University of Plymouth

The essay for the book is finished and has been approved by my tutor. So I am now concentrating on getting the artist book made. Thank goodness I made the book cover a few weeks ago before the University closed for the Easter vacation! It reopened on Tuesday and I’ve now had a couple of traumatic days of small failures! It’s strange how the things you expect to be difficult turn out to be easier than you anticipated and the things you haven’t considered turn out to be the challenges and often the ‘failures’! I have to say I was nervous at making such a large book (A3 ) as the saying goes – size matters!

The first stage – the glueing and pressing and waiting ! There’s lots of waiting while glue drys! I’m making 2 books – it’s always good to have a back up copy in case things go wrong!
Then on to the stitching – this book is thick and needed hand drilled holes for the stitching – something I’ve not done before as my books never needed more than an awl to make the holes – the drill got stuck in the paper and was impossible to remove – but then I learnt a trick – to crease the drill bit with beeswax and it worked a treat!

I’d hoped to finish the 2 books today but it was not to be – I was tired and not concentrating and placed the book back to front in the cover of my ‘best ‘ one! So I had to take it apart and won’t be able to finish it until Tuesday when the University reopens! Sigh – sometimes these bank holidays are not useful!

I’m becoming an expert at FAILURE……………….

Hopefully the next post will be the END!!

Oh and yes I have included the tissue paper header in the book – thank you to all of you that encouraged me to do this.

The deadline for my dissertation project is looming near (4 May) and I am getting anxious!! I will try to post more frequently now and show you the progress of the Failure project.
The book/catalogue cover is finished and awaiting its pages. the size is A3 landscape. I tried to get clearer images to show you but the light has been terrible and the photographs look grey rather than black. I have used blind embossing for the words. I am thinking of including the acid free tissue sheet which was sandwiched between the stencil and the board (the blog header) this would be at the front of the book maybe after the title page – what do you think?
The first complete draft of the catalogue essay is completed and will go to my tutor on Monday. I am still working on the catalogue introduction which is about the work I’ve received and how the project was set up – I’m not happy with it yet – it sounds pretty boring but maybe that’s because I’ve re read it so many times and I’m my own worst judge!! A failure to say what I really want to say – sometimes the words just don’t come! Gosh I’ve written enough about failure to know it inside out now! Today I am going to transcribe the interview I had with Lisa Le Feuvre – again I’m not sure whether to include the actual transcribe (exhibition catalogues do this frequently) or to refer to it in the introduction! So many editorial decisions – I had no idea!!