The Blue Notebook, Volume 13, Number 2, Spring-Summer 2019 / Edited by Sarah Bodman

Identifier:REF.SE.2378.20

Dimensions:8.125 x 11.75 in

Publication dates:2019

Description:Articles in this issue: Amir Brito Cadôr writes about The book as performance, from the perspective of artists’ books practice in Brazil. His article is based on an exhibition he curated in Belo Horizonte in 2013, and a guest lecture on performative books at the State Library of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia in 2014.

In Mark To Impress: Utilising New Tools, US-based artist Maria G Pisano of Memory Press discusses the pros and cons of some of her working practices. Relief printing plates have traditionally been carved with knives, gouges and been engraved on wood, stone, metals, etc. This is a laborious process, and in older times different artists specialised in creating the design, cutting the printing matrix and doing the printing. Creating fine detailed images was extremely difficult; laser plates do not have these constraints, once the photographic digital image is rendered, the machine responds to the finest line and detail. There is a hiccup however, laser-cutting text in relief creates problems – there is not enough remaining surface to hold the closely cut letters, and to actualise the cutting and printing the plates of two book works, Colors of Memory and Caudex Folium, this new technology required a novel approach.

Ana Paula Estrada is a Brisbane-based artist working in photography, oral history and artists’ books. She is currently undertaking her Master of Visual Arts by research degree at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. In Documenting Life Stories through Artists’ Books, Estrada considers the ethical implications of, and her approaches to working with two individuals, Kevin and Esta to present their stories. She examines how the artist’s book could contribute to alternative ways of recording and presenting oral histories.

Artist Cat Miller reports on the first in a series of talks curated by Egidija Čiricaitė, Sophie Loss, Jeremy Jenkins and Richard Price at the British Library, London, UK. Artists’ Books Now :: Vol 1 :: Here and Now (April 2018) brought together artists, curators and librarians for an evening of talks about, and handling of artists’ books.

In The sketchbook and the Collider, artist Ian Andrews describes his collaboration with particle physicist Kostas Nikolopoulos. Beginning from a series of hand drawn books, breaking out into site-specific collages and light-box mounted pieces. The work attempts to find equivalents between the visual language of the artist and the particle characteristics and interactions studied by the physicist.

Artists’ pages by: Lee Shearman, Noriko Suzuki-Bosco, Iro Tsavala and typochondriacs (Gen Harrison).

Cover design: Tom Sowden.