As we began to add our finished books to the exhibition the space began to come to life. There was a great sense of relief at having finished and so much appreciative interest in the variety and quality of the works. Even though we had been working side by side for three days it was not easy to visualise the finished pieces until they were finally presented to us.
It was really good to see from my point of view, as tutor to this group of 40 people. They had all made a very personal interpretation of the brief. They had each examined their own relationship to place and presented their personal response in inventive and surprising ways. I was able to see how they had incorporated aspects of the skills I had introduced, and how they had used them in very personal ways so that no books were alike.
The comments from the audience who were outside the project looking in were very positive and I began to understand how much the college staff outside our department had been interested in observing our progress. The project wall that we set up seems to have been an effective communication device allowing those outside the project to connect with the project aims and with the individuals from the two groups, whilst also prompting their own connections to place.
We are already being asked when will we be doing this again!
Friday became such a busy and, enjoyably, exhausting day that I did not get time to add my posts so I’m back tracking now, filling in the gaps and recording what happened retrospectively. Not quite in the spirit of blogging but definitely indicative of the intense experience we have all gone through in the last 12 days.
On Friday morning the race was on to get our books finished for 1pm when we intended to set up a public exhibition in our college exhibition space. Wirral Met had also invited the Lady Mayor of Wirral to come and meet our visitors and learn about our project. An extra pressure to be sure, but one which made our BYU group feel our special guests.
And so we began last minute printing, construction and binding at a furious pace and gradually books began to appear as completed objects ready for display. Around 12 pm we had enough to begin setting up the exhibition and Sunny had taken on the job of preparing exhibition labels and statements which she had been gathering off everybody from yesterday afternoon.
And then our college governors, the Principal Mike Potter and finally the Mayor arrived and I took a break in my own book construction to introduce myself and the BYU staff and students. We were really busy at this stage and it was great to see the students that had finished helping out those who need assistance and advice. It took a great weight off my shoulders and allowed me to manage our official visitors.
The Mayor spoke to many of the group and I was pleased to see how animated everyone was even though they were probably exhausted. I was told that most of the BYU group had stayed up last night until 4 am to get work finished!
By 1pm we had most of the books on display and a small group were still beavering away in the print room. Poor Heather was really pushed to complete her immense book, but finally got there just after 2pm.It weighed in at 1.6 kg, a bit more than I was anticipating!!
Last night I brought all my prints and pages home with me to start putting my book together. I cut and folded my inkjet pages of the city of Liverpool and printed off a cityscape photograph on some red paper for my blizzard binding. I wanted the image of the city to be visible on the binding and for it to be red, the colour of my husbands football team – LFC!
To elevate the relief prints above my photographic city images I need to make small concertina folds and place them at the outside edges of each centre fold. Then I can glue the relief print pages to the uppermost fold.
I’ve realised as I thought through how this would work that this will give me an area, or space, in which another image can be sited.
I have some screenprints of trees from my local park which I had prepared in the screenprint demo last week and I’ve decided to use them for my elevated concertina folds. They will represent the green spaces that have been important to me in Liverpool, Calderstones Park especially. I’ve cut them so that they make a continous image when they are positioned together as the book closes.
But I didn’t have time to put it all together last night, so I’ll have to cut the appertures in the relief prints and glue them in to the concertina folds this morning – and print the cover with the title ‘Finding Home’ using Joe’s polymer relief plate, which he has offered to process for me.
I’ll just have to hope I can get some time to myself…………………………..
Ethan was first to ask me for assistance with how to print his photo polymer relief plate on blue book cloth for the cover of his beach book. He has used sandpaper for his pages and back cover so that you ‘feel’ the beach. He has inserted scans of the beach and found objects from Crosby beach. Its turning out to be a beautiful sensory document of the seaside environment.
I caught up with Maggie. She has been trying out screenprinting for the first time and has already got the hang of how to place the printed image on the page. She has made a french fold page system and is planning to bind them with a decorative stab stitch which incorporates chemistry symbols in a blue stained thread.
Heather has focused on the British obsession with tea drinking and has devised a book which will contain pages soaked in tea for progressively longer and longer periods of time. The photograph shows a scale of colour, a bit like an aquatint test strip. She is planning to use a coptic binding so that the graduated colour of the stack is fully visible.
Steve has already finished his book about capital punishment in the state of Utah. He has researched the use of execution as punishment and has listed each case over the last thirty years. His documentation is purely text and lists the prisoner, the manner of death, the victims of the crime and the date of the execution.
Rachel has been feeling the pressure of the project so I spent some time with her to settle her nerves. We discussed her plans and sorted through her linocut prints. She has been looking at the imagery in her local playground and is trying to create a sense of childhood invoked by this place and the graphics on the slides, swings and roundabouts.
Marlena from BYU
This Saturday the idea for my book really came together when I had the opportunity to go to the Slavery Museum. It is interesting how Great Britain and the US are linked through the slave trade.
Listening to the many stories in the museum moved me to tears.To be able to hear someone else’s story that was so much like my own, even though we are from different parts of the world, was very moving. So I have decided to base my book on this subject and the connections I have made between here and the States.
