Book Studio

Drawing by ANU student Georgina Edwards

Nicci Haynes is being her usual busy self, this year teaching the experimental drawing complementary unit here at the art school. She’s started a blog about drawing… check it out.

Just discovered… this one is excellent for explaining the basics of typesetting, although it only shows a platen press, which the Book Studio doesn’t have. It also features a brief cameo by Ker-bloom! the all-letterpress zine.

The Book Studio is pleased to announce the completion of the edition of visiting artist GW Bot’s artist book, Black Swan.

Black Swan features a Russian poem about Australia, written in 1912 by Konstantin Dmitrievich Bal’mont (1867-1942). The Russian text was translated into English by Sasha Grishin, and both versions were set in Times on a Mac computer, cast in photopolymer plate and printed using a letterpress process by Caren Florance.

With linocut illustrations cut and printed by Bot herself, there were 19 books produced, although it is not known at present how many will be in the final edition.

The paper used is a Magnani partially formed from wool fibres. The binding, by Caren Florance, is a traditional sewn hard case binding using Tapa cloth laminated onto black Chelsea bookcloth (there is a detail of the cover at the foreground of the image below).

The British Library and the National Library of Australia have both bought copies, and there is an article featuring Black Swan in the Winter 2007 edition (vol 42, no. 4, p. 18) of Imprint, the Quarterly Journal of the Print Council of Australia. The copy of Black Swan in this article is a hand-written version, sent to be part of Noreen Grahame’s group exhibition Lessons in History Vol. 1 (24/3/07–28/4/07, in Brisbane). The printed copy of the book was meant to be finished in time for the exhibition, but due to various setbacks, it could not be competed at that point.

For further details on the book, please contact the Book Studio. Any purchasing enquiries will be directed by the Studio to the artist.

Book Studio got a bit busy there for a while, but stay tuned for STUFF soon… in the meantime, do yourself a favour: go over to Youtube and feast your eyes on this fabulous video featuring the magic of pop-up books!

Bernie Slater, last year’s Graduate Resident in the Book Studio, and Julian Laffan, who will be the Book Studio Grad Resident next semester, have work in the latest exhibition at the ANU School of Art Gallery, Thresholds of Tolerance. They are part of a collective called Culture Kitchen, incorporating Australian, East Timorese and Indonesian artists, raising awareness of human rights issues in the Australasian region. The series of images, printed onto large (and portable!) white sheets using various techniques such as woodblock, screenprinting and stencil spraying, are titled We Refuse to be Victims.

They have just been profiled on triplej, and you may catch them talking on the radio over the next few days. If you are in Canberra it is worth a trip to the gallery to see the real thing and to see the video footage the Australian team shot whilst travelling through the region. The exhibition is on until 5 June 2007.

Here is a round-up of Book Studio-connected exhibitions:

The touring exhibition of the Studio’s previous incarnation, the Edition + Artist Book Studio, has opened in Melbourne at the State Library of Victoria. ‘How I entered there I cannot truly say’: Collaborative Works from the ANU Edition + Artist Book Studio is running until 17 June 2007 in the SLV’s Keith Murdoch Gallery. The opening day was celebrated with a full day of talks and panels on the various natures of the Artist Book, featuring artists like Peter Lyssiotis, Gracia + Louise, Carolyn Fraser and George Matoulis. Sacha Grishin gave the keynote speech: ‘Both a picture and a thousand words: Contemporary Artist Books’.

There are ongoing activities associated with the exhibition, including a children’s workshop and an advanced printing workshop at the Australian Print Workshop with Dianne Fogwell. You can explore all the options and also listen to a downloadable audio tour for the exhibition at the SLV’s website.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Dianne Fogwell, the curator of the E+ABS touring exhibition, is travelling to Korea to exhibit at the 2007 Seongnam International Book Arts Fair (S.I.S.F.). According to their blurb, the Seongnam International Book Arts Fair opens to celebrate the first anniversary of the Book Theme Park under the auspices of Seongnam Cultural Center, Saturday April 21, 2007 to Monday April 30, 2007 at the Yeul-dong park in Book Theme Park.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Patsy Payne, the Head of the Printmedia & Drawing Workshop and current lecturer-in-charge of the Book Studio, is exhibiting in Sydney until 31 March. The show, Mountain Building, is at the Brenda May Gallery, 2 Danks Street, Waterloo, open 11-6, Tues-Sat.

More pages for the Book Studio’s contribution to Bookmagazinebook’s miseducation volume:

A page by Labratt. It’s hard to reproduce; there are layers of print incorporating metallic paper.

A page by Kristin, an exchange design student from Canada.

Margaret, a 3rd year printmaking student, made a book within a book:

Stay tuned for more pages, coming soon…

And to see other Bookmagazinebook contributions, there’s now a flickr group to explore (and join, if you’re playing too).

Students in the Book Design complimentary unit have taken on the Book Magazine Book challenge of playing with a page of a travelling book and then passing it on. Over the next few weeks we’ll blog the progress of Miseducation as it passes through the class, and when we’re finished we’ll pass it on to someone else for another stage of its journey.

The book started here, and now today’s contribution is by Brad Santos, a 3rd-year Printmedia student:

It’s a combination of drawing, layers of collage and papercuts.

If you want to get involved with the Book Magazine Book project (you don’t need to be an artist), read the guidelines and email johnbonbailey at hotmail dot com.

Being an academic sort of blog, the Book Studio blog has had a haitus between the end of the 2006 academic year and now… but the new year starts on February 19, and good things will flow from that point.

In the meantime, if you would like to see a small informal artist’s book that reflects the streets of Brisbane sticker culture, go to this post by Byrd, a Canberra graffiti artist who has documented 12 months up north in his own special way. He’ll be back by May, and Canberra will start to look colourful again…

By the way… this blog has been inundated with spam, and in an attempt to avoid it, comments have been turned off. If you would like to say something in relation to the site, please use the blog email address and contact the studio directly. All feedback is very welcome.

For an overview of some pretty amazing bookbinding work, check out this post at Bibliodyssey.