson’s circles? Neeson comments, “Perhaps because I am invariably surrounded by the cutting of paper, or by coincidence (I’m not sure) I began to cut circles of various diameters through the concertinas of paper Stephen mailed to me. I wanted to be able to see through the book, to the back of the pages. I saw the zig zag of planes more or less as an architectural model and reminiscent of the ‘pop up’ books I had as a kid....”
Lesley Duxbury has worked with Spurrier professionally and collaboratively on artwork for some years. “Artistically our concerns would rarely cross paths...Stephen’s work is predominantly figurative and I have never included a figure in my work; Stephen’s work is usually very colourful and I work with colours somewhere between black and white- greys, I use a lot of text. I usually await his “strips to respond to” with great anticipation and also trepidation. I lie the strips out and leave them for a while to assess my reactions before I respond to the work. Sometimes I surprise myself! I suppose in some ways I try to pull the piece into what I want it to be and sometimes those opposites that I mentioned earlier set up interesting situations”.
Normana Wight, no novice to producing artists’ books, collaborates here for the first time. Of Hand to Mouth, 2000, their first collaboration, Wight says, ”Stephen’s figures of a teapot and mouths set me going.” The second effort Pears/Pairs, 2001 was started by Wight with watercolour pears suggesting the figure to which Spurrier added figures reclining within comforting shapes.
The only work in the project which was the result of direct collaboration as well as through-the-post is the last book produced gardena perspectiva, 2001 with Jan Davis, and the last word goes to her; “The collaborative process has been hard work but also given enormous pleasure because the results have been unpredictable and an extension/fusion of the ideas which each of us brought to the project. I wondered whether the exchange went further than just Stephen and I, in the process of his working with the other artists, did he bring to our project ideas that had come from Lesley or Wilma or Cathy? That makes an interesting picture.”
May 2001
notes
1 Stephen Spurrier in conversation with the author March 2001.All other quotes from emails and in conservation with the author, May 2001.
for more information and a gallery of images, go to our exhibitions page
Exhibition in the Artists' Books Study Area at the Library
Bristol School of Art, Media and Design, UWE Bristol:
Isabell Buenz
new works
1st September – 3rd October
I have always loved books; reading and buying them, therefore it felt like a natural progression to make my own!
I started producing book art in my spare time and have gradually acquired a large variety of equipment and materials, which has ultimately led me to setting up my own studio space at home.
This exhibition is my third in 2004, a busy and exciting year. I am showing a variety of books, demonstrating my own development as a book artist over the last few years.
Initially my work was concerned with creating unusual books, often technically challenging, testing my abilities as an artist. Attending a short course on 'traditional book binding' however, provided me with much needed skills and confidence to further develop my contemporary work.
In my recent works, I explore designs (my 'strip' books), materials (driftwood and wire) and subjects: I base my stories on my relationships with and my observations of people and their reactions to their surroundings. I have lived in a variety of countries before settling in Scotland and have become intrigued by the similarities to be found all over the world. This common ground allows me to explore ideas, which I feel connects with a wide audience from different backgrounds and experience.
In my current work I use a combination of photography, printing, calligraphy and machine embroidery. Using my computer as a creative tool has become integral to the development of my artwork and I continue to explore the exciting possibilities this technology provides.
for more information and a gallery of images, go to our exhibitions page
Archived Book Arts news:
December-January 2010
September - November 2009
August - September 2009
Spring April-July 2009
Winter Jan-March 2009
Autumn Sept-Dec 2008
Summer July - August 2008
Summer May June 2008
Winter/Spring 2008
Autumn 2007
Summer 2007
Winter/Spring 2007
Summer/Autumn 2006
Winter/Spring 2006
Autumn 2005
Summer 2005
Winter/Spring 2005
Autumn 2004
Summer 2004
Winter/Spring 2004
Autumn 2003
Summer 2003
Winter/Spring 2003
Autumn 2002
Summer 2002
Winter/Spring 2002
Summary 1999-2001
back to current news page