Rowing Boat Update

Group 7! I was excited to open my first book from Gene Epstein a few days ago. A lovely take on "Delicate." Thanks, Gene. Will you post a photo of your book here?


I've been pondering and avoiding the "Rowing Boat" Book Art Object project for months now caught up on the boat structure. I know I'm missing something obvious, but after trolling for boat making directions--- finding cute ones for real row boats and origami instructions for boat-like structures--- and making clumsy clay and foam core structures, I've determined to follow my attraction to the abstract notion of a vessel. This decision is based on the stash of floral wire and wrap I found in a drawer and the lessening of frustration experienced while making these. On the spiritual front, it is pleasurably meaningful to shape them between the palms of my hands.

My next step is to tear into the old journals. In doing this, I find passages that are worth "sending out to dry" but which don't work with the original structure, which is a coptic bound book. Doing this means cutting up pages and getting any narrative out of order. Instead, I'm counting on my old favorite, the meander, so that lucky readers will get one page, front and back. I find I do want to send even a fragment of a story rather than the rain of words I thought would "do."

The covers are chipboard covered with paste paper scraps from the yards of same I've been making this summer.

More and more soon. They are coming.

2012 New project "Rowing Boat" artist book

Rowing Boat

So far, I’ve “researched” rowing boats, discovering that the simple row boat is not the only option: I’ve got kayakes, canoes, dinghies, skulls and probably even more. Or not. I see that most of those just mentioned depend on paddling, not rowing.

At the beginning of every project, I am at my most literal. Abstractions grow later. In my sketch book, I’m teaching myself to draw rowboats, borrowing heavily from photographs and instructional drawing books. With the Art Institute’s library within easy reach, that’s a lot of instruction.

The writing component is trickier for me just now because I don’t have a text of any relevance handy, which means writing one. I trust this will emerge from the freewriting and “coincidences” bound to reach me as I ponder the project. In fact, I recently took a workshop in developing intuition through imagination (see www.lynnwilloughby.com) and one of the exercises involved describing, in great detail, a boat. This exercise alone could be a small artist book. It well may be.

When I’m not pondering the images or the text, I’m playing with the structure. If the boat is in movement, I want a book that moves. One of my favorite structures is a “meander” book, a folded sheet that yields 32 pages. There are pivotal pages that literally turn the book around. I’ve always wanted to focus movement on those pages.

Finally, there’s an idea/practice I’m committed to which involves using, as material, pages from the many many journals I’ve kept since 1967.  I want to re-use, recycle and re-invent these pages before I die or have to throw them away because they won’t fit into my cell at the old folk’s home.  They are, mercifully, no longer precious. They have become the sea upon which my little boat floats.

Here are some pages from my sketchbook.

Alicia

Group 7 “Rowing Boat”

New Years Resolution: Book Art Object

The key to a happy New Year's Eve Resolution is to get it over with the first week of the year.
One of my "resolutions" (aka suggestions) is to contribute to at least four book arts shows or events. Happily, the Book Arts Listserve keeps me supplied with Calls for Submissions. 2012's first is a kind of round robin of limited editions between members of the Book Art Object community. (BAO is a blog community in Australia. Click link for more info)

It seems a bit complicated but isn't. I don't think. The drill for this year's editioning was to pick a title from one of 100 short story titles in a book project by Sarah Bodman entitled An Exercise for Kurt Johannessen.
  
As instructed, I selected three titles and was assigned my second choice, "Rowing Boats."  
Not sure why I chose this title, but I delight in word combinations and especially enjoy playing with verbs as nouns, etc. I haven't been near a rowboat in decades so I doubt my interpretation will be literal but who knows? It's good to have something to play with.