Manchester Artists’ Book Fair yesterday – finally it is done and the flat can stop being covered in paper trimmings and cut off lengths of linen thread.My husband will be very pleased.
It was a really good day; lots of inspiring works, a really interesting lecture from David Faithfull about his Inkubator project, and sales. Of course, sales only just covered costs back to zero – these things can never return a profit. But I sold three books to the Manchester Met collection and five to the University of West England Collection (where Sarah Bodman, Queen of artists’ books is based). 200 ish of my cards went out (although there was a ton of students there getting ideas and making notes/taking photos, so these may just be stuck in sketchbooks!) and my website stats are showing a big peak from yesterday and today already. I also just love chatting about book things with and it is always encouraging when people show an interest in your work.
The costs were £60 for the table, £10 train, £10 subscription to the Blue Notebook from UWE and £15 in M & S on lunch and then dinner stuff too – too tired to cook, I will also count in costs the £30 worth of printing I couldn’t use because it wasn’t good enough – another expensive and valuable lesson learned about not rushing things! So weigh that £125 up against £148 of sales and that leaves me with £23 towards labour and production costs on a lot of books. Still, probably a worthwhile investment in myself when all is considered.
I met Carol Ramsey and Annie Harrison (not Hamilton!) – fellow a-n bloggers who both came over to say hi. Add to that Angie Butler from PET Galerie, who I have had e-contact with in the past (through Artist Book 3.0 community on ning) and it made a really good chance to meet people and have a good natter about what we all had going on. I mentioned an idea I had for a mobile book fair next year to one person and word quickly spread, with people coming over to ask to be added to the mailing list/submit work. Guess I will be doing that then! Sometimes I need that pressure to make sure things happen, but then I often find I have put myself in incredibly stressful situations and I am never sure why I feel the need to do it (over and over). But as I will be moving to the countryside in January, I am thinking a rural tour of artists’ book van may be an option. Watch this space….
http://emilyspeed.co.uk/section.php?name=bookworks
http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/about.htm
