'Mapping the West' began as a brief conversation between myself and Joseph Ostraff when we met at the 'scissorspaperstone' artist's book fair in London last year, where we were both showing our artist's books.
Over the past year we have kept up a dialogue to work through the practicalities of setting up a collaborative relationship and to develop a project strategy for a bok arts masterclass.
Ideas have come from both sides as to the content and direction of the project theme. We have decided to work towards developing individual book ideas that use the map of the canyon land Escalante region of Southern Utah.
Project parameters will limit the maximum area of the books to the size of the open maps and will ask that when folded or closed they should be the size of the folded down map. beyond this anything is possible.
The project itinerary will take in introductory presentations by the WMC students to introduce our hosts at BYU to Liverpool's culture and urban and outlying environments as well as a presentation of our visual practices.
There will be introductory master classes in lithography, letterpress printing and book production techniques before we brave the wilds of southern Utah on a three day camping expedition.
